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The Problem Of Love And Codes Of Conduct For The Younger Courtiers In King Lear, Debora L. Pfeiffer

Masters Theses

The courtiers Edmund and Edgar are critical to the action of King Lear, yet there has been little scholarship which has treated these characters in depth. I argue that one way to comprehend them and their significance in the play's action is to analyze their behavior according to the standards of the Renaissance conduct books that were circulating in England at the beginning of the seventeenth century when the play was written. Baldassare Castigligone's The Book of the Courtier, Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince, and Desiderius Erasmus's The Education of a Christian Prince each sheds light on important themes …