Naslov
Honesty and Counsel: Kent's Dramatic and Political Allegiance

Autori
Lupić, Ivan

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, ostalo, znanstveni

Skup
Shakespeare Association of America Annual Meeting

Mjesto i datum
Vancouver, Kanada, 01.04.2015. - 04.04.2015

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
Shakespeare ; King Lear ; counsel ; truth-telling ; satire

Sažetak
The Earl of Kent in Shakespeare’s King Lear is one of the most interesting and probably one of the most studied of Shakespeare’s minor characters. Our understanding of the political question in the play, as well as our perception of its more central characters, will to a remarkable extent depend on what we make of Kent. He has often been seen as the voice of good counsel, of faithful and responsible service, and of truth. In the context of literary and dramatic history, his prototypes have been identified in the figure of the plain, blunt Englishman, of the bluff soldier, of the worthy and plain-speaking counselor, or in allegorical stage representations of honesty, indebted to the tradition of morality drama. But critics are far from being unified in their assessment of Kent, either as a dramatic character or as an embodiment of a particular political philosophy. While Kent is clearly associated with the tradition and prerogative of free and plain speech, with parrhesia and with counsel, his language is also the language of satire, a rhetorical mode in which language is used aggressively in order to expose vice and, in Kent’s case at least, to teach by pure verbal force. Kent’s own assertion that “anger hath a privilege, ” to take just one example, cannot easily be reconciled with the dominant understandings of counsel in the Renaissance. On the contrary, frequent breaches of political decorum that Kent performs throughout the play seem to invite a more complicated political reading. The purpose of this paper is to consider the political meanings of Shakespeare’s King Lear, especially the question of counsel in the play, from a combined perspective of the history of political thought and the history of dramatic forms.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Politologija, Filozofija, Filologija, Kazališna umjetnost (scenske i medijske umjetnosti), Književnost

POVEZANOST RADA