ABSTRACT
Kent's rage is thrilling, but more: it is a relief. Many of us consider it an act of justice to call a villain a villain. William Shakespeare's plays are as much about energy as authority. The eloquence of the opening scene has formal grandeur and a fairy-tale glamor. But the destruction of kingly authority releases another kind of imaginative strength. Critics have always been struck by the fact that two of the greatest writers the world has ever known were writing at a similar time, and that Shakespeare read Montaigne. Stephen Greenblatt discusses the connection between the two writers in a recent essay, but avoids making the connection between the writers into a simple agreement in world-view. Greenblatt notices that King Lear has borrowed words and ideas from Montaigne's essays. Montaigne and Freud fight against the overestimation of human self-regard. But that deflation of human arrogance is pleasant, cheerful, and above all, emotionally disassociated.
