(Part 11) Cordelia is about her father's business in Shakespeare's King Lear

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INDEX OF POSTS IN THIS SERIES:
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2023/01/index-hamlet-in-32-as-boy-jesus-lost.html
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This series has considered Hamlet’s allusion to Luke 2:46-52, the tale of the boy Jesus amazing temple elders and his parents.[1] Last week we considered a similar thematic echo in Macbeth, when the son of Lady Macduff amazes and humors his mother with wit and grace while also catching her conscience, like a court fool.

But Hamlet and Macbeth are not the only Shakespeare plays that echo or allude to the Luke 2 story: King Lear contains an allusion to this gospel story, spoken by Lear’s exiled daughter, Cordelia.[2]

We might recall how in Luke 2, Jesus tells his parents that he went to the temple because he had to be about his (heavenly) “father’s business.”

Hamlet also believes he must be about his father’s business, but he is confused, at first striving reluctantly to be about the ghost’s business of revenge;
after a Jonah-like sea-voyage to England, he may think he finds a heavenly father in Providence;
later still, in the graveyard, he meets a gravedigger reminiscent of the fool Yorick, and finds the skull of the fool, who many note was a kind of emotional surrogate father figure to Hamlet.

Which father-figure’s business should Hamlet be about? The ghost’s revenge? The generosity and mercy of Providence? The wit, playfulness, and truth-telling of the fool, Yorick?

Shakespeare thereby challenges his audiences and readers: What does it mean to be about a father’s business? If one lives in a monarchy under a king who is viewed as a representative on earth of a heavenly father-figure, what if one’s duty to a heavenly father seems to conflict with one’s duty to a king, tyrant, or earthly father?

After Lear exiles Cordelia, he slowly goes mad, feeling mistreated by his other two more selfish and ambitious daughters. Cordelia has married the King of France, but she hears of her father’s plight and arrives near the cliffs of Dover to try to help her father.

Here is the passage with the allusion:

CORDELIA: O dear father,
It is thy business that I go about.
Therefore great France / My mourning and importuned tears hath pitied.
No blown ambition doth our arms incite,
But love, dear love, and our aged father’s right.
Soon may I hear and see him. (4.4.26-32) [3]

The father whose business Cordelia is about is, of course, her biological father, King Lear, who has been suffering a sort of figurative purgatory that makes him a better human being, perhaps a better representative of a heavenly king on earth.

Hamlet goes through a similar process of sin and figurative purgatory as he learns to be about a heavenly father’s business, or Yorick’s business, instead of merely the business of revenge. Perhaps this allows him to reconcile with Laertes instead of trying to damn him after the sword poisons him, as was his goal with Claudius?


(NEXT WEEK: TRY THIS AT HOME, OR IN YOUR CLASSROOM)


NOTES:
[1] Posts in this series:

(Part 1) Hamlet as the Boy Jesus among Temple Elders
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2023/01/hamlet-as-boy-jesus-among-synagogue.html

(Part 2) Hamlet as boy Jesus among Temple Elders: Historical-Artistic Background
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2023/02/hamlet-as-boy-jesus-among-temple-elders.html

(Part 3) Hamlet as the boy Jesus among Temple Elders: A closer look
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2023/02/hamlet-as-boy-jesus-among-temple-elders_14.html

(Part 4 ) Dissonance and Irony in Hamlet's 3.2 Allusion to Luke 2
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2023/02/part-4-dissonance-and-irony-in-hamlets.html

(Part 5) The targets of Hamlet's 3.2 ironic allusion to Luke 2:46-52
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2023/02/part-5-targets-of-hamlets-32-ironic.html

(Part 6) Hamlet in 3.2 as the boy Jesus among temple elders: Plucking mysteries' hearts?
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2023/03/part-6-hamlet-in-32-as-boy-jesus.html

(Part 7) Hamlet’s allusion in 3.2 to the boy Jesus: Hamlet as Abbott, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as Costellos?
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2023/03/part-7-hamlets-allusion-in-32-to-boy.html

(Part 8) Hamlet in 3.2 as the boy Jesus: Why has this been missed?
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2023/03/part-8-hamlet-in-32-as-boy-jesus-why.html

(Part 9) Twisting the tale of the boy Jesus in the temple: Bishop Jewell, official book of homilies
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2023/04/part-9-twisting-tale-of-boy-jesus-in.html

(Part 10) A Boy Amazing Elders (and audience) in Shakespeare's Macbeth
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2023/04/part-10-boy-amazes-mother-in.html

(Part 11) Cordelia in 4.4 is about her father's business in Shakespeare's King Lear
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2023/04/part-11-cordelia-in-44-is-about-her.html

(Part 12) TRY THIS: One Method for Considering Biblical Allusions
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2023/05/part-12-try-this-one-method-for.html

INDEX OF POSTS IN THIS SERIES:
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2023/01/index-hamlet-in-32-as-boy-jesus-lost.html

[2] Scholars have long noted a link between the fool in King Lear and the character of Cordelia: The fool doesn't enter until Cordelia is in France, so the same actor who played Cordelia may have also played the role of the fool, a meaningful doubling of roles. Similarly, Hamlet plays the court fool at times, and the son of Lady Macduff also acts as a kind of court fool to his mother as noted in last week's post.

[3] I am citing here from the Folger Shakespeare Library online edition of King Lear: https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/king-lear/read/


IMAGES:
Left: Lily Santiago as Cordelia and Patrick Page as King Lear in King Lear. Photo by DJ Corey Photography. Shakespeare Theatre Company, via DCTheaterArts.org. Fair use. https://dctheaterarts.org/2023/03/13/right-now-at-shakespeare-theatre-patrick-page-is-a-lear-for-the-ages/


Right: Lily Santiago as Cordelia and Patrick Page as King Lear in King Lear. Via Shakespeare Theatre Company, via Patrick Page’s FaceBook post, April 14, 2023, 2:43 pm. Fair use.
https://www.facebook.com/iffood/posts/pfbid0gbpnsAipy3aGzwTF3qhxW1G3xa869pCaxhUuTkcu7UmLU3WXDEsw1hk9HuE2n7wnl


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Disclaimer: If and when I quote or paraphrase bible passages or mention religion in many of my blog posts, I do not intend to promote any religion over another, nor am I attempting to promote religious belief in general; only to explore how the Bible and religion influenced Shakespeare, his plays, and his age.
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