Meaning as merging: The hermeneutics of reinterpreting King Lear in the light of the Hsiao-ching

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Meaning as Merging: The Hermeneutics of Reinterpreting King Lear in the Light of theHsiao-ching Author(s): Sandra A. Wawrytko Source: Philosophy East and West, Vol. 36, No. 4 (Oct., 1986), pp. 393-408Published by: University of Hawai'i PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1398995Accessed: 27-04-2015 15:37 UTC

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Sandra A. Wawrytko Meaning as merging: The hermeneutics of reinterpreting King Lear in the light of the Hsiao-ching

The aim of this article is to examine a case of intercultural interpretation which, I will argue, has the effect of enriching both traditions. In this discussion, I take on the precarious task of self-interpreter, as I endeavor to explain and comment on the process by which my comparative hermeneutic has been implemented. What is involved is a complex dynamic interaction between two texts-Shakespeare's King Lear and the Confucian text, the Hsiao-chinga. The present context does not allow for an in-depth exploration of the myriad factors at work here. However, as our focus is to be a demonstration of hermeneutical practice, the interpreted content is of lesser importance than the interpretive structure.

The test case of King Lear and the Hsiao-ching is derived from a lecture delivered to a nonprofessional audience, one largely familiar with traditional readings of Lear, but extremely limited in terms of its exposure to the Chinese cultural context. The presentation came in the form of a challenge to the audience to reconsider the main line of Shakespearean criticism with regard to the meaning of the play through the infusion of non-Western concepts. Using the fulcrum of the Confucian virtue of hsiaob, an attempt was made to induce a literary para- digm shift, if only temporarily, in order to provoke the experience of the play's meaning as a merging of the two complementary traditions. The result was an enrichment of the reading of a well-known classic for all involved. An unex- pected, but exhilarating, by-product of the intended process was that the Hsiao- ching also was enriched, one might even say vindicated, by being read alongside of Lear.

The claim being made here is that King Lear holds "the mirror up to nature" by reflecting the essential need for hsiao in society, as the sine qua non of civilized coexistence both within the family and within the state. Correspondingly, an acquaintance with the Confucian ethics of the Hsiao-ching illuminates the truly universal genius of Shakespeare as well as his artistic acumen in crafting in King Lear an intricate and infinitely subtle portrait of the human condition, encom- passing psychological, social, political, and moral insights. In summary form, the interactive, intercultural hermeneutic revealed the following points: 1. a deeper understanding of Lear's role in the family, as father, as well as in the

state, as ruler, by means of the Hsiao-ching's exploration of the reciprocal rights and responsibilities required of human beings to insure positive social interaction;

2. a provocative approach to the character of Cordelia, most especially with regard to her tragic flaw, namely, her disregard of the principles of hsiao, which serves as catalyst for the play's tragic ending;

3. in terms of the Hsiao-ching, the dramatic spectacle of the chaos which engulfs individuals and society when Confucian injunctions are ignored, when human beings fail to recognize the legitimate claims of hsiao upon their behavior.

Sandra A. Wawrytko is Professor of Philosophy at San Diego State University, San Diego California. Philosophy East and West 36, no. 4 (Oct. 1986). c by the University of Hawaii Press. All rights reserved.



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At the same time, a precautionary note is in order. Despite the fertile ground uncovered by this approach, no claim is being made as to the ultimate verity of such an interpretation. It does not necessarily represent the meaning intended by Shakespeare or by the Confucians, but rather a meaning which may well be meaning-full to us as readers. Using the image of the text as a herald, nothing prevents those who listen to it from misreading the intended message. The herald indeed does call forth meaning, but while many meanings are called, the one chosen results from merging the individual meanings of herald and listener, text and reader. If "meaning is use," as Wittgenstein stated in the Philosophical Investigations, then meaning is by definition instantial in our present situations. The most that we can expect is to have our own meanings augmented as they are called forth by the heralding text. As in the case of a good poem within the Chinese literary tradition, "the number of words is limited but the suggested ideas are unlimited." 1 It is advantageous to ponder this order of limit as a

problem for textual interpretation and also as a potential resource for illuminat-

ing human experience.

I. THE WESTERN CONTEXT OF MEANING: STANDARD INTERPRETATIONS OF KING

LEAR

Assessments of King Lear range from sublime to the simplistic:

"a Mount Everest of an achievement ... cosmic drama" 2

"All that we can say must fall far short of the subject; or even of what we ourselves conceive of it." 3

a "primitive" story of "self-knowledge through suffering"4 "the story of the disasters which happened when an old man gave his kingdom to his daughters ... [which] shows how completely he misunderstood them, and how he tried to keep his power though he had abandoned his responsibilities." 5

Controversy continues to surround the play's ending, in which both the king and his "virtuous" daughter Cordelia die (having been preceded in death by the two "evil" daughters). Many have viewed this as a regrettable vindication and

triumph of evil over the forces of good6-indeed this "overriding critical problem" in the play has been thought "a raw, fresh wound where our every instinct calls for healing and reconciliation." 7 "It dares a late-night meeting in a blind

alley with the most feared killers of mental and emotional well-being: nihilism and absurdity. The meeting occurs; the killers win."8 Lionel Trilling sees the play as ultimately an expression of "hopelessness," which ends on "the note of

exhaustion," the very opposite of Aristotelian catharsis.9 More pointedly, Samuel Johnson has denounced Shakespeare's resolution of the action as "con-

trary to the natural ideas of justice, to the hopes of the reader, and, what is yet more strange, to the faith of the chronicles." 10

An intriguing comparison can be made here with the dramatic tradition in Chinese culture. William Dolby has observed that the existence of tragedy for the



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Chinese is a "perennial question"-"the overall sadness of a fair number of Chinese plays is quite strongly negated or mitigated by a sudden optimistic or would-be happy ending." 1 Nonetheless, a review of a representative sample of Chinese dramas reveals a consistent pattern of death for the leading characters

among plays of a certain genre, particularly under conditions of laudatory self- sacrifice.1 2

Unwittingly, Johnson's denouncement of the tragic ending of Lear constitutes a very profound point in support of our hermeneutical excursion, for he has shown himself unable to understand the rationale behind Shakespeare's own artistic judgment. Must we assume that the playwright altered the historical chronicles out of mere caprice? Can we believe that he was blindly insensitive to "the natural ideas of justice, to the hopes of the reader"? If not, how are we to

explain his decision in favor of a fully tragic ending? If Shakespeare's genius did not falter here, perhaps the fault lies in his critics.

Conceivably he had meant to challenge, or transcend, the cultural biases to which the critics themselves have fallen prey. Blinded by moralizing hyper-reflection,13 they are so enmeshed in their own value assumptions that they react negatively when those values are "violated." They take for granted that a cultural continu- ity exists with the offending author. In such cases familiarity breeds intellectual indolence. When we encounter the classics, we bring along with us our cultural value expectations, our customary axiological framework, and are prone to engage in Procrustean measures to ensure a proper "fit."

Some commentators have noted the cultural quandary implicit in Lear. Marilyn French observes that "It is almost as if the playwright were explicitly challenging the traditional formula.... King Lear is Shakespeare's most profound repudiation of the morality that has governed the Western world for millennia-a morality of power and control based on the relation of man to nature. The tragedy presents an agonizing picture of the consequences of such a morality." 14 Unfortunately French fails to heed her own observation in her interpretation of the play, for she imposes a dogmatic structure upon it which is impervious to new possibilities: "The rhetorical line of King Lear is enormously strong, so strong that it prevents any reading other than the moral direction given by it.... Except for Lear and Gloucester, who err and suffer and grow, who provide the human level of the play, the remaining characters are divided almost instantly into the utterly good and the utterly evil." 15

A recurring problem in interpretation has been the tendency to force the pre- Christian setting of Lear into the mold of Christian values focussed on the themes of sin and salvation. Thus, Stampfer's attitude seems somewhat provincial when he claims that "each audience ... shares and releases the most private and constricting fear to which mankind is subject, the fear that penance is impossible, that the covenant, once broken, can never be reestablished ... the fear, in other words, that we inhabit an imbecile universe." 16 Stampfer's terminology is not universally applicable to "mankind," but rather is drawn from the confines of the



396 Wawrytko

Judeo-Christian cultural context, which appeals to a restricted audience. The error of this perspective has been noted by at least some critics, however. William R. Elton states that "In contrast to Hamlet, a Christianized version of the pre- Christian Amleth story, Lear, in Shakespeare's hands, becomes a paganized version of a Christian play." 17

Given the critics' shortcomings in evaluating the play, it is plausible to suggest a fresh approach based on differing cultural perspectives, an approach which can serve as a corrective measure. Other perspectives can de-reflect18 us from our cultural self-centeredness until we hear what the herald of the text is calling forth, as if for the first time. This opens us to new or hidden meanings from both the text and the cultural alternative called in as consultant. The potential then exists of creating new meanings through the process of merging.

The same benefits seem to accrue when reading the Chinese classics in con- junction with non-Chinese texts. It often has been my experience that non- Chinese, by virtue of an alternative perspective, can have an appreciation of Chinese culture which is in no way inferior to that of native Chinese, especially those who would dismiss the richness of their own tradition as trite, outdated, or

simply irrelevant. An equally perilous attitude for purposes of creative scholar-

ship is one which reveres the classics as hallowed relics, whose meanings have been fixed (that is, stagnated) by the standard commentaries, to the extent that

they must remain inviolate at the risk of sacrilege. The golden mean lies in a balance between the extremes of indifference and deification, guided by the same combination of simultaneous love and respect that defines hsiao.

In our transcultural approach to Lear, it is worthwhile to reevaluate the standard assessments of the principal characters whose deaths have created such a critical furor: Lear and Cordelia. Lear is almost invariably blamed for initiating the tragic sequence of events leading to the "cathartic" conclusion, and thus is seen as rightly served by having to die for his tragic flaws. The typical character- izations of the king include the following descriptions: "barbarian ... senile ... mad... capricious... slave of passion ... selfish, narcissistic... masochistic." 19

Lear's actions have been said to be guided by "infantile absolutism"20 and "stubborn arrogance." 2

In sharp contrast, Cordelia usually emerges from critical reviews as the innocent victim and heroine of the piece. She has been praised as "a saint,"22 a

symbol of 'the highest moral rectitude',23 possessed of "heavenly beauty of soul," 24 "the ultimate Christ figure." 25 Rhapsodized as "the moral center of the

play, its touchstone,"26 Cordelia has been described as "a figure comparable with that of Griselde or Beatrice: literally a woman; allegorically the root of individual and social sanity; tropologically Charity 'that suffereth long and is

kind'; anagogically the redemptive principle itself."27

While a few have ventured negative comments on Cordelia's character, they clearly represent a minority opinion within Shakespearean criticism. Marvin

Rosenberg, for example, has criticized Cordelia for being "cold-blooded" in her



397

responses to Lear during the opening scene; "In her, honesty' is folly-she acts indeed his poor fool, if instructing him.... the feelings of love, kindness, sympathy, all the virtues that later will seem her special property, now hide in her shell of self-involvement." 28 Similarly, the Russian director Alexander Blok has accused Cordelia of an "obstinancy [that] gives the external push to [the] whole, tangled ball of misfortunes."29 Paul A. Jorgensen observes that Cordelia's behavior "serves to show how stubbornness and inflexibility run in the entire Lear family." 30 Thomas A. Greenfield argues "in Act I Cordelia reveals herself to be an immensely flawed young woman who attempts to confront a genuine family crisis with the most artificial of responses." 31 From a political perspective, Ralph Berry accuses Cordelia of mutiny and "the grossest of solecisms" for having disrupted the ceremonial decorum of Lear's abdication.32 In Chinese terms, she has violated /ic, the rituals which delineate civilized behavior.

II. CONFUCIAN INSIGHTS ON KING LEAR

Ironically, the result of glorifying Cordelia as a personification of "absolute love and goodness" is that "Cordelia, as a dramatic character, is a bore." 33 A fresh look at key scenes of the play-first, the fatal breech between father and daughter that sets in motion the tragic sequence of events (act 1, scene 1), then the consequence of that breech in their mutual destruction (5.3)-will relieve both the overwhelming condemnation directed against Lear and Cordelia's monoto- nous image. Let us adopt, then, the standpoint of Confucian morality, its values and virtues, as outlined in the Hsiao-ching.

Much has been made of the opening scene as "ritualistic, mythic, like a fairy tale." 34 However, it seems equally plausible to approach it as a fully human interchange, an expression of a common human experience. Considering his ever-emphasized age, there is nothing extraordinary about Lear's announcement here of his impending retirement. Clearly his intention includes a concern for safeguarding public order along with preserving his own health. Lear's stated aim is

To shake off all cares and business from our age, Conferring them on younger strengths, while we Unburdened crawl toward death ...

that future strife May be prevented now ...

divest us both of rule Interest of territory, cares of state-

(1.1.40-42, 45, 50-51)

Sound reason seems to underlie Lear's decision, rather than the selfish egoism of which he is generally accused. Berry makes a strong case for the political astuteness of Lear's love challenge:

Cordelia holds all the cards. By continuing Lear's balancing act, she can dominate Goneril/Albany and Regan/Cornwall, while playing off one against the other. Even if they combine against her (inherently unlikely, on personal



398 Wawrytko

grounds), an established kingdom of the South-East, with Continental backing, should easily hold its own. If Cordelia should bear a child, that opens up the prospect of a future reunification of the Island under her issue. Over these agreeable political manuevers the elder statesman will preside, happy to continue the great political game while monopolizing ("We two alone") his favorite daughter. I see no folly in this scheme. On the contrary, it appears to me that Lear has planned his retirement rather well.35

Yet, it is undeniable that Lear does err within the realm of human emotions by provoking a competition among his daughters, with his kingdom as the prize, as he challenges each in turn to quantify her love for him. The crucial, but generally overlooked, point here is that each of the daughters is equally in error, in some

degree, for accepting the challenge on a competitive level. Hence, as will be

argued, Lear cannot be made to bear complete responsibility for what follows.36 His children are, after all, adults. In the case of the two oldest daughters, Regan and Goneril, their exaggerated flattery (contradicted by their later actions) condemns them as obvious hypocrites. The flaw in Cordelia's responses is less

readily apparent, and hence must be explored in more detail. To clarify Cordelia's error we would do well to examine the virtue of hsiao,

which Confucian morality proposes as the guiding principle of family (and all

human) relationships. Although generally, and inadequately, translated as filial

piety, hsiao has been more cogently rendered by Joseph S. Wu as "the cultivated

feeling toward one's parents."37 Although this definition omits the broader

applicability of hsiao beyond parents (to grandparents for example), it does include the crucial combination of emotional response (feeling) and conscious

thought (cultivation). Hsiao is necessarily associated with civilized existence, just as culture (wend) represents in its original form a human refinement of nature (a piece of wood which has been decorated). Accordingly, the Hsiao-ching discusses the concept of hsiao in great detail, in terms of its individual and social implications. Here the dual components of feeling and cultivation emerge-in the guise of love (aie) and respect (chingf).38 Indeed, the text states that the affection we

naturally feel towards parents in childhood naturally will grow into respect if

properly nurtured.39 From their actions in the play, it is clear that Goneril and Regan lack both love

and respect for Lear in either his role as father or ruler. When measured by the

Hsiao-ching, Cordelia for her part seems to give evidence of a deep love for her

father, but errs through a lack of respect for both his paternal and royalpersonae. Upon hearing the extravagant and false protestations of love issued by Goneril, Cordelia asks herself "What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent" (1.1.63).

Following Regan's eloquent outburst she mutters: "Then poor Cordelia- / And

yet not so, since I am sure my love's / More ponderous than my tongue" (1.1.78-80). What this thinking indicates is a hyperreflective wallowing in self-

pity, which fails to take account of her father's needs in the situation and also,

fatally, fails to anticipate his inability to fathom her silent love.

Basing her reply on these self-centered ruminations, Cordelia decides to



399

answer her father like a logician, giving a response which adheres to the letter of filial love but which is devoid of its spirit: "Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave / My heart into my mouth. I love your Majesty / According to my bond, no more nor less" (1.1.93-95). When Lear questions her further, in apparent disbelief at the witness of his ears-"So young, and so untender?"-the beloved daughter defiantly replies "So young my lord, and true" (1.1.108-109). She does not deny the charge of being untender, she merely discounts it as of lesser importance than her pride in her self-image.

Had Cordelia been aware of the dual demands of love (ai) and respect (ching) comprised by hsiao, a more appropriate, and productive, response would have ensued. Lear could just as well be responding to Cordelia when, in a later scene

(2.4.267) he asks Regan not to reduce his followers-"O reason not the need," he cries. For reason is unable to fathom the passionate depths of human needs. Beneath Lear's demand for weighed affection lurks an old man's need for a

loving reassurance of his inherent worth at the moment that he divests himself of the power which has defined his identity for some eighty years.

Lear's hurt, then angry, reaction to what he perceives as a rejection from his favorite daughter is quite human and natural. Ralph Berry defends Lear's reaction as both predictable and just.40 There is truth in Lear's denunciation of Cordelia-"Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her" (1.1.131). Later in the play, a revealing comment is made about this same "plainness." Speaking of a disguised Kent, Cornwall remarks "These kinds of knaves I know, which in this

plainness / Harbour more craft, and more corrupter ends, / Than twenty silly ducking observants / That stretch their duties nicely" (2.2.107-110).

Indeed there is a great deal of resemblance between Kent and Cordelia; both have a talent for enraging Lear and both proudly value their individual integrity. Kent is quick to defend Cordelia in her confrontation with Lear (thus securing his own banishment), asserting "The gods to their dear shelter take thee, maid, / That justly think'st, and hast most rightly said" (1.1.185). Yet, as Albany observes "Striving to better, oft we mar what's well" (1.4.369). With a sense of outrage worthy of a Confucian, Berry notes "Kent's loss of temper, like Cordelia's, is unpardonable: they have a duty to handle an elderly and splenetic monarch, a duty which can hardly come as a surprise to them."41

Another revealing passage occurs when Cordelia finally comes to rescue the rejected king: "He that helps him take all my outward worth" (4.4.10). From this we see that Cordelia is willing to extend herself materially for her father, although we already know she is unwilling to do the same for him emotionally. And when she refers to him as "child-changed" (4.7.17), she neglects to mention that she is one of the children responsible for this sad change.

In the opening confrontation with Lear, Cordelia has trapped herself in a false dilemma-to hold to her abstract moral principles by being painfully honest, thus disappointing her father, or to compromise those principles for his sake and become a hypocrite like her sisters. Self-righteousness wins out:



400 Wawrytko

... I want that glib and oily art, To speak and purpose not; since what I well intend, I'll do't before I speak-that you make known It is no vicious blot, murder, or foulness, No unchaste action, or dishonoured step, That hath deprived me of your grace and favour; But even for want of that for which I am richer, A still-soliciting eye, and such a tongue That I am glad I have it not, though not to have it Hath lost me in your liking.

(1.1.227-236)

Cordelia's dichotomizing fallacy has been repeated by many critics. Hence

Stampfer declaims that the denouement, with "the gratuitous, harrowing deaths of Cordelia and Lear, controverts any justice in the universe. Chance kills, in

despite of the maidenly stars. It would seem, then, by the denouement, that the universe belongs to Edmund, but mankind belongs to Cordelia. In a palsied cosmos, orphan man must either live by moral law, which is the bond of love, or

swiftly destroy himself. To this paradox, too, Shakespeare offers no mitigation in

King Lear. The human condition is as inescapable as it is unendurable."42 The clear Western cultural bias that emerges in these words is the assumption that either we are pawns of nature or we conquer it; either we submit or we dominate.

Such an assumption misses the equally plausible Chinese view that we are cocreators with nature-that we are part of nature without necessarily being submissive or superior to it. Only because of this view can hsiao combine "natural" emotions with the enhancement of cultivation without imposing some-

thing artificial upon human nature. The Chinese perspective allows for human

participation, and hence some degree of control and responsibility, with regard to natural events. For the Confucian the tragic ending of the play is not cause for

"hopelessness," as Trilling observes, but an occasion to learn from the bad along with the good.43

In sharp contrast, the Western dualism breeds an outraged sense of betrayal, existential despair, and fatalism. For Stampfer, then, Lear's character cannot but

depict "through his life and death, a universe in which even those who have fully repented, done penance, and risen to the tender regard of sainthood can be hunted down, driven insane, and killed by the most agonizing extremes of

passion" 44 Trilling views Lear as an intentional assault upon the audience, with the violent storm of the third act being "the epitome or emblem of a play that batters and overwhelms us."45

The depiction of nature by the characters in the play may be said to invite dualistic interpretations. Lear reflects the Western tendency toward anthro-

pocentric and anthropomorphic projections upon the natural world, as well as the depths of disappointment and rage which result when those false expectations are "betrayed" by reality. Accordingly, those who are thought to control human

destiny are likened to spoiled children-"As flies to wanton boys, are we to gods;



401

/ They kill us for their sport" (4.1.38-39). Nature is invested with the extremes of sublime order and chilling chaos; pure innocence and corrupt animalism.46 How different is the impartial Tao! By avoiding the temptation to project human qualities upon nature, the Confucians spared themselves needless anguish and despair. The numerous (133) disparaging references to animals in the play evokes as Confucian response Meng Tzu's observation that the difference between human beings and other animals is very small, hence the chiin-tzug "guards the distinction most carefully."47

Contemporary interpretations of Lear, tinged with existentialism, testify to the perpetuation of self-imposed despair. Once the foundation of universal principles has been removed, or exposed as merely artificial, Lear goes beyond hopelessness and plummets into the depths of meaninglessness and nihilism. Tragedy then gives way to the grotesque, to become the theater of the absurd. But a defeatist dualism continues to hold sway nonetheless:

In a tragic and grotesque world, situations are imposed, compulsory and inescapable.... [B]oth the tragic hero and the grotesque actor must always lose their struggle against the absolute....

... The cruelty of the absolute ... excludes the possibility of a compromise.... The absolute is greedy and demands everything; the hero's death is its confirmation.

The tragic situation becomes grotesque when both alternatives of choice are absurd, irrelevant or compromising.48

Again, an all or nothing dilemma has been fabricated here-meaning is either absolute and universal or it is nonexistent; we either conquer events or we capitulate to them.

If the principles of hsiao had been adhered to, the falseness of these dilemmas would have become apparent, and Cordelia could have satisfied her father's emotional needs without doing violence to her own self-respect. Instead, her actions fall far short of the chiin-tzu ideal, for such an individual "does not speak until he has reflected upon whether what he is to say may properly be spoken." 49

One can but regret that Cordelia was not aware of the warning given in The Book of Poetry (Shih-chingh), and quoted in the Hsiao-ching (chapter three), which recommends an attitude "Fearful and cautious, like peering down into a deep abyss; like walking on thin ice."

Cordelia's response to Lear in the opening scene seems particularly inappro- priate given the fact that she is well aware of the nefarious intentions of her two sisters. Speaking to them after Lear's exit she says:

... I know you what you are, And like a sister am most loth to call Your faults as they are named. Love our father. To your professed bosoms I commit him. But yet alas, stood I within his grace, I would prefer him to a better place.

(1.1.272-274)



402 Wawrytko

Moreover, in her decision to compete with her sisters in expressing her love for Lear, even though she chooses the weapon of "plainness" to counter their flattery, Cordelia violates the Hsiao-ching's injunction against noncompetitive- ness (chapter ten). Does not Morris's description of Lear-"He will not bend, so he is broken"-apply equally well to Cordelia?50

The concept of hsiao, although not nonexistent in Western culture, has far different implications from those it bears within a traditional Chinese context. Even those Western interpreters who have recognized the "filial" dimension of Lear usually have chosen to interpret it in a way which reveals a fundamental disagreement with the Confucian approach. For example, John Donnelly states "'Filial gratitude' is demanded in less healthy relationships, particularly when the parent is abnormal in one or more emotional spheres.... Moreover it is this very type of father or mother who provokes behavior which is by normal standards actually unfilial, and who will produce charges of 'filial ingratitude' even when the conduct is evidence of a healthy reaction." 51 A psychoanalytical approach also is pursued by Allgaier, who uses Freudian thought as the foundation of his interpretation: "... one may conjecture that Lear's self-seeking, tyrannical demand has challenged, or activated, that part of Cordelia's mind, dormant until now, which predisposes her to rebel." 52 In direct opposition to the Hsiao-ching's integrative principles, Allgaier posits an inevitable conflict between Cordelia's love for her father and her respect for his authority.

Nor need we assume that hsiao would demand blind obedience, for the Hsiao-

ching specifically excludes this from its definition.53 If K'ung Tzu (Confucius) were asked to judge this case, would he not criticize Cordelia for allowing her father to do an injustice to her? She must bear her share of responsibility for not

speaking against his actions. K'ung Tzu does not expect us to suffer needlessly or

silently. Rather, the person who exhibits hsiao is expected to maintain an attitude of respect guided by the spirit of love (coalesced in the moral ideal of jen1). Confucian tradition cites the case of K'ung Tzu's student, Tseng Tzu, who was

severely beaten by his father for cutting a root while hoeing. Although Tseng is celebrated as an outstanding example of a filial son, K'ung Tzu is reported to have criticized him for allowing his father to be excessive in his punishment, thereby allowing unrighteous behavior on the father's part, rather than pointing out the father's error.54 The Hsiao-ching, which is reputed to have Tseng as one of its authors, supports these sentiments.

A useful comparison can be made between the characters of Cordelia and

Edgar. These two are usually identified as the "good" children in the play (as opposed to the "evil" children-Goneril, Regan, and Edmund).55 However, based on the preceding analysis this seems too simplistic a division. Viewed

objectively, Edmund's behavior, though undoubtedly a violation of hsiao, is at least more understandable than that of Cordelia, in that Edmund bears ill- treatment from his father due to the stigma of his illegitimate birth. Further, Edmund admits his defiance of social order: "Thou, Nature, art my goddess, to



403

thy law / My services are bound" (1.2.1-2), and he later repents, while Cordelia remains self-righteously unaware of her errors. If a model of hsiao is to be sought in the play it is most likely to found in Edgar. Like Shunj, Edgar's supportive behavior towards an erring, erratic father is consistent with the principles of the

Hsiao-ching throughout wavering personal fortunes. Edgar wisely flees to avoids his father's unjust wrath, yet remains near enough to save the father from his

planned suicide once Gloucester's injustice has been revealed. Cordelia's violations of hsiao persist to the very end of the play. As if her initial

insensitivity were not sufficient to break the heart of a supposedly senile old man, their final scene together (5.3) reinforces her filial failings. It is here that Lear delivers his most gripping speech, having de-reflected from his previous errors and modified his attitude accordingly (or, as some interpret it, having sunk

deeply and irrevocably into madness):

... come let's away to prison: We two alone will sing like birds i' th' cage. When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down, And ask of thee forgiveness. So we'll live, And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh At gilded butterflies; and hear poor rogues Talk of court news, and we'll talk with them too, Who loses, and who wins, who's in, who's out; And take upon's the mystery of things, As if we were God's spies. And we'll wear out In a walled prison, packs and sects of great ones, That ebb and flow by th' moon.

(5.3.8-19)

And what is Cordelia's response to this outpouring of authentic emotion from her "beloved" father? Nothing. As in the crucial opening scene, she responds to his emotional needs with silence only.56

III. THE FRUITS OF THE COMPARATIVE HERMENEUTIC: SOCIAL AND POLITICAL

GUIDELINES

The demise of Lear, Cordelia, and the entire state, with which the play concludes, and which arouses negative reactions from most critics, has led to its being described as "a picture of one of those moments in the mysterious course of history, when, for unfathomable reasons, man loses his way." 57 However, if we attend to the wisdom of the Hsiao-ching, the mystery seems to dissipate con- siderably. In a government which adheres to hsiao, "calamity and injury are not produced; disaster and disorder do not arise." 5 8 Conversely, a disregard of hsiao produces calamity and disaster, as in the case of Lear's anarchic kingdom. When family ties have been cast asunder, civilized order soon decays. The play has aptly been characterized as being focused on "civilization and its discontents." 59 The

sufferings of individuals and individual families serves as an object lesson for all individuals and all families.



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The Hsiao-ching helps us to understand, and hopefully avoid, Lear's adminis- trative errors. The good ruler ought to avoid arrogance and excess; only in this

way can the preservation of the kingdom be guaranteed.60 Lear has followed none of these essential guidelines, and so his kingdom has suffered. He has failed to provide an example for the people, or even for his own family-has not

implemented the requisite motivators of respect and nonaggression-and so

disrespect and violence are the keynotes of action throughout (beginning with his own banishment of Cordelia). Hsiao could have provided a model for good government without severity; instead "Earth's fundamental justice" and "Heaven's pervading principle" (literally, the warp threads underlying social

existence) have been violated, and so the fabric of society has unraveled.61 At least one prominent Shakespearean critic seems to be in sympathy with a

"Confucian" reading of Lear. Lionel Trilling writes: "King Lear raises moral, social, and even political considerations that mark out an area in which human life is not wholly determined by nonhuman forces.... [T]he full theme of King Lear is the decay and fall of the world as a consequence of a decay and fall of the human soul." 62 What Trilling sees as the balm for this human failing is remark-

ably similar to Confucianjen-caritas, "not, 'charity' in our usual modern sense, but 'caring,' the solitude of loving-kindness or 'humanity.' "63 Respect likewise has a role to play here, not as mere "social fiction," but as a human value of "transcendent importance." 64 As in the case of hsiao, love and respect must combine in a natural human synthesis.

Could things have been otherwise if Cordelia had countered Lear's initial

injustice with hsiao? This "root of virtue," which begins with service to one's

parents, continues as service to one's ruler and has its completion in self- realization.65 By following its dictates she could have fulfilled her duties to her

father, her society, and herself. Would a timely adherence to hsiao have served to avoid an all-pervading resentment (yiiank, the heart turned upside down)? Was

Lear, as he tells us (3.2.58-59), indeed "a man / More sinned against, than

sinning"? Any answers which we might venture to these questions could be very fruitful

for gaining insights into our present social and family dilemmas. Studied

together, the texts of King Lear and the Hsiao-ching would then herald forth provocative meanings in each one of us by virtue of a unique merging of meanings. With the Taoist, Chuang Tzu, we may be tempted to conclude that "meaning has something it is pursuing, but the thing it is pursuing cannot be put into words and handed down." 66 However, this need not condemn us to seeing the works of those who have gone before as mere "chaff and dregs." 67 An intrinsic part of the hermeneutical task is to lift us beyond or penetrate beneath the literary rem- nants of our forebears to elicit a meaning from their texts and so do justice to the meaning that they themselves were pursuing.

In the spirit of comparative hermeneutics which pervades this article, I would like to end with a quote paralleling Chuang Tzu but drawn from the Western



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literature. It comes from Alan Watts, who is speaking here about Taoism:

I doubt that we can give a scientifically exact and objective account of what was in the minds of those philosophers because they are too far away in time, and history fades away like the reverberations of sounds and of traces in water. The precise meanings of the Chinese language of those days are hard to establish, and although I appreciate the methods of exact scholarship, my real interest is in what these far-off echoes of philosophy mean to me and to our own historical situation. In other words, there is a value in the effort to find out what did, in fact, happen in remote times and to master the details of philology. But what then? Having done as well as we can to record the past we must go on to make use of it in our present context.... I am not attempting to conduct a popular and statistically accurate poll of what Chinese people did, or now do, suppose the Taoist way of life to be. Such meticulous explorations of cultural anthropology have their virtue, but I am much more interested in how these ancient writings reverberate on the harp of my own brain, which has, of course, been tuned to the scales of Western culture. Although I will by no means despise precise and descriptive information-the Letter, I am obviously more interested in the Spirit-the actual experience and feeling of that attitude to life which is the following of the Tao.68

NOTES

1. Quoted by Fung Yu-lan, A Short History of Chinese Philosophy (New York: The Free Press, 1948), p. 12. Similar sentiments also have been expressed by certain Western thinkers: "Poetry does not consist in saying everything, but in making one dream everything" (Sainte-Beuve); "Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what was seen during a moment" (Carl Sandburg); "There should always be an enigma in poetry" (Jules Huret). (Taken from Bergen Evans, Dictionary of Quotations (New York: Avenel Books, 1978).)

See also Chu Hsi (Chung-yung huo-wen, 20:105b-106a), who proposes a tri-level process of encountering a text that encompasses textual analysis, intentional significance, and existential understanding. As explained by Irene Bloom (in her commentary to a paper by Ying-Shi Yu, "Morality and Knowledge in Chu Hsi's Philosophical System," presented at the International Conference on Chu Hsi, Honolulu, Hawaii, July 1982), what occurs in this process is not a "transmission of mind," but rather an "inter-resonance of two minds" in which one makes the object of knowledge part of one's self. Such an approach constitutes a worthy goal of hermeneutical research.

2. A. L. Rowse, William Shakespeare: A Biography (New York: Harper and Row, 1965), p. 385. 3. William Hazlitt, Characters of Shakespear's Plays (1817), as quoted by Helmut Bonheim, ed.,

in The King Lear Perplex (San Francisco, California: Wadsworth Publishing Company, Inc., 1960), p. 15.

4. Rowse, Shakespeare, p. 387. 5. Helen Morris, King Lear (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1965), p. 1. 6. Austin G. Schmidt and M. A. Feehan, eds., King Lear (Chicago, Illinois: Loyola University

Press, 1930), p. 42. 7. J. Stampfer, "The Catharsis in King Lear," in Leonard F. Dean, ed., Shakespeare: Modern

Essays in Criticism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 361. 8. Marilyn French, Shakespeare's Division of Experience (New York: Summit Books, 1981),

p. 219. 9. Lionel Trilling, Prefaces to The Experience of Literature (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanov-

ich, 1979), pp. 9, 10, 11. 10. Samuel Johnson, "Notes on the Plays" (1765), as quoted by Morris, in King Lear, p. 25. Other

notables who have expressed displeasure with Shakespeare's conclusion include Ben Jonson, John



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Dryden, Voltaire, and Leo Tolstoy. Rowse, however, proclaims: "Shakespeare's infallible aesthetic instinct told him that his Lear could not but end in tragedy" (Rowse, Shakespeare, pp. 386-387). Shakespeare's ending was found so distasteful to audiences that, during the Restoration period, Nahum Tate provided a "corrected" version in which Cordelia lives and returns to her father's kingdom in triumph. Tate's tampered text reigned on the English stage for generations. The original version was not restored until 1838, as a result of a persistent campaign waged by outraged Romantic poets possessed of tragic sensibilities. More recently, attempts have been made to save Shakespeare's artistic genius by having Lear played as if he believed Cordelia were still alive ("she lives; if it be so, / It is a chance which doth redeem all sorrows / That ever I have felt" (5.3.265-267; all quotes from the play are derived from Francis Fergusson, ed. Shakespeare's Tragedies of Monarchy. Hamlet, MacBeth, King Lear (New York: Delta Books, 1962)). Lear then can die in ecstasy rather than in sorrow. See Stampfer, "Catharsis," p. 362. For a fuller discussion of the history of the Lear story see Dorothy E. Nameri, Three Versions of the Story of King Lear (Anonymous ca. 1594/1605; William Shakespeare 1607/1608; Nahum Tate 1681) Studied in Relation to One Another, vol. 1 (Salzburg, Austria: Institut fuer Englische Sprache und Literatur, 1976), p. 14.

11. William Dolby, A History of Chinese Drama (London: Paul Elek, 1976), p. 47. 12. See Cecilia S. L. Zung, Secrets of the Chinese Drama: A Complete Explanatory Guide to Actions

and Symbols as Seen in the Performance of Chinese Dramas (New York: Benjamin Blom, Inc., 1937). Of the fifty plays included in Zung's text, eight definitely fit into the category of "pure" tragedy by virtue of the deaths that occur at the conclusion of the action. In any case, this definition of tragedy is propounded by Western sources, predominantly Aristotelian aesthetics. It is noteworthy that Lear's inclusion in or exclusion from such definitions has long puzzled critics. See Trilling, Prefaces, pp. 12-13.

13. The term "hyper-reflection" is derived from Logotherapy, a value-oriented school of pyscho- therapy which has been influenced by the philosophical trends of existentialism and phenomenology. The term refers to excessive attention being directed at one's personal situation, to the exclusion of the world at large. Hyper-reflection is relieved by the logotherapeutic technique of de-reflection, which initiates the process of self-transcendence. See Viktor E. Frankl, The Unheard Cry for Meaning. Psychotherapy and Humanism (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1978), pp. 76, 150-157.

14. French, Shakespeare's Division, p. 230. 15. Ibid., p. 238. 16. Stampfer, "Catharsis," p. 375. 17. William R. Elton, King Lear and the Gods (San Marino, California: The Huntington Library,

1966), p. 70. For more specific points on Shakespeare's revision of the original story, see Elton's discussion, "From Leir to Lear," chap. 4, pp. 63-71. See also Jan Kott, Shakespeare Our Contem-

porary, Boleslaw Taborski trans. (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1964), pp. 104-105.

18. See note 13. 19. Marvin Rosenberg, The Masks of King Lear (Berkeley, California: University of California

Press, 1972), p. 17. 20. Ibid., p. 61. 21. Fergusson, Shakespeare's Tragedies, p. 266. 22. Schmidt and Feehan, King Lear, p. 41. 23. Morris, King Lear, p. 43. 24. A. W. Schlegel, as quoted by John Danby, in Shakespeare's Doctrine of Nature. A Study of

'King Lear' (London: Faber and Faber, 1961), p. 115. 25. Rosenberg, Masks, p. 57. 26. French, Shakespeare's Division, p. 226. 27. Danby, Shakespeare's Doctrine, p. 125. 28. Rosenberg, Masks pp. 58, 59, 61. 29. Quoted by Rosenberg, Masks, p. 57. 30. Paul A. Jorgensen, Lear's Self-Discovery (Berkeley, California: University of California Press,

1967), p. 85. 31. Thomas A. Greenfield, "Excellent Things in Women: The Emergence of Cordelia," South

Atlantic Bulletin 42 (1977): 47.



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32. Ralph Berry, "Lear's System," Shakespeare Quarterly 35, no. 4 (Winter 1984): 427. 33. W. H. Auden, as quoted by Morris, in King Lear p. 50. 34. French, Shakespeare's Division, p. 226. Morris refers to this scene as a "theatrical test" (King

Lear, p. 27). Berry ("Lear's System," 428) remarks: "In the scene as written, it takes only three hotheads and a crowd of innocent bystanders to make a catastrophe."

35. Berry, "Lear's System," p. 426. Trilling disagrees adamantly on this point: "To divide a

kingdom, to treat a realm as if it were not a living organism, was worse than imprudent, it was unnatural" (Prefaces, p. 19).

36. Johannes Allgaier, in "Is King Lear an Antiauthoritarian Play?" (PMLA 88 (1973): 1035), denounces Lear as guilty of "spiritual rape" by his demands for quantified love, submission to which amounts to "spiritual prostitution." The basis of most criticism of Lear rests on the fallacious "two

wrongs make a right" argument, making him liable to ill-treatment due to his "unreasonable demands." For example, Morris states: "it never occurs to Lear that it was he himself who, by casting out Cordelia, first broke the sacred bond between father and child, and set an example of enmity and discord within the family" (King Lear, p. 29).

37. Joseph S. Wu, "The Son Bore Witness Against the Father: A Paradox in the Confucian

Analects," in Wu's Clarification and Enlightenment: Essays in Comparative Philosophy (Tunghai University Press, 1979), p. 110.

38. Hsiao-ching, chap. 2. 39. Hsiao-ching, chap. 9. The element of naturalness in Lear is commented on by Trilling: "In the

degree to which people are good, they are felt to be natural, Kent and Cordelia being obvious cases in

point.... But Goneril and Regan are said by Lear to be 'unnatural hags"' (Prefaces, p. 18). Yet it is

equally true that Lear denounces Cordelia for her unnatural behavior-her lack offiliality-towards him after her cold responses to his love overtures in the love-test scene.

40. Berry, "Lear's System," p. 427. 41. Ibid., p.428. Taking a more Western view of the issue of pride, Danby, who interprets Cordelia

as the embodiment of Nature (Shakespeare's Doctrine, p. 125), dismisses her seeming pride in the

opening scene as "only one aspect of 'the proper love of myself'" (p. 132). 42. Stampfer, "Catharsis," p. 370. 43. See Lun Yii', VII, 21. 44. Stampfer, "Catharsis," p. 367. 45. Trilling, Prefaces, p. 11. 46. Ibid., p. 12. 47. Meng Tzu, Mencius, W. A. C. H. Dobson trans. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1963),

6.19 (4B.19), p. 141. 48. See Jan Kott, Shakespeare, pp. 91, 94. In his essay "King Lear or Endgame," Kott offers a

comparative study of Lear and plays from the theater of the absurd genre, thereby revealing contemporary variations on Western dualistic thinking. For example, Kott cites Leszek Kolakowski's division: "the irreconcilable antagonism between the priest and the clown," which he sees as a parallel to the division between tragedy and the grotesque (p. 99). Referring to Samuel Beckett's Endgame, Kott specifies further the enemy of humankind in an anthropomorphized vision / nightmare: "the forces external to man-gods, fate, world-are not indifferent, but sneering and malicious.... Man must be defeated and cannot escape from the situation that has been imposed on him.... Only by the possibility of refusal can he surmount the external forces" (p. 106).

49. A paraphrasing of the Hsiao-ching, chap. 9. All quotes given here are my own renderings, based on the Chinese text of Herrlee Glessner Creel, Literary Chinese by the Inductive Method; Volume I, The Hsiao Ching (Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1948).

50. Morris, King Lear, p. 10. 51. John Donnelly, "Incest, Ingratitude and Insanity: Aspects of the Psychopathology of King

Lear", Psychoanalytical Review 40 (1953), quoted by Bonheim, in King Lear Perplex, p. 142. 52. Allgaier, "Is King Lear an Antiauthoritarian Play?" p. 1035. 53. Hsiao-ching, chap. 15. 54. See Creel, Literary Chinese pp. 59-60, note 5z. Lest the case of Shun be cited as a counter-

example here, representing passive resignation to a father's whims, alternative interpretations are available. Tu Wei-ming excuses Shun's deviation from "established decorum" (such as failing to



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receive parental consent prior to his marriage) by arguing that his behavior is "predicated on a higher morality" (Centrality and Commonality: An Essay on Chung- Yung (Honolulu, Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press, 1976), p. 61). Further, Tu observes "The filial son is not necessarily an obedient son. An obedient son follows the instructions of his father without questioning the underlying intention of those instructions, but the filial son must try to understand the general direction of his father's inner thoughts as well as his expressed wishes" (p. 57).

55. See for example Morris, King Lear, pp. 43, 51. 56. Greenfield ("Excellent Things" 49-50) offers a different interpretation on this point: "The

drama strongly suggests that in her absence Cordelia undergoes a profound growth... the product of an enormous amount of suffering caused by the events of Act I-yields a 'new,' matured Cordelia in Act IV, a woman who has overcome her mindless adherence to the artificial values of conventional femininity and her fear of direct intervention on her father's behalf." A similar argument is advanced by Sophia B. Blaydes in "Cordelia: Loss of Insolence," Studies in the Humanities 5, no. 15 (1975): 15-21.

57. Fergusson, Shakespeare's Tragedies, p. 267. 58. Hsiao-ching, chap. 8. The Ta-hsiiehM (IX, 3) reinforces this lesson: "From the living example of

one family a whole State becomes loving, and from its courtesies the whole State becomes courteous, while, from the ambition and perverseness of the One man, the whole State may be led to rebellious disorder" (James Legge trans., The Chinese Classics, vol. 1, 2nd ed. rev. (Shanghai: reprint, Oxford University Press, 1935), pp. 370-371). Insofar as Lear is concerned, the "One man" referred to may be interpreted as either Lear or Cordelia-perhaps both.

59. Berry, "Lear's System," p. 424. 60. Hsiao-ching chap. 3. 61. Ibid., chap. 7. 62. Trilling, Prefaces, pp. 19, 20. 63. Ibid., p. 17. 64. Ibid., pp. 19, 20. For a discussion ofjen as repect see Sandra A. Wawrytko, "Confucius and

Kant: The Ethics of Respect," Philosophy East and West 32, no. 2 (July 1982): 237-257. 65. Hsiao-ching, chap. 1. 66. Burton Watson, The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu (New York: University of Columbia

Press, 1968), chap. 13., p. 152. 67. Ibid., p. 152. 68. Alan Watts, Tao. The Watercourse Way (New York: Pantheon Books, 1975), pp. xiv-xvi.

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Meaning as merging: The hermeneutics of reinterpreting King Lear in the light of the Hsiao-ching

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