The document provides an analysis of the word "nothing" and concept of "nothingness" in Shakespeare's play King Lear. It discusses nothing as emptiness, someone of no significance, a nonentity, and in language. Key points include: 1) Cordelia's utterance of "nothing" provokes Lear to banish her and divide the kingdom, upsetting the balance of power. 2) Lear, Kent, and Edgar are progressively stripped of power, identity, and humanity and reduced to "nothing." 3) Language itself follows this progression, becoming more chaotic and reduced to repetitions as words lose meaning and substance.

1. NOTHING AND NOTHINGNESS in KL
Céline Haas
« Nothing » = word, uttered by Cordelia, and that word provokes everything in the
play.
Lear grants her nothing and concludes by saying that “Nothing will come of
nothing”(I-i-90)
As he says this, Lear has already made something of this first “nothing”!
DEFINITIONS
- Nothing = something that is non-existent, a nonentity, a word that denies the
existence of anything.
- Nothing = something or someone of no importance/significance (a trifle)
SYNONYMS
- Absence / emptiness / vacancy
In a first time, one might be tempted to define the word “nothing” and the concept of
“nothingness” as a simple rejection of any form of existence. But can really nothing come of
nothing?
Plan : 1) Nothing as emptiness
2) Nothing as someone of no significance / man as a beast
3) Nothing as a nonentity
4) Nothing in language
I – NOTHING AS EMPTINESS
- A void space which provokes an imbalance. Cordelia, uttering the word “nothing” as
her father asks her to flatter him and to quantify her love for him, forces Lear to
banish her.
“(…) what can you say to draw
A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.

2. Nothing, my lord.
Nothing?
Nothing.” (I-i)
Lear decides to grant her nothing and to divide the kingdom into two. This division
into two equal parts may be perilous for the kingdom because, usually, in politics, the
balance of power is respected in order to create a stable situation in which forces can cancel
one another. But Lear shares his crown between Goneril and Regan, who do not seem to be
opposing forces. The issue might be a tyrannical regime.
- The word “nothing” in the sense of void space may also perfectly refer to the absence
of a mother in Lear’s family. Nothingness therefore doesn’t only cause an imbalance
and the destruction of order, but also causes the destruction of family order.
The Fool points at this fact, telling Lear “thou mad’st thy daughters thy mothers” (I-
iv-163/164) or
“For you know, nuncle,
The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long
That it’s had it head bit off by it young” (I-iv-205/207)
Here, it’s everything but a classical family model he’s talking about. Without a stable
family model, you can’t build a stable kingdom. Indeed, at these times, the political structure
of a kingdom was designed according to the patriarchal model.
- Here, one points at another problem, which is the absence of a male figure at the head
of the kingdom. In fact, “nothing” when analyzed, can also bear the meaning of “no
thing” or in other words, no sexual attributes/no penis. Goneril and Regan literally
castrated their father with their flatteries. This castration is clearly visible in act II-
scene iv, when Lear alludes to hysteria:
O, how this mother swells up toward my heart!
Hysterica passio! Down, thou climbing sorrow!
Thy element's below! Where is this daughter?
Hysteria = considered as a disease typical of women at the time because people
believed it came from their womb/uterus.
Lear’s loss of power leads us to another meaning of “nothing” : nothing =no significance.

3. II – NOTHING AS SOMEONE OF NO SIGNIFICANCE.
Lear’s loss of power transforms him into a kind of beast.
- First of all, while dividing his kingdom and giving up his prerogatives, he behaves
like a beast (inhuman) when he banishes his daughter, Cordelia. (“do not stand
between the dragon and his wrath”)
- While some characters like Goneril, Regan, and Edmund behave brutishly, others, the
victims, are treated like beasts (like “nothings”).
In fact, Gloucester alludes to that idea, saying “I' th' last night's storm I such a fellow
saw,
Which made me think a man a worm.” (IV-i)
Edgar perfectly embodies this particular meaning of “nothing”.
“(…) Poor Turlygod, poor Tom,
That’s something yet : Edgar I nothing am” (II-ii)
“Poor Tom, that eats the swimming frog, the toad, the todpole,
the wall-newt and the water; that in the fury of his heart, when
the foul fiend rages, eats cow-dung for sallets, swallows the
old rat and the ditch-dog, drinks the green mantle of the
standing pool; who is whipp'd from tithing to tithing, and
stock-punish'd and imprison'd; who hath had three suits to his
back, six shirts to his body, horse to ride, and weapons to
wear;
But mice and rats, and such small deer,
Have been Tom's food for seven long year.” (III-iv)
- Lear also loses his humanity in the play and is reduced to nothing. Goneril and Regan
deny him his knaves and he flees into the storm. At this point in the plot, he’ll no
longer be himself. Cordelia, towards the end of the play, says that her “ennemy’s dog,
Though he had bit her should have stood that night Against her fire” (IV-vii)
This beast-like state will finally reduce Lear to nothing as a nonentity.

4. Yet one time he did call me by my name:
I urged our old acquaintance, and the drops
That we have bled together. Coriolanus
He would not answer to: forbad all names;
He was a kind of nothing, titleless,
Till he had forged himself a name o' the fire
Of burning Rome. (The tragedy of Coriolanus –Cominius –V-i)
III- NOTHING AS A NONENTITY AND THE LOSS OF IDENTITY.
Kent is the first one to be banished from the Kingdom in ACT I, scene i. Without his faithful
master, the devoted Kent is reduced to nothing.
Then it is Edgar’s turn, who is also reduced to nothing, being disowned by his father.
When disguised as Poor Tom Lear even told him
Is man no more than
this? Consider him well. Thou ow'st the worm no silk, the beast
no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Ha! Here's three
on's are sophisticated! Thou art the thing itself;
unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked
animal as thou art.
III,4 101
And finally, Lear progressively deprived of power, dignity and family is also reduced to
nothing.
The fools told him
“Thou wast a pretty fellow when thou hadst no need to care for her frowning
No thou art an O without a figure.
I am better than thou art now
I am a fool thou art nothing”. I,4
We can say in a sense that the three of them lost their identities and are considered to be
nonentities.
What enables us to say that these characters are reduced to absolutely nothing is the fact that
they have to disguise in order to exist.

5. Indeed, in act I,scene 4, Kent appears disguised in order to exist in Lear’s eyes and to help
him. In a sense he builds himself a new identity.
Edgar uses disguise in order to survive as well. Successively he took on Poor Tom’s identity
“ Whiles I may scape,
I will preserve myself ; and am bethought
To take the basest and most poorest shape
That ever penury, in contempt of man,
Brought near to beast.” (II,2)
Later he also adopted a fiend’s identity.
Finally, Lear in order to regain a semblance of power, a semblance of his past identity,
disguises and wears a fake crown made of
Rank fumiter and furrow weeds,
With harlocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo flow’rs,
Darnel, and all the idle weeds tht grow
In our sustaining corn
Losing their identities, these three characters are in some way reduced to nothing and this is
why they are trying to rebuild something. In acting so they are trying in a way to put the
nothingness of their lives into perspective.

6. IV. Nothing and language.
The word NOTHING appears 29 times in the play. On top of this the number of occurrences
of negative words such as NEVER , Nor NEITHER, NOT, NO along with the words
beginning with negative prefixes such as :
- unnatural
- unnaccomodated
- unburdened
give us an impression of darkness and negativity that will prevail throughout the play.
V,3 Never, never, never, never, never
The redundancy of such negative words helps in filling the plot with emptiness.
In the play we witness the deceitful nature of language and we can wonder what people
mean when they say things.
Language is used as a disguise, used to deceive.
If we take the example of Goneril’s flattering words when she tries to show her father how
much she loves him :
I,1 “I love you
No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour
As much as child e’er loved”
We can say in a way that these words have no substance, that they are empty, and moreover
that they describe emptiness.
Lear’s mistake had been to trust the substance of spoken words.

7. Along with the progressive destruction of order, the prevailing impression of darkness and
chaos, and Lear’s degradation we can say that the language also becomes progressively
chaotic.
It is reduced to the very minimum with a distorted syntax. Words become a vehicle for
nonsense. In a way we can say that words follow Lear’s career in the sense that language
goes from controlled and structured language to collapse and disaster.
Moreover language has lost its performative value to become mere repetitions of
monosyllables.
V,3 “Howl, howl howl”.
In a way we can say that words are Shakespeare’s playthings.
He is very clever at using it.
The Dover Cliff scene, IV, 6 is the example that thanks to the precious tool that is language
Shakespeare is able to represent NOTHING and nothingness. Words allow him to create an
impression of something real, he creates illusion. The idea of a cliff, of a fall is created by
simple words. Thanks to the power of words Shakespeare can play with perceptions and
imagination in order to create something from nothing.
CCL
Can really nothing come of nothing ?
No, what happen in reality is that everything comes of nothing.

8. Indeed Cordelia’s first NOTHING rang out like a clap of thunder. And it’s precisely from
this word that the whole drama will unfold.
The chaos will progressively invade the play and Lear will be progressively be stripped of
everything : his kingdom, his knights, family, dignity, sanity and life, death being the end of
all form of physical existence. Lear indeed became nothing.
Macbeth “A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury… signifying nothing”
V,3.
These words are uttered by Macbeth after he learnt about his wife’s death.
We can understand that a play too is an event “full of sound and fury…. Signifying nothing”
Indeed one must keep in mind the illusionary nature of theater. In a word King Lear as a play
is nothing.