You Lost Me William...

So I've been on two kicks this whole semester with Shakespeare. The first concerned how characters set up and perceive their reality, and the second is with nature. Now I love all of the nature references in Shakespeare, because I love nature, I mean the focus on my major is the natural world. This being said I love all the insights and knowledge that Shakespeare has of the natural world and I can relate to all of them quite easily. That is until Act V of King Lear. Yes, I met my match in Shakespearean nature lingo with this line of Lear's:

"She's dead as earth."

This is of course speaking of his faithful daughter but the simile just doesn't make sense to me. Because, well, earth or (as I'm taking it for this post) soil/dirt is really quite alive in many ways! See even when major disasters come through the earth rebounds. It is in the soil that life springs from. Earth, dirt, soil whatever you want to call it, is the foundation for life.

Confused by my logic? Let my try to be clearer. When a disaster such as a fire goes through an area or ecosystem almost everything is wiped out. Animals flee the area if they aren't killed and vegetation burns to a crisp (just watch the fire in Bambi if you don't believe me). Then there is nothing, just the earth/soil and the charred remains. While this may seem like a bad thing, in many ecosystems it is actually needed. For in the soil life begins to stir.

Soil contains bacteria, microorganisms, nutrients, small animals and seeds (hello, life!). Plants such as the aspen tree actually depend on fire for their survival. When a fire comes through an area containing aspen, sure all the big aspen are decimated but their root system senses the heat and when the flames are gone the roots send up green shoots called suckers. These are brand new trees! The aspen has grown so dependent on fire that it is now almost virtually the only way it can reproduce.

Now that's a little off topic but it's important. If there wasn't soil/earth this life couldn't first of all be preserved because there would be no substrate, but secondly it couldn't come back. Because soil in in some way seemingly invincible the life that plants such as the aspen store in the soil is saved and then continues.

Many other plants store on their seeds in the earth and then depend on it to grow out of and provide the nutrients necessary to grow. When the plants grow you enter the food chain. Plants are eaten by herbivores which are then in turn eaten by carnivores! This also is true in the ocean! The seafloor often contains eggs of animals as well as in shallow areas it grows aquatic plants and provides the foundation for coral.

The whole biosphere is dependent on the existence on soil or earth!!! That is why Lear's statement "dead as earth" is so confusing to me! Shakespeare has me stumped!

Unless I guess, Shakespeare is trying to say that Cordelia may appear dead and of no use but her previous life and now current death has provided spiritual life in many ways. People see the errors of their ways and learn. We as readers also see how we can be and can then improve ourselves and our lives....but I just don't know about that...it seems like a stretch.

Any ideas? (And I'm sorry this sounds like a lecture, but I guess that's just how it came out.)