Today, I read Shakespeare’s King Lear (1606). The play is all about succession and the relationships between fathers and their children.
It made me think that I should focus my interpretive efforts on what I’ll call Covenantal Shakespeare, a survey of Shakespeare’s great tragedies through the themes of the covenant. The syllabus would look this way.
Sovereignty: Julius Caesar (1599)…the tragedy about who is “god” in Roman society: the emperor, the republic, or some deity.
Hierarchy: Richard II (1595)…the tragedy about hierarchy in a Christian kingdom and what is and is not the proper way to depose a king
Ethics: Hamlet (1601)…the tragedy about whether or not you should avenge your father’s murder
Sanctions: Macbeth (1606)…the tragedy about the consequences of capturing the throne the wrong way
Succession: King Lear (1606)…the tragedy about the importance of kingdom transition
My goal: think through the theological ramifications of the covenant for five specific works. In the process, I would move from providing notes for each play to offering arguments for a group of works.
I’ll be posting drafted sections of this each Friday.
Experiments in Criticism 