Editing King Lear (section)

===Psychoanalytic and psychosocial interpretations===
According to Dennis Brown, ''King Lear'' provides a basis for "the primary enactment of psychic breakdown in English literary history".{{sfn|Brown|2001|p=19}} The play begins with Lear's "near-fairytale narcissism".{{sfn|Brown|2001|p=20}}

Given the absence of legitimate mothers in ''King Lear'', [[Coppélia Kahn]]{{sfn|Kahn|1986}} provides a psychoanalytic interpretation of the "maternal subtext" found in the play. According to Kahn, Lear's old age forces him to regress into an infantile disposition, and he now seeks a love that is traditionally satisfied by a mothering woman, but in the absence of a real mother, his daughters become the mother figures. Lear's contest of love between Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia serves as the binding agreement; his daughters will get their inheritance provided that they care for him, especially Cordelia, on whose "kind nursery" he will greatly depend.{{cn|date=December 2023}}

Cordelia's refusal to dedicate herself to him and love him as more than a father has been interpreted by some as a resistance to incest, but Kahn also inserts the image of a rejecting mother. The situation is now a reversal of parent-child roles, in which Lear's madness is a childlike rage due to his deprivation of filial/maternal care. Even when Lear and Cordelia are captured together, his madness persists as Lear envisions a nursery in prison, where Cordelia's sole existence is for him. It is only with Cordelia's death that his fantasy of a daughter-mother ultimately diminishes, as ''King Lear'' concludes with only male characters living.{{cn|date=December 2023}}

[[File:Lear and Cordelia in Prison c1779 N 05189 B 53 Pen and watercolour 123×175 by William Blake.jpg|upright=1.35|thumb|left|''Lear and Cordelia in Prison'' – [[William Blake]] {{Circa|1779|lk=no}}]]
[[Sigmund Freud]] asserted that Cordelia symbolises Death. Therefore, when the play begins with Lear rejecting his daughter, it can be interpreted as him rejecting death; Lear is unwilling to face the finitude of his being. The play's poignant ending scene, wherein Lear carries the body of his beloved Cordelia, was of great importance to Freud. In this scene, Cordelia forces the realization of his finitude, or as Freud put it, she causes him to "make friends with the necessity of dying".{{sfn|Freud|1997|p=120}}

Alternatively, an analysis based on [[Alfred Adler|Adlerian]] theory suggests that the King's contest among his daughters in Act I has more to do with his control over the unmarried Cordelia.{{sfn|McLaughlin|1978|p=39}} This theory indicates that the King's "dethronement"{{sfn|Croake|1983|p=247}} might have led him to seek control that he lost after he divided his land.{{cn|date=December 2023}}

In his study of the character-portrayal of Edmund, [[Harold Bloom]] refers to him as "Shakespeare's most original character".{{sfn|Bloom|2008|p=317}} "As Hazlitt pointed out", writes Bloom, "Edmund does not share in the hypocrisy of Goneril and Regan: his Machiavellianism is absolutely pure, and lacks an Oedipal motive. Freud's vision of family romances simply does not apply to Edmund. Iago is free to reinvent himself every minute, yet Iago has strong passions, however negative. Edmund has no passions whatsoever; he has never loved anyone, and he never will. In that respect, he is Shakespeare's most original character."{{sfn|Bloom|2008|p=317}}

The tragedy of Lear's lack of understanding of the consequences of his demands and actions is often observed to be like that of a spoiled child, but it has also been noted that his behaviour is equally likely to be seen in parents who have never adjusted to their children having grown up.{{sfn|Kamaralli|2015}}