can anyone tell me who i am?

i just finished reading king lear twice. in the introduction to the edition i have, the guy who wrote it says that this is the best play shakespeare has written. i personally think he's as mad as a beggar in a naked storm. someone else wrote that king lear is like a pile of jewels without a string. i think he's as blind as man with no eyes.

the thing is with lear is that it's so relentless. no-one is saved: the innocents die; sins are not forgiven; loyalty is not rewarded; families are unloving; age brings no comfort; honesty, integrity, wisdom, hope, love: all are punished punished punished. lear's final vision of happiness in jail is dashed along with edmond's shot at redemption at the expense of cordelia. we are cheated of gloucester's reconciliation with his true son as it happens off stage and it kills him anyway (in an ambivalent state of grief and ecstasy). we are cheated too of edmund and cornwall's death along with the deaths of goneril and regan (also all off stage). the only person that dies on stage is poor lear, in a moment of self delusion and oswald the coward. the fool just disappears! the kingdom is left in a much worse state than it started in: order is not restored.

everyone in the play dies as they have lived except albany. they die in misery. lear's folly is realised less than halfway through the play when he knows that he has wronged cordelia. this is the same as gloucester. they die without change. kent never learns to shut up and his diligence leads him to the grave. edgar discovers what he already knew. edmund's last minute repreive smacks more of desperation than goodness. i guess goneril had the decency to commit suicide so she may have gained some insight. albany does change. out of thin air he starts to brood. he ponders. he thinks and he sees things as they may be; but ultimately albany is ineffectual. something may be rotten, but he cannot stop it.

as flies to wanton boys, shakespeare is to people like me: i criticize him for my sport. robbed of an ending, king lear seem amoral. there is no god and therefore no goodness. men are made mad my their sons and daughters and the process is irreversible; nature nurtures then destroys. the pendulum swings from good to bad and it swings most violently. when the storm comes, we will all feels it's power.