A Subtext Based on Nothing

Extract

The world of dark powers which comes from Nothing to fulfill Lear's “darker purpose.” Hecate's world, the world of the absent Queen (Genet's world), the Womb, the sulphurous pit, consumption, stench, madness, the wheel of fire, rage.

To begin the ceremony, Lear speaks of that darker purpose. (With our inadequate terminology, we might call it his Super objective.) He is in good spirits, prepared to bestow bounty and receive love; in a moment he is staring into vacancy. In the divided kingdom, the heart of darkness: “Nothing will come of nothing.” The line recapitulates a cracked fantasy of Power; the rest of the play proceeds from it. For us it was a datum: ground level. Cordelia says “Nothing“—and history is annihilated. Out of the appearance of Absolute Form, hallucination—a dark voyage through the anarchic id. Why did she say nothing? Later, the words of her charity, the most forgiving words of all, tell what weighed down her ponderous tongue: “No cause, no cause.”