• Human Insufficiency and the Politics of Accommodation in King Lear

    Author(s):
    Jeffrey Griswold (see profile)
    Date:
    2019
    Group(s):
    CLCS Renaissance and Early Modern, LLC Shakespeare
    Subject(s):
    Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616, Literature--Philosophy
    Item Type:
    Article
    Tag(s):
    Shakespeare, Philosophy and literature
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/bk5b-nf32
    Abstract:
    By contextualizing the trope of the "unaccommodated man" within Aristotelian notions of insufficiency, this article demonstrates that King Lear theorizes a communitarian politics, rather than one founded in sovereign authority. For late sixteen-century thinkers such as Richard Hooker, Pierre La Primaudaye, and Robert Persons, the vulnerability of the human body provided a material account of the political animal. Our physical weakness requires the accommodation of other people. Our physiology binds us to political bodies through material insufficiency. King Lear engages this discourse, asking whether humans exist primarily as individuals or are mutually constituted. That is, can we live without society?
    Metadata:
    xml
    Published as:
    Journal article     Show details
    Pub. DOI:
    https://doi-org.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/10.1086/702989
    Publisher:
    University of Chicago Press
    Pub. Date:
    2019-5-8
    Journal:
    Renaissance Drama
    Volume:
    47
    Issue:
    1
    Page Range:
    73 - 94
    ISSN:
    0486-3739,2164-3415
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    3 years ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved

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