Philosophers argue few questions are more difficult to ponder than those in the realm of philosophy. However, great drama often encompasses a realm more complex than philosophy because it often represents a microcosm of existence. Certainly, despite critics who deem either King Lear or Hamlet the finer play in terms of structure, theme and/or as art, there can be few more difficult tasks than rising one in import above the other. As T. S. Eliot (1) wrote “Hamlet is the Mona Lisa of literature.” While Harold Bloom (496-497), noted Shakespeare authority, argues “King Lear is arguably the most powerful and inescapable of literary works.” Both dramas are great tragedies, both are bloody tragedies, and both equate love with pain. In an analysis of plot and characterization, we shall come to a conclusion as to which is the superior of the two.
Both Hamlet and King Lear are of royal blood. The tragedies of both are set in motion by filial bonds. In King Lear, Lear’s descent, which is one of the harshest strippings of vanity and illusion in drama, begins over his bond with his daughters. He cannot bear Cordelia’s unwillingness to shower him with protestations of love and devotion. She loves him “according to my bond, nor more nor less” (Shakespeare I.i.974). His wounded pride from misinterpreting her honest devotion causes him to split his kingdom between his other two daughters, to whose false protestations of love Cordelia warns “Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides: / Who cover faults, at last shame them derides” (Shakespeare I.i.976). Hamlet’s familial situation that firmly roots his destiny is a little more complex. His father, King Hamlet, “by a brother’s hand / …at once despatch’d” appears to Hamlet as a ghost doomed to purgatory unless his son avenges his “murder most foul” (Shakespeare I.v.1079; 1078). Not only has Hamlet’s uncle murdered his father but he has also marri...