@article{oai:nagoya.repo.nii.ac.jp:00027887,
 author = {Hachitori, Yoshiaki},
 journal = {IVY},
 month = {Oct},
 note = {This paper investigates King Lear from the viewpoint of representation. Indeed, King Lear displays the problems of representation in different ways. Moreover, it emphasizes the limits of representation in particular. Therefore, the full investigation of these problems can throw new light on this play. Lear's abdication and his division of the realm intensify various aspects of instability in the kingdom. Two characteristics of the kingdom illustrate its instability more clearly. First, it is basically a political fiction. Accordingly, discourses and visual images always have to actualize it. Second, it is the world of representation. As a king, someone should represent the kingdom and its authority and sacredness. Thus, it strongly depends on representation. These characteristics make the kingdom potentially unstable, especially after Lear's reckless abdication. Lear starts his tragedy through his ignorance of these instabilities concerning the kingdom. Then the problems of three characters, that is, Edmund, Lear, and Gloucester, are respectively analyzed. To begin with, concerning Edmund, it is insight that characterizes him. In fact, his skepticism gives him an insight into the institutional mechanism of the kingdom. He also shows an insight into the problem of representation in general. This insight enables him to plot treacheries by using letters. But Edgar finally ruins him. In the kingdom, even Edmund cannot be invulnerable. Next, what characterizes Lear and Gloucester is blind faith in representation. Because of this faith, they cannot directly face reality: reality dissolves in illusion. But when their fortunes are declining, they acquire a new form of vision or insight. Through their bodies，especially their physical nakedness and blindness, Lear and Gloucester respectively come to face reality. Furthermore, they finally reach a new realm of experience which is beyond representation. Nevertheless, as the play develops, the situation grows worse. In order to give meaning and order to the world, Edgar, Albany, and Kent attempt to re-present it. But reality surpasses representation. So all their attempts end in failure. Thus, for them, the world becomes deformed. And they have to accept it in all its irrationality. At the same time, the kingdom loses its representational character. After Lear's death, it is no longer certain who, as a king, represents the kingdom and its authority and sacredness. This problem is left suspended. To the kingdom, the crisis of representation suggests its own crisis. So the last scene deeply implies its decline end fall., This is the expanded and revised version of the paper read at the 45th General Meeting of the English Literary Society of Japan, Chubu, October 2, 1993.},
 pages = {1--19},
 title = {The Limits of Representation in King Lear},
 volume = {27},
 year = {1994}
}