“Who is it that can tell me who I am?”: King Lear as a Feoffor and His Symbolic Violence

초록

This essay explores the role of Lear as a feoffor and his symbolic violence represented in William Shakespeare’s King Lear. King Lear plays the role of a feoffor (trustor) who formally offers his daughters a conditional transfer of land through territorial division. He is also situated within a socio-economic context that compels him to rely on customary law, which possesses only weak legal binding power. Owing to this precarious legal framework, when the trustees, Regan and Goneril, violate their trust toward Lear, the beneficiary, he has no means of legal protection. Thus, Lear’s symbolic violence against his daughters can be interpreted as a sublimated expression of his realization that honor is no longer secured through the symbolic power derived from land ownership or transfer.

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