‘The pelting of [a] pitiless storm’: Thunder and Lightning in King Lear

Abstract

King Lear (1605-06), where the vehemence of the old king’s defiant speeches is matched by the raging storm striking the heath, is what we may call a climatic play. If, in Of the lavves of ecclesiasticall politie (1593), Richard Hooker assumed that natural phenomena coincide with the voice of God, the playwright here questions the alleged divine origin of climatic manifestations in a dark and nihilistic vision of life. As Lear fights against the storm, superbly staging his own distress, he proceeds to an inverted exorcism, wishing he could destroy all forms of human life rather than recovering his mental sanity. This chapter argues that, influenced by Lucretius’ atomism, the play provides a truly epicurean vision of the skies makes an extensive dramatic use of the humoural and cosmological interplay of the four elements. Eventually, as gall invades Lear’s heart and eradicates both hope and tenderness, a disquietingly grotesque tonality pervades the tragedy and forces us to look at the title part’s internal turmoil.