Literature

The view of Aristotle to acquire virtue is to follow the path of middle between the extreme and the least which is very much different from the early Christian scholars who have advocated to accept the path of one side either of grace or sin, devils or angels, hell or heaven, good or bad, light or dark, death or life. This concept of moderation by Aristotle will remain relevant in each and every society irrespective of the race and country in the world. According to him the virtue lie in the mean and if anyone is exceeding this mean it will be termed as sin. To attain the happiness in life and to live the life comfortably one has to adopt the path of mean. By following this modus operandi the personal of Renaissance who follow the Church, were allowed to become rich and at the same time to acquire more wealth at any point of time was sinful activity. This limitation of mean pathway is left on the virtue to determine the limitation as how much wealth should be acquired (Toole). “King Lear” by Shakespeare is a great tragedy, in which the protagonist King Lear, ignoring the concept of moderation, always follows the path of extreme, right from the beginning to the end, which caused him to suffer a lot throughout his life even to loose his empire.

Right from the beginning of the play, say at the time of King Lear’s determination of the loyalty of all his daughters, Regan, Goneril and Cordelia, the path of extreme was adopted by the King without any concept of moderation. The elder two daughters used their professional wit, concealing their original black heart to prove most loyal and the younger daughter Cordelia was proved to be the most disloyal as she speaks the truth and was not able to disclose her love and loyalty for his father in the public instead of having real love for his father for which she was expelled from the kingdom by the king himself.

The King did not ever follow the concept of moderation (by Aristotle). The path he chooses to determine the loyalty of his daughters was extreme. He had determined to test the virtue of his daughters by asking them to speak in the court in the public about their faithfulness. This determination is the extreme decision taken by the King, if he had chosen the path of moderation then he would have tested his daughter differently, secretly and intelligently so that the daughter could not understand that their father is going to have a test for their loyalty and at the same time the king could have been able to find out the real followers at the beginning as the wicked elder daughters could not have got the opportunity to mock the king with false admiration. So that he could not have expelled from his kingdom his younger daughter whose answer was “Nothing my Lord” when the king asked her to speak about the loyalty. This answer embarrasses the king and compelled him to take the extreme decision of expulsing her from his kingdom. Following the path of moderation he could have understand the situation of adolescent experiences of any sensitive person, here the feelings of Cordelia, as she is suffering from devastating paralysis of the will which not uncommonly grips a young and emotional girl when commanded to exhibit in public her secret loyalties (A Board of Professors). It is a wound that parents so often inflict on their children through sheer pride, and the reaction is usually fierce, cruel and incomprehensible. Because the love of Cordelia for her foolish old father is deep, sacred and inexpressible, she cannot exhibit it before a gaping Court or a pair of sneering sisters (A Board of Professors). But the father king does not take the path of moderation to reach at proper solution.

Expulsion of loyal servant Kent, who just supported the Cordelia for his extreme loyalty to defend her was another deviation of the moderation concept by the King Lear; but the servant took the moderation path and go away with her but latter return with disguise to serve and protect to win the faith of the king.

Goneril, with whom the king remains, deviating from the moderation path conspired to through out his father from her house. If she had virtue, she could have been learnt the art of moderation and before conspiring such heinous act she could have made another arrangement for her father but she did the wrongs in absence of any good moral character. Again the king does not follow the path of moderation by deciding not to remain with any of the daughters when Regan allow him to remain with her but without any followers.

Those who will take the path of extreme are the person with evil and those who take the path of moderation are the person of virtue. The King, Regan, and Goneril all follow the path of evil by following the extreme condition in their life. But Cordelia tries to follow the path of moderation, though she went to France and become the queen of the King of France, she always remains loyal to her father and returns to defend him in the time of crisis and even she prefers to die with her father at the end only in want of loyalty of king and love to father but the king dies in the absence of moderation.