SOURCE: Davidson, Clifford. “The Iconography of Wisdom and Folly in King Lear.” In Shakespeare and the Emblem: Studies in Renaissance Iconography and Iconology, edited by Tibor Fabiny, pp. 189-214. Szeged, Hungary: Department of English, Attila Jozsef University, 1984.
In the following excerpt, Davidson calls attention to the way symbolic associations underscore the motif of reversals and inversions of order in King Lear. He argues that although the first four acts may be read as a traditional Christian presentation of the operation of divine providence, the iconography of Act V appears to question the wisdom of relying on moral or religious certainties.
