'And Thou, All-Shaking Thunder'

In the dramas of Shakespeare, the madman and the fool speak in prose; wisdom and sanity are properly poeticised. King Lear is no exception. This theological notation to a few lines at the heart of the play goes some way in illuminating the crucial moment of Lear's descent into madness, the fracturing of his blank verse into prose: Is the storm on the heath a representation of the turmoil of his mind? Or is it a theophany, the manifestation of divine displeasure at human foolishness? Finding the theological tradition between the verse and prose will permit the negotiation of these questions and shed light on the peculiar wisdom of poetry for Christianity.

William C. Hackett is Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at Belmont University. He is the co-author of Quiet Powers of the Possible: Interviews in Contemporary French Phenomenology (2016) and the translator of several theological/philosophical works from French to English. Most recently: Jeah Wahl, Human Existence and Transcendence (2017).