Abstract
The essay highlights the meaning of Cordelia’s silence, within the plot of King Lear, in relation to the category of “cynicism”, outlined in contemporary philosophy by Michel Foucault and Peter Sloterdijk. Through the studies of David Hershinow and Massimo Cacciari about King Lear, the dialectical nature of cynicism becomes evident: on the one hand cynicism in its immoral and negative connotation, and on the other hand kinism as revolutionary rejection of public conventions.