The love that passeth understanding : languages and doctrines of love in Shakespeare’s King Lear -

Abstract

This thesis discusses this painful and decisive event that occurs at the beginning of the play in King Lear, when Lear divides his kingdom among his daughters after making all three of them undergo a love test. Specifically, the interaction, language, conversation and communication between Lear and Cordelia throughout the beginning of the first scene will be the focus. The notion of love King Lear asks from his daughters and the surprising response he receives from his favorite daughter, Cordelia. King Lear and Cordelia have different definitions and concepts of love, and these incompatible languages of love create a failure of communication that sets the whole tragedy in motion. While some earlier scholars have argued for such a conceptual distinction around “love” as determining this scene, I aim to bring forward specific theological dimensions in the characters’ language and discourse of love by arguing that Shakespeare has consciously or unconsciously alluded to John 21:15-18 and that with this allusion comes interestingly different notions of possible criticism of doctrines based on socio-political and religious events in Early Modern England. The first chapter will include the discussion of different scholars who have explored the theme of love in King Lear, and explained the misunderstanding from their own perspectives, mostly political and economic. This chapter nevertheless also aims to relate such arguments to the religious dimension that will be the focus of the third and last chapter. The second chapter will discuss the multi-confessional background which Shakespeare and other dramatists of early modern English stage mediated in various ways. This will help enhance my argument when it comes to analyzing Act 1, Scene 1 in King Lear. Finally, the third chapter will delve into the analysis of the new allusion and serves as the heart of the thesis to analyze the misunderstanding of the scene through a more theological lens, arguing that the drama subtly supports tenets of the Prote