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Michael McShane, associate professor of Great Ideas and philosophy, will present a Hannibal Lecture on Wednesday, March 12. His lecture, titled “The Life of Cordelia in Shakespeare’s King Lear,” will begin at 4:15 p.m. in Hedberg Library’s Niemann Media Center.

A young woman named Cordelia dies violently in Shakespeare’s King Lear. Audiences have functionally rejected her shocking death; critics agonize over it. To think of Cordelia’s death, one must see her life. It is almost invisible, but Cordelia does live fully, although not for the 18 years — or whatever — of her animal existence. She lives — really lives — for all of one gorgeous, terrifying moment.

Framed in the drama is Cordelia’s minute-short lifespan. It burns with intensest vitality. The gods themselves stand awed by her transcendent humanity. Cordelia achieves more human life in one crisis moment, perhaps, than many of us will manage across our whole allotment of 78.7 years.** Then Cordelia is a hero.

(**Source: Center for Disease Control, U.S. Gov’t: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lifexpec.htm)