Stampfer and the Catharsis of King Lear At the end of King Lear, when the only characters left standing are Albany, Edgar and Kent, the audience is supposed to turn away from playing with feelings other than remorse? J. Stampfer believes that this audience search for emotional release is King Lear's deepest problem. The main critical problem with King Lear is that of its ending. The deaths of Lear and Cordelia confront us as a fresh, raw wound where our every instinct demands healing and reconciliation. This problem, moreover, is as much of a philosophical order as it is of dramatic effect. In what kind of universe, we ask, could a costly death follow suffering and torture? In his essay "The Catharsis of King Lear", Stampfer discusses several readings of Lear's death, proves them incorrect, and, through analysis of this and other Shakespearean texts, arrives at his own conclusion regarding Lear's denouement and reaction of the public. The essay begins with Stampfer defining the importance of Lear's death to King Lear and to the reader of the essay. Stampfer doesn't waste the reader's time with an elaborate introduction. Instead, the first line defines the problem: The main critical problem in King Lear is that of its ending (361). Also in the first paragraph, he cites the line from Lear that causes problems of interpretation, referring to it as Lear's "desperate verse". question" (361): Why should a dog, a horse, a mouse have life and you not breathe at all? (v,iii, 306-7) The rest of the paragraph discusses problems that, according to Stampfer, cannot be put by part, such as the source Shakespeare used to write King Lear, and the Christian reference...... middle of paper ......ld, and abandons atheism and tries to save Lear and Cordelia This creates a paradox for Stampfer: If characters like Lear, Gloucester, and Edmund all go through some sort of revival, why do they all die? Is there any justice in the universe? work ends with the "reconciliation of the tragic hero and society" (371). Lear, according to Stampfer, is "the first tragedy in which the tragic hero dies unreconciled and indifferent to society" (371). It is necessary to retrace the plot of Lear and discover what within the structure makes Lear different. from the plays mentioned above, and attempts to find some sort of catharsis. Stampfer makes several key points. The first is Lear's abandonment of everything he once knew.