Disowning Knowledge
Stanley Cavell’s essays on seven Shakespeare plays, including King Lear, Othello, Hamlet and Coriolanus. He reads the tragedies alongside the philosophical problem of scepticism, arguing that the characters’ refusal to accept what they know of one another is what destroys them.
Recommended by 1 Person
Adam Haslett
I think that this is a compelling reading of the play. Cavell also explains why Edmund doesn’t reveal his identity to Gloucester while he is leading his blind father across the heath. To be recognised by his father at that moment would make clear his own lack of trust in him, having not gone to him at the outset of the play to ask about Edmund’s claims about their father.
Interview · July 2010
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