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The Tragedy of Kindness in King Lear
- SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 61, Number 1, Winter 2021
- pp. 45-64
- 10.1353/sel.2021.0003
- Article
- Additional Information
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Abstract:
This article argues that King Lear decouples kindness and kinship in ways that raise questions of recognition. Because Lear deliberately breaks his kinship bond with Cordelia, Aristotelian anagnorisis cannot suffice to reconcile them. Hegelian Anerkennung frames recognition as a process of creating relational bonds but grounds this process in a struggle that does not structure the reconciliation between Lear and Cordelia. Consequently, I argue that kindness in the play consists of a freedom to meet ontological human vulnerability with relational care. The play's tragedy lies in the way that kindness, because both vulnerable and free, comes with no guarantees.