King Lear and Dr. Watson

Shakespeare , Buddha , and King Lear Melvin Sterne

Given Shakespeare's status as "the secular Bible," it is surprising that his work has not been examined more closely to consider its spiritual teachings. As Buddhist studies increase in popularity in the West, more and more Buddhist scholars are being drawn to evaluate Shakespeare's work in light of Buddhist traditions. Of special interest today is the perception of Shakespeare's works as point...

Tragic Pleasure in Shakespeare's King Lear and Othello

Introduction The consideration of tragic pleasure is old, harkening back to contemporary critique of Greek tragedy. It is reasonable, however, to believe that no one, from then to now, has been able to deliberate upon the subject of delight in the portrayal of suffering while excluding all reference to reader response. Even if only implicitly conveyed, the focus of tragic pleasure is studying w...

Metaphorized Animals: an Investigation of Animal Metaphors in King Lear

Conceptual Theory of Metaphor (CTM), first proposed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980), is an approach to metaphor which releases it from the bounds of language and instead places it in the domain of cognition. According to this approach, metaphor and cognition are in a bilateral relationship, that is, each metaphor has a cognitive basis and conceptualization in the mind mostly takes place via metaph...

King Lear — centring on the theme of “Nothing”

Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born into the closed society of segregated Georgia, a grandson of sharecroppers not far removed from America's original sin of slavery. This year, he is being honored a day before Barack Obama will place his hand on Abraham Lincoln's Bible and take the oath of office as the nation's first black president. "The arc of history is long," King reminded us, "but ...