عنوان

Materialist Criticism and Cordelias Quasi-Resurrection in King Lear

LA124936

انگلیسی

Materialist Criticism and Cordelias Quasi-Resurrection in King Lear

[Article]

Sean Benson

Leiden

Brill

"This essay examines King Lear's belief that the dead Cordelia revives or resuscitates near the very end of the play. This quasi-resurrection, which occurs only in the First Folio (1623), has divided critics into those who regard the moment as mere delusion and others who see it as adumbrating a moment of blessed release. Following a survey of these "redemptionist" versus the predominant nihilist-oriented readings of the play, I examine the influential materialist interpretations offered by Stephen Greenblatt and Jonathan Dollimore. Both insist that Cordelia's quasi-resurrection, since it never reaches fruition, frustrates a religious understanding of the play. (Materialist criticism only counts tangible rewards as meaningful.) The play, however, is more consistent with Hans-Georg Gadamer's view that tragedy overwhelms us with its suffering rather than promotes this-worldly justice. Cordelia's quasi-resurrection gestures towards a possible otherworldly redemption even as it reminds audiences of the Resurrection that, in Lear's pagan world, cannot be replicated. Shakespeare's anachronisms thus superimpose the Christian resurrectionary tradition on the pagan setting of the play; his doing so places the hope and despair of the final scene-the contrast between their transcendent aspirations and the mundane reality of their unresurrected corpses-in the delicate equipoise of his art."

2007

436-453

Religion and the Arts

11/3-4

1568-5292

Art History

CHRISTIANITY

Comparative Religion & Religious Studies

General

History

KING LEAR

MATERIALISM

Religious Studies

RESURRECTION

SHAKESPEARE

Sean Benson

10.1163/156852907X244584

p

[Article]

275578

a

Y