© Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca Azafea. Rev. filos. 16, 2014, pp. 73-93 ISSN: 0213-3563 SHAME, RECOGNITION AND LOVE IN SHAKESPEARE’S KING LEAR Vergüenza, reconocimiento y amor en El Rey Lear de Shakespeare Alba MONTES SÁNCHEZ Marie Curie Early Stage Researcher Center for Subjectivity Research (University of Copenhagen) BIBLID [(0213-356)16, 2014, 73-93] Recibido: 4 de agosto de 2014 Aceptado: 5 de septiembre de 2014 ABSTRACT In this paper, I explore the experience of shame and its connections to recognition and love as manifested in Shakespeare’s King Lear. My main focus in this paper is the ethical relevance of shame. I start from Sartre’s account of shame in Being and Nothingness, and I consider Webber’s attempt to reformulate it in terms of bad faith. I reject this and propose a way to rethink shame through a study of the workings of recognition in King Lear, following Stanley Cavell’s reading of this tragedy. I claim that the experience of shame has a relational structure, which makes it a crucial part of our ethical sensibility. My analysis of King Lear brings out this structure and underlines the ethical significance of shame at this structural level, by highlighting its connection to recognition and love. Key words: Shame; Love; Recognition; Bad faith; Freedom; Moral emotions; Jean-Paul Sartre; Stanley Cavell; King Lear. RESUMEN En este trabajo exploro la experiencia de sentir vergüenza y sus conexiones con el reconocimiento y el amor tal y como se ponen de manifiesto en El Rey