The Amorous Heart by Marilyn Yalom

Author:Marilyn Yalom
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2018-01-09T00:00:00+00:00

KING LEAR, THE GREATEST OF SHAKESPEARE’S TRAGEDIES, has at its core the theme of filial love experienced in two parallel families: the foursome made up of Lear and his three daughters—Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia—and the threesome consisting of Gloucester and his two sons, Edmund and Edgar. Put simplistically, the “good hearts” belong to Cordelia, Kent, Edgar, and Gloucester, and the “bad hearts” to Goneril, Regan, Cornwall, and Edmund. The very name Cordelia means “goddess of the heart.” And Lear’s heart? His “father’s heart,” his “rising heart,” his “frank heart,” to use his own words, will live to see the revolt of his “daughters’ hearts / Against their father” and his own heart “break into a hundred thousand flaws.”

In Act I Lear foolishly displays his need for lavish demonstrations of his daughters’ filial love. At first he is satisfied when two of them, Goneril and Regan, claim to love him more than words can tell. But when his youngest and most beloved Cordelia is asked to flatter him in a manner similar to her sisters’, she answers only:

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