Review

"A confident and rigorous interdisciplinary study juxtaposing literary criticism, cultural theory, and legal studies." -- Choice

"What is original here, and extremely useful, is the sense of the way the political, as represented especially by the order of law, plays out its meaning at every turn, in every character and situation of this play." David Young, Oberlin College

Product Description

Offering a powerful new interpretation of Shakespeare's masterpiece, Kahn reads the play as a meditation on political psychology. King Lear, he argues, juxtaposes the necessities of love to those of the state and finds only incommensurability. Neither law nor love can include the other. This is an original, thorough, and clearly written interdisciplinary work that offers not only surprising new readings of all the major characters in the play, it also expands the horizons of literary studies by introducing the legal imagination.