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Augustineâ€™s Confessions and Shakespeareâ€™s King Lear: Power, Parenthood, and Presence

By (author) Kim Paffenroth

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Paffenroth returns to two of the most quintessentially commanding yet vulnerable protagonists in the Western canon â€“ Augustine, the real life, fifth century bishop of Hippo, known to us mostly through his own telling of his life in Confessions; and King Lear, the legendary king of Briton, known to us mostly from Shakespeareâ€™s version of his tragic end. Having examined problems addressed in both works of love, language, nature, and reason, Paffenroth here picks up more purely relational matters: both protagonists wield (or have wielded) power over others, yet struggle to learn its right application; both raise children, but have deeply problematic relations with their children, their partners, and (in the case of Augustine at least) their parents; neither has an intuitive or unproblematic relationship with a fully present God or gods â€“ Augustine struggles mightily to have such, while Lear cries out to heaven but it is unclear he ever gets a reply. As different as the books and men are, how they relate to women and God shows illuminating and complementary points of comparison.