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RV 288 (Rh) Much has been written on the representation of insanity in King Lear, and I will confine myself to one or two points which may have escaped notice. The most obvious symptom of Lear’s insanity, especially in its first stages, is of course the domination of a fixed idea. Whatever presents itself to his senses, is seized on by this idea and compelled to express it; as for example in those words, already quoted, which first show that his mind has actually given way:

But it is remarkable that what we have here its only, in an exaggerated and perverted form, the very same action of imagination that, just before the breakdown of reason, produced those sublime appeals:

and:

Shakespeare, long before this, in the Midsummer Night’s Dream, had noticed the resemblance between