Levinas and King Lear: On the Infinity of Love

by Alec Abarro

King Lear is one of my favorite Shakespearean tragedies. It opens as the King Lear, wanting to retire, holds a contest between his three daughters so he can decide how to divide his kingdom between them. Yet what kind of contest does the old king hold? King Lear’s idea was to give the largest portion of his kingdom to the daughter who loves him the most. Each daughter must give a speech in front of an audience on how much she loves the king—her father.

Immediately, we see something off here. Can love really be quantified with words? And moreso, knowing that that there is a price depending on how eloquently well you display your love, and having ostentatious display in front and an audience poisons the purity of the emotion and the bond your have with your father. By placing love in a context of competition, love decays. In fact, King Lear’s only good daughter, the one who truly loves him, says to herself:

CORDELIA

(aside) Then poor Cordelia!
And yet not so, since I am sure my love’s
More ponderous than my tongue.

Cordelia pities herself, since she knows this “game of love” is not something she can win, or want to participate it. Yet, Cordelia also acknowledges that she isn’t so pitiable, for she recognizes the infinity of love, and the inability of language to entirely express the richness of the affection, and most especially, the bond she has with her father. So when King Lear calls her, Cordelia can only remark, “Nothing, my Lord.”

“Nothing?” King Lear asks, baffled. Cordelia repeats her answer, “Nothing.” Yet the old king urges her on, How? Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again.” Cordelia replies:

CORDELIA

Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth. I love your majesty
According to my bond, no more nor less.

Cordelia beautifully echoes her earlier notion of the richness of the being of love,

“I cannot heave my heart into my mouth.”

In my own words, Cordelia is saying,

I cannot lift my affections for it is too rich and too heavy for the pull of language!

King Lear doesn’t see the truth of Cordelia’s love, even if he knows that Cordelia is the daughter who loves him most, all because King Lear is too interested in display. Unknown to himself, the old king has totalized and reduced the love of the daughter who loved him truly.

His good servant Kent warns him:

KENT

Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least,
Nor are those empty-hearted whose low sound
Reverbs no hollowness.

Kent gives us the image of a container. A full container when tapped, makes little or no sound. While an empty container when tapped, reverbs and echoes. The three daughters, the older two, having an empty heart, yielded a loud display of eloquence. So when King Lear knocked on the hollow hearts of Goneril and Regan, so did their words echoed loudly, telling us that they contained no substance, only barren words; and when King Lear knocked on Cordelia, whose heart is brimming and true, she barely yielded a sound at all.

Let us recall the secret of the fox, “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” Or in King Lear’s case, what is essential is inaudible to the ear. In life, we learn that the most important things are always found beyond the senses.

So what did King Lear do? He disowned and banished the only daughter who loved him. The same fate happened to his good, loyal servant Kent. How did they respond? Kent, knowing full well that Cordelia married the King of France, informs a nearby French camp of King Lear’s plight brought about by the cruelty of his two elder daughters. Kent learns that the French already had dispatched an army, lead on by Cordelia, to take back King Lear’s kingdom and save her father. Kent also takes on a disguise to tend to the disheveled King Lear wandering in a storm, completely afflicted by madness. Despite everything, Cordelia and Kent, driven by love and loyalty, still went out of themselves and took on a responsibility for King Lear.

In the beginning, the reason for King Lear’s retirement was that he wants to enjoy all the benefits of being King but without the responsibility that comes along with it, and this self-interestedness caused a war and the deaths of the people around him. Kent could only look on as King Lear died, who—in a brief moment of sanity—held the dead body of his daughter, Cordelia.

LEAR

And my poor fool is hanged.—No, no, no life?
Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life,
And thou no breath at all? Oh, thou'lt come no more,
Never, never, never, never, never.—

If King Lear had recognized the infinite and his responsibility for the Other as father, as King, and as a human being, would all have ended on a much happier note?