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08269_Field_TCGG T34.txt
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1996-04-10
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* When King Lear proposes “our darker purpose” as the
subdivision of his kingdom, he is expressing a politically daring
and avant-garde intent for the early seventeenth century:
Only we still retain
The name, and all th’ additions to a king. The sway,
Revenue, execution of the rest,
Beloved sons, be yours; which to confirm,
This coronet part betwixt you. (1)
Lear is proposing an extremely modern idea of delegation of
authority from centre to margins. His “darker purpose” would
have been recognized at once as left-wing Machiavellianism by
an Elizabethan audience. The new patterns of power and
organization which had been discussed during the preceding
century were now, in the early seventeenth century, being felt