LEAR AND PROSPERO: FROM THE PROJECTIVE TO THE INTROJECTIVE MODE

ABSTRACT My thesis is that King Lear and The Tempest , seen together, offer a map of the trajectory of psychic process from the projective to the introjective mode. Lear remains psychically unseparate, both from his daughters, who constitute a split maternal object, and from kingship, with which he is in projective identification. The Tempest , six years later, takes up and reworks to their resolution the same themes. Prospero learns to separate from Miranda, forgives his enemies, and relinquishes the rewards that come from narcissistic pseudopotency, in his case afforded by magic powers.