Materialist Criticism and Cordelias Quasi-Resurrection in King Lear

مرکز و کتابخانه مطالعات اسلامی به زبان های اروپایی

منو

" Materialist Criticism and Cordelias Quasi-Resurrection in King Lear "
Sean Benson

Document Type	:	AL
Record Number	:	1081307
Doc. No	:	LA124936
Call No	:	‭10.1163/156852907X244584‬
Language of Document	:	English
Main Entry	:	Sean Benson
Title & Author	:	Materialist Criticism and Cordelias Quasi-Resurrection in King Lear [Article]\ Sean Benson
Publication Statement	:	Leiden: Brill
Title of Periodical	:	Religion and the Arts
Date	:	2007
Volume/ Issue Number	:	11/3-4
Page No	:	436–453
Abstract	:	"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."
Descriptor	:	Art History
Descriptor	:	CHRISTIANITY
Descriptor	:	Comparative Religion Religious Studies
Descriptor	:	General
Descriptor	:	History
Descriptor	:	KING LEAR
Descriptor	:	MATERIALISM
Descriptor	:	Religious Studies
Descriptor	:	RESURRECTION
Descriptor	:	SHAKESPEARE
Location & Call number	:	‭10.1163/156852907X244584‬