King Lear Shakespeare's Dark Consolations

A book on the experience of reading Shakespeare's 'dark plays'.

As part of the My Reading series, King Lear is a personal meditation on a great literary work. Arthur W. Frank brings a career of studying illness and suffering to consider how King Lear can aid people whose lives need help. Reading King Lear leads Frank to an encounter with his own old age and provides a source of consolation and companionship. This book does not try to minimize vulnerabilities, but it shows what is fully human, and thus shared, in suffering. The book introduces readers to King Lear and it invites those who know the play to a new consideration for its ability to affect people's lives.

Arthur W. Frank, Professor Emeritus, University of Calgary

Arthur W. Frank received his doctorate in sociology from Yale in 1975 and spent his career teaching at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada. After his retirement in 2013, he taught in Norway; throughout his career he has lectured internationally and held visiting professorships in Australia, England, and Japan. His work has focused on the experience of serious illness, beginning with his memoir, At the Will of the Body, and his most cited work, The Wounded Storyteller. His most recent book was Letting Stories Breathe (2010). He is an elected member of the Royal Society of Canada and recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Canadian Bioethics Society.

Prologue: A Tale of Two Families1. Vulnerable Reading2. The Unravelling3. The Refuge of Second Selves4. The Lost, the Mad, and the Image of Horror5. Reconciliations6. Living With an Unpromised End7. How King Lear Helps8. Tragic SharingCoda: In Place of the JigNotesSelected Additional ReadingAcknowledgementsIndex