Deception in Shakespeare's Plays | Jean MacIntyre (essay date 1982)
Jean MacIntyre (essay date 1982)
SOURCE: "Truth, Lies, and Poesie in King Lear;' in Renaissance and Reformation/Renaissance et Réforme, Vol. VI, No. 1, 1982, pp. 34-45.
[In the essay below, MacIntyre examines the deceptions practiced by Kent and Edgar in King Lear as fictions that allow Lear and Gloucester to comprehend and accept their own misdeeds and identities. MacIntyre argues that the play demonstrates the usefulness of fiction, or poesy, and represents in some ways Shakespeare's defense of his work.]
At the beginning of his tragedy, King Lear requires each of his daughters to "speak" her love for him, promising the most opulent share of the kingdom to her who "doth love us most."1 In answer he gets the well-known rhetoric of Goneril ("I love you more than words can wield the matter") and of Regan ("I am alone felicitate / In your dear highness' love"). Then, expecting yet more, he gets Cordelia's "I love...
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