Sovereign Shame: A Study of King LearThis study of King Lear emphasizes the fact that Cordelia Kent, and the Fool create a loving community from which Lear persistently flees, and seeks to explain his bizarre behavior not, as is sometimes done, by attributing unconscious incestuous desires to him, but by demonstrating that Lear's profound and tyrannizing shame originates in his metaphysical dread of personal worthlessness and a deep sense of being unworthy of love. |
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Page 18
... culminate in Lear's anguished question : " Why should a dog , a horse , a rat have life , / And thou no breath at all ? " ( 5.3.307-8 ) . That this question comes so irresistibly not only to his mind but to 18 A TRAGEDY OF FOOLS.
... culminate in Lear's anguished question : " Why should a dog , a horse , a rat have life , / And thou no breath at all ? " ( 5.3.307-8 ) . That this question comes so irresistibly not only to his mind but to 18 A TRAGEDY OF FOOLS.
Page 25
... thou shalt serve me . If I like thee no worse after dinner , I will not part from thee yet . ( 1.4 . 40-41 ) His mistaken claim about Caius may also lead us back to reas- sess the profound pathos of a similar pronouncement— " She's dead ...
... thou shalt serve me . If I like thee no worse after dinner , I will not part from thee yet . ( 1.4 . 40-41 ) His mistaken claim about Caius may also lead us back to reas- sess the profound pathos of a similar pronouncement— " She's dead ...
Page 26
... thou no breath at all ? Thou'lt come no more , Pray you unto this button . ( 5.3.306-10 ) Whether we read " no , no , no life " as a wailing lament or more bitterly as Lear's cursing sentence of all life to death , the finality of his ...
... thou no breath at all ? Thou'lt come no more , Pray you unto this button . ( 5.3.306-10 ) Whether we read " no , no , no life " as a wailing lament or more bitterly as Lear's cursing sentence of all life to death , the finality of his ...
Page 27
... thou good Kent , how shall I live and work / To match thy goodness ? My life will be too short " [ 4.7.1-2 ] ) and to seek the Fool as she had sought hers— A [ century ] send forth ; Search every acre in the high - grown field , And ...
... thou good Kent , how shall I live and work / To match thy goodness ? My life will be too short " [ 4.7.1-2 ] ) and to seek the Fool as she had sought hers— A [ century ] send forth ; Search every acre in the high - grown field , And ...
Page 36
... thou dost think / I have cast off for ever " ( 1.4.309-10 ) . In addition , despite the fact that they have some basis for their antagonism and Iago none , they react far more diffidently than he in their malice , to the degree that one ...
... thou dost think / I have cast off for ever " ( 1.4.309-10 ) . In addition , despite the fact that they have some basis for their antagonism and Iago none , they react far more diffidently than he in their malice , to the degree that one ...
Contents
17 | |
The Pastoral Norm | 58 |
The Player King | 118 |
The Prince of Darkness is a Gentleman | 147 |
Notes | 176 |
Selected Bibliography | 194 |
Index | 207 |
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Common terms and phrases
abdication acknowledge Albany Alfred Harbage attempt Avoidance of Love banished beggar behavior better bitter fool Cavell character charity claims codpiece contempt Cordelia critics curse daugh daughters death disguise distracted dramatic dramatic irony dreadful Edgar Edmund Essay on King evil fact father fear feel final flees folly Fool's foolish forgiveness generosity Gloucester Gloucester's gods Goneril and Regan grace grief heart heavens hidden hope human humiliation irony Jacobean justice Kent Kent's King Lear king's Lear plays Lear's live love test madness Masks of King merely metaphor miseries moral nature nonetheless O. B. Hardison Oswald Othello pastoral pastoral's play play's Poor Poor Tom pretense Princeton University Princeton University Press rage refusal remarks reveals ridicule risk scene seek sense Shakespeare Shakespearean Tragedy shame sorrow speaks speech stand Stanley Cavell storm suffering suggests symbolic thee thing thou tion tragic true truth words wretches
Popular passages
Page 98 - Lear. Be your tears wet? Yes, 'faith. I pray, weep not: If you have poison for me I will drink it. I know you do not love me ; for your sisters Have, as I do remember, done me wrong : You have some cause, they have not. Cor. No cause, no cause.
Page 51 - The weight of this sad time we must obey ; Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. The oldest hath borne most : we, that are young, Shall never see so much, nor live so long.
Page 154 - Hear, nature, hear; Dear goddess, hear ! Suspend thy purpose, if Thou didst intend to make this creature fruitful ! Into her womb convey sterility ! Dry up in her the organs of increase; And from her derogate body never spring A babe to honor her ! If she must teem, Create her child of spleen ; that it may live, And be a thwart disnatured torment to her...
Page 158 - 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: my face I'll grime with filth; Blanket my loins; elf all my hair in knots; And with presented nakedness out-face The winds, and persecutions of the sky.
Page 150 - The affliction, nor the fear. Lear. Let the great gods, That keep this dreadful pother o'er our heads, Find out their enemies now.
Page 96 - tis fittest. Cor. How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty? Lear. You do me wrong, to take me out o' the grave. — Thou art a soul in bliss ; but I am bound Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears Do scald like molten lead.
Page 26 - And my poor fool is hang'd! No, no, no life! Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more, Never, never, never, never, never!
Page 92 - Good my lord, You have begot me, bred me, lov'd me : I .Return those duties back as are right fit, Obey you, love you, and most honour you. Why have my sisters husbands if they say They love you all? Haply...
Page 169 - With a more riotous appetite. Down from the waist they are Centaurs, Though women all above : But to the girdle do the gods inherit, Beneath is all the fiends' ; there's hell, there's darkness, there is the sulphurous pit, burning, scalding, stench, consumption...