King Lear (Vol. 83) - Cherrell Guilfoyle (essay date 1990)
Cherrell Guilfoyle (essay date 1990)
SOURCE: Guilfoyle, Cherrell. “The Redemption of King Lear.” In Shakespeare's Play within Play: Medieval Imagery and Scenic Form in Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear, pp. 111-27. Kalamazoo, Mich.: Western Michigan University Medieval Institute Publications, 1990.
[In the following essay, Guilfoyle examines the theme of Christian redemption in King Lear and contends that several figures in the play assume Christ-like qualities.]
The title of this paper is a quotation from A. C. Bradley's lecture on King Lear: “Should we,” he asked, call “this poem The Redemption of King Lear?”1 Bradley was not alone in detecting an underlying thread of Christian imagery in a play which Shakespeare, working largely from a Christian version of the old story, seemed resolute to express in overtly pagan terms. J. C. Maxwell wrote: “King Lear is a Christian play about a...
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