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The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

Ep. 242: Stanley Cavell on Tragedy via King Lear (Part Two)

The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

Mark Linsenmayer

Casey, Paskin, Philosophy, Linsenmayer, Society & Culture, Alwan

4.62.3K Ratings

🗓️ 4 May 2020

⏱️ 44 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Continuing on Cavell's essay "The Avoidance of Love: A Reading of King Lear" (1969), shifting away from Lear in particular to a more general discussion of tragedy and Cavell's psychological insights.

Begin with Part One or get the ad-free, unbroken Citizen Edition. Please support PEL!

End song: "Out of Your Hands" by Gretchen's Wheel, i.e., Lindsay Murray, as interviewed for Nakedly Examined Music #81.

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:23.0

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0:56.0

We've been working with King Lear in part one.

1:00.0

We discussed Kovale's reading of King Lear and how that was related to shame and the avoidance of recognizing oneself.

1:07.0

Recognizing others, we're going to finish up that reading and then we're going to get it into the second part or really the second two thirds of this essay, which falls more general reflections on tragedy and other things.

1:20.0

So Aaron, did you want to lead us? I know you had something in mind.

1:24.0

The way Kovale wraps up his reading.

1:26.0

He talks about scapegoat at the end, about people scapegoating each other.

1:31.0

I don't know if we want to talk about that first and then go into the fact that he talks about how there are two points of hope at the end of the play.

1:39.0

But he takes a particularly bleak view of the end of the play and says that effort essentially to say that Lear has success learned empathy is not true.

1:48.0

The problem of it is the fact that Lear doesn't learn empathy.

1:52.0

He's still trying to hide himself.

1:55.0

He is able to accept Cordelia's love but only on the premise that they can carry out their love for each other in prison away from other people's eyes.

2:04.0

In one way, Kovale comes back to, well, I guess it's a theme recognition, the theme of seeing.

2:11.0

So the conventional thing in Lear that's plainly obvious is that there's something about the play that's about seeing or in recognizing.

...

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