EVERY TURN OF THE WHEEL: CIRCULAR TIME AND CORDELIA'S REVOLT: FROM WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE TO THE BRITISH ENLIGHTENMENT
Vol.3, Issue 1, 2017, pp.5-25 Full text
DOI: https://doi.org/10.33919/esnbu.17.1.1
Web of Science: 000446616700002
Author
Tadd Graham Fernée https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4364-3463
Affiliation:
New Bulgarian University, Sofia, Bulgaria
Abstract
This article argues that William Shakespeare's King Lear anticipates core political dynamics of the English Civil War (1641-49), and philosophical tenets of the British Enlightenment in John Locke and David Hume. It analyzes three principle and competing paradigms of public authority in King Lear: theodicy, nature, and the autonomy of thought. The play is historically contextualized within the 16th century. King Lear, moreover, portends revolutionary new thought patterns: the centerless universe of modern astronomy, and human embeddedness in fluid nature without fixed identity. Three variants on the concept of "nothing" - existential, social, and philosophical - interweave the cosmic and political threads, based on a circular temporality. Shakespeare's character, Cordelia, affirms the everyday over the cosmic, and the sociological over the metaphysical. King Lear depicts a profound moral trans-valuation in early modern history, whose shifting temporal horizons remain central also to contemporary politics.
Keywords: William Shakespeare, King Lear, Tudor history, Stuart history, English Civil War, David Hume, Enlightenment, political pluralism, secularism, theocracy
Article history:
Submitted: 10 March 2017;
Reviewed: 01 April 2017;
Accepted: 08 May 2017;
Published: 31 May 2017
Citation (APA):
Fernée, T. G. (2017). Every Turn of the Wheel: Circular Time and Cordelia's Revolt: from William Shakespeare to the British Enlightenment. English Studies at NBU, 3(1), 5-25. http://doi.org/10.33919/esnbu.17.1.1
Copyright © 2017 Tadd Graham Fernée
This open access article is published and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. If you want to use the work commercially, you must first get the authors' permission.
References
Agnew, Jean-Christophe (1986). Worlds Apart: The Market and Theatre in Anglo-American Thought, 1550-1750. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ali, Ahmed (translator) (1994). Al-Qur'an: A Contemporary Translation. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Aristotle (2003). The Philosophy of Aristotle. New York: Signet.
Ashley, Maurice (1961). England in the Seventeenth Century. London: Penguin.
Cromwell, Oliver (1989). Speeches of Oliver Cromwell. London: Everyman History.
Heidegger, Martin (1996). Being and Time. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Hill, Christopher (1977). Milton and the English Revolution. London: Penguin Books.
Hume, David (1969). A Treatise of Human Nature. Middlesex: Penguin.
Huxley, Aldous (2005). Grey Eminence. London: Vintage.
Jenkins, Simon (2011). A Short History of England. London: Profile.
Kirchner, Walther (1991). Western Civilization from 1500. New York: HarperCollins.
Koyré, Alexandre (1957). From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe. Baltimore: John Hopkins Press.
Kramnick, Isaac (Ed.) (1995). The Portable Enlightenment Reader. New York. Penguin.
Locke, John (1997). An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. London: Penguin.
Mach, Ernst (2011). Analysis of Sensations. Lexington: Forgotten Books.
Milton, John (2000). Paradise Lost. London: Penguin.
Orwell, George (1994). Essays. London: Penguin.
Pocock, J. G. A. (1975). The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Poe, Edgar Allen (1980). Selected Tales. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Saint Augustin (1982). Confessions. Evreux: Seuil.
Shakespeare, William (1993). Hamlet. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth.
Shakespeare, William (2004). King Lear. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth.
Open Review
1. Andrey Andreev, New Bulgarian University
Publons https://publons.com/a/1208840|Reviewer Profile
Review Verified on Publons: https://publons.com/author/review/2ok1rc2a
Review content:
The manuscript is an original contribution in that it brings together knowledge from diverse areas of scholarly study to re-examine a timeless literary work.
The research problem is important, as it relates to an author whose work is constantly being reinterpreted and reevaluated, and the purpose is clearly and well defined.
The author makes innovative use of a wide range of sources and successfully brings together diverse theoretical frameworks.
The methodological approaches are perfectly suitable to the subject matter under exploration.
The inferences and conclusions are well supported and organized, and highly convincing. The implications are clearly implicated.
The manuscript is very well-written and highly readable; the argument is coherent and well presented, and the style is perfectly suitable to the purpose.
The article can be enjoyed by both a specialized audience and by readers from across disciplines.
2.
Reviewer's name: Undisclosed
Review content: Undisclosed
Handling Editor: Stan Bogdanov
Verified Editor Record on Publons: https://publons.com/publon/833493