Political Power And Virtue

Shakespeare,whose works contain rich and profound political thoughts,has carefully designed political backgrounds in almost all his plays,whether it is the glorious battle of Agincourt in Henry Ⅴ or the enchanting summer night in A Midsummer Night’s Dream,or the stormy heath in King Lear,all of which are mixed with political elements: the King’s palaces,the nobles’ fortresses,the tottering regime,etc.Shakespeare,from chronicle plays to tragedies,concentrating on the change of royal families and dynastic wars,almost touches on the subject of monarchs in the Renaissance.Namely,Shakespeare has keen insights into the society and political life in in a dramatic way.The literary tradition of "specula principum" is dramatically followed by King Lear in which the conflicts of the main characters all revolve around the struggle for kingship.Shakespeare outlines three different types of rules with the help of the dramatic plots: Lear and Cordelia represent the "Christian princes" shaped by Erasmus,with the highest Christian and classical virtues;Edmund,Goneril and Regan represent Machiavelli’s "new princes",who are committed to the principle "the end justifying the means";Different from the above,Shakespeare’s ideal princes in King Lear offer a new type of national governance,typified by Albany and Edgar who stand on the opposite side of the perfect "Christian Prince" and cannot be a complete Machiavellian,struggling to balance social conflicts and maintain social order.Supported by Machiavelli and Erasmus’ s princely thoughts,and relying on the dramatic plots,this thesis analyzes the reasons for the failure of the "new prince" and "Christian prince" in the play and reveals their limitations in the real rule.On the other hand,it also looks at how Shakespeare’s ideal princes rebuild a new order in the conflict between political power and virtue.Chapter One discusses two "Christian princes" in King Lear,represented by Lear and Cordelia.Actually,Lear displays the qualities of a virtuous king.When dividing his kingdom into three parts,he strives for absolute fairness,generosity,and trustworthiness.That is to say,he is Erasmus’ s ideal king with noble characters.However,in using the "love test" to achieve distributive justice,Lear ignores the limitations of the king’s virtue and separates his two roles as king and father,which harms the interests of the king and the state.Cordelia always adheres to herself and rejects flattery,but she fails to realize that the "love test" is actually a serious political exercise,so her moral stubbornness is one of the main reasons for the disintegration of the kingdom.Chapter Two explores three "new princes" in King Lear.Edmund,Goneril,and Regan are typical Machiavellians,abandoning the traditional morality to defraud the kingship and launching wars to maintain the regime with violence,and all go to ruin in the end.Chapter Three probes into the ideal princes constructed by Shakespeare in the play.In a few lines of the last act,Albany invites Edgar to govern the state together,which reflects that Albany and Edgar meet the requirements of Shakespeare’s ideal princes: loyalty to the state,wisdom and virtue,extraordinary courage and strategy.Even though not as pure and virtuous as Lear and Cordelia,they embody a fresh and positive force in political bleakness and offer a better combination of political power and kingly virtue.To sum up,Shakespeare creates King Lear in a particular historical context,and its interpretation often involves real political references.The thesis intends to regard Shakespeare as a serious political philosopher,reproduce the complex situation that the"Christian prince" and "new prince" in the late Renaissance must deal with,and explore Shakespeare’s image of the ideal princes from the text.