Shakespeare's creation Edgar from King Lear and Elizabethan attitudes toward mental illness.

Edgar, Poor Tom O'Bedlam, fiend, peasant, messenger, and avenging knight - just who is the character that assumes all these personas? Shakespeare often plays with the motif of madness and ambiguous roles, but no character dramatically embodies these ideas as extensively as Edgar in King Lear. It has often been said that Shakespeare understood human nature better than any man ever did. If that is the case, then we have to believe that his creation, …

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