Freud on Macbeth?
roland
Being interested in Freud's theories in general I would like to ask if
anyone has got any ideas of how Freud would have looked upon Macbeth -
The-Play-Of-The-Month. Does anyone know of any classical freudian
interpretations and where to find it? Or maybe someone has got one of
his/her own. I would very much like to hear it.
Sounds like my homework, but I'm too old for that, I'm afraid :)
Roland Heiel
A West
roland (roland...@swipnet.se) wrote:
: Being interested in Freud's theories in general I would like to ask if
OK, I've got a pseudo-Freudian interpretation for you here - which I
don't entirely believe...
Lady Macbeth is not the world's most feminine person in the world, and
asks the spirits to "unsex" her because she has serious penis envy.
Consequently, she even has an Oedipus complex, as represented by the fact
that she intends to kill Duncan, but cannot because he looks like her
father; and the taboo on patricide rises to the surface once more.
However, we have to remember that, initially at least, she does desire to
do this.
Perhaps there is a case for saying that Fleance was all too ready to
leave Banquo for dead, because he wished to sleep with his mother. And
perhaps we can also make something fishy out of Macduff's son's
relationship with Lady Macduff.
And Hamlet slept with Gertrude...
Alex West (female)
aw6...@bristol.ac.uk
William Ryan
Ms. West et al:
Anyone for a "Bad Freud" contest (something similar to the annual "Bad
Hemmingway Contest")? We could pick one of the Bard's plays ("Hamlet" is
too obvious -- say, "Midsummer Night's Dream") and ask entrants to limit
their Freudian interpretations to 500 words or less.
Galicia
A West <aw6...@ncs.bris.ac.uk> wrote in article
<E9rFw...@fsa.bris.ac.uk>...
> Galicia (atba...@mindspring.com) wrote:
> : Ms. West:
> :
> : Bravo! BUT you did neglect one thing: the obvious phallic imagery in
> : scene on the parapet "Is this not a dagger I see before me, handle
turned
> : toward my hand . . ." Lady Macbeth unsexes herself and spawns the
> : imaginary bodkin that draws the Thane onward to murder the symbolic
father
> : (Duncan) and marry the symbolic wife (to whom he is already married,
but
> : that is of no consequence), who is, consequently, the symbolic
daughter
> : stricken at once with unsexed Oedipal feelings AND an Electra complex.
She
> : realizes her murderous Oedipal desires vicariously through her husband
and
> : then sleeps with the new king/father who is, incidentally, her
husband,
> : who has usurped the throne in Oedipal manner. Thus, the circle is
> : complete, save for its consummation. Macbeth, once again without his
> : dagger, cannot consummate the new union with his own wife. (She,
> : however, does consider herself married to the father, hence her guilt
at
> : the evidence of her symbolic deflowering -- "out damned spot".)
> : Compulsively, he turns against all males who threaten his fragile
> : masculinity and murder them as he can in order to achieve a sexual
> : fulfillment that perpetually eludes him. In the end, he is
overwhelmed by
> : a vast army of men carrying trees (phallic symbols) and dies by
beheading
> : (symbolic castration).
> :
> : God, what a Freudian romp! Are there any Reichians or Jungians or
Monty
> : Pythons out there who could enlighten us further?
> :
> :
> : G.
> :
>
>
> Touche!
> Alex West.
>
>
A West
William Ryan (atba...@mindspring.com) wrote:
: Ms. West et al:
:
: Anyone for a "Bad Freud" contest (something similar to the annual "Bad
: Hemmingway Contest")? We could pick one of the Bard's plays ("Hamlet" is
: too obvious -- say, "Midsummer Night's Dream") and ask entrants to limit
: their Freudian interpretations to 500 words or less.
:
: Galicia
Good idea. But I'll have to see what my father thinks.
Alex West.
roland
This might be a double post, but I can't find it so I may be excused if
you have seen it before. So here it is again, a bit changed, though.
This is very good and great fun. Thank you for your contributions.
Obviously you know a great deal about the theories anyway!
Of course it's easy to make fun of Freud, and some interpretations makes me
laugh (many great thinkers have been used by others and much have been said
by freudians in the name of Freud)
I wouldn't call myself a freudian (whatever that is) but I'm interested in
the subconscious, which Freud gave us (at least the definition of it). So
why must it always come to daggers and swords when Freud is
on the carpet? It often goes to extremes if you apply _all_ of someone's
theories on _everything_. What I am interested in is how Shakespeare's
subconscious (because he had one too, hadnt he?) works in his plays.
William Ryan suggested a "Bad Freud" contest. I think that's the
daggers-and-sword-level. I'd rather have a "Good Freud" contest.
BTW, I remember having read someone suggesting the weird sister to be a
projection of Macbeth's subconscious. Anyone interested in expanding on
that?
Roland Heiel
Galicia <atba...@mindspring.com> skrev i inlägg
/SNIP/
Caius Marcius
In <01bc589e$c66adb20$6795f482@default> "roland"
<roland...@swipnet.se> writes:
>
> Being interested in Freud's theories in general I would like to
ask if
>anyone has got any ideas of how Freud would have looked upon Macbeth -
>The-Play-Of-The-Month. Does anyone know of any classical freudian
>interpretations and where to find it? Or maybe someone has got one of
>his/her own. I would very much like to hear it.
>Sounds like my homework, but I'm too old for that, I'm afraid :)
Several folks who have responded to this post feel that any Freudian
treatemnt of the play must be by definition ridiculous. I hope show
that that isn't necessarily the case.
In his 1915 essay "Some Character Types Met with in Analytic Work",
Freud offers an extended digression on MacBeth and more particularly,
Lady MacBeth. He begins by observing that, while much neurosis is
attributable to frustration (whether of realistic or unrealistic
goals), there are cases in which severe mental disturbance seems to
occur "precisely because a deeply-rooted and long-cherished wish has
come to fulfillment". He cites a couple of cases from his clinical
practice - of a young woman who "went to pieces" on the eve of a
longed-for marriage, and of a scholar who sank into a deep depression
"which unsuited him for all activity" just as he was to assume the
chair of his department. "It seems they could not endure their bliss"
- Freud goes on to say that for any goal for which one might seek,
there may be both external and internal (i.e, mental) obstacles. As
long as the external obstacles exist, the internal obstacles may remain
undetected - but once the external obstacles are removed, the internal
obstacles come to the fore.
I will quote the entire section of this essay that deals with MacBeth.
It seems to me to be quite insightful and free of dogmatism, and you
can see that Freud can discuss the hallucinatory dagger without turning
it into a phallus.
It should be noted that Freud rated Shakespeare, along with Goethe and
Schiller, as the greatest of poet/dramatists, and was able to recite
long passages from WS in English (in which Freud was fluent). (And,
yes, he was also an Oxfordian).
[begin quote] Analytic work soon shows us that it is the forces of
conscience which forbid the person to gain the long-hoped-for enjoyment
from the fortunate change in reality. It is a difficult task, however,
to discover the essence and origin of these censuring and punishing
tendencies which so often surprise us by their presence where we do not
expect to find them. What we know or conjecture on the point I shall
discuss in relation not to cases of clinical observation, but to
figures which great writers have created from their wealth of their
knowledge of the soul.
A person who collapses on attaining her aim, after striving for it with
single-minded energy, is Shakespeare's Lady MacBeth. In the beginning,
there is no hesitation, no sign of any inner conflict in her, no
endeavor but that of overcoming the scruples of her ambitious yet
gentle-hearted husband. She is ready to sacrifice even her womanliness
to her murderous intention, without reflecting on the decisive part
which this womanliness must play when the question arises of preserving
the aim of her ambition, which has been attained through a crime.
Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here
....Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers! (I,v)
I have given suck, and know
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this. (I,vii)
One solitary stirring of unwillingness comes over her before the deed:
Had he not resembled
My father as he slept, I had done't.
Then when she has become Queen by the murder of Duncan, she betrays for
a moment something like disillusion, like satiety. We know not why.
Nought's had, all's spent,
Where our desire is got without content:
'Tis safer to be that which we destroy
Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy. (III,ii)
Nevertheless, she holds out. In the banquet scene which follows on
these words, she alone keeps her head, cloaks her husband's
distraction, and finds a pretext for dismissing the guests. And then
we see her no more until (in the first scene of the fifth act) we again
behold her as a sleep-walker, with the impressions of the night of the
murder fixed on her mind. Again, as then, she seeks to put heart into
her husband:
Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows
it, when none can call our power to account? (V,i)
She hears the knocking at the door, which terrified her husband after
the deed. Next, she strives to "undo the deed which cannot be undone".
She washes her hands, which are blood-stained and smell of blood, and
is conscious of the guilt of the attempt. Remorse seems to have borne
her down - she who had been so remorseless. When she dies, MacBeth,
who meanwhile has become as inexorable as she had been in the
beginning, can only find a brief epitaph for her:
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word. (V,v)
And now we ask ourselves what is it that broke this character which had
seemed forged from the most perdurable metal? Is it only disillusion,
the different aspect shown by the accomplished deed, and are we to
infer that even in Lady MacBeth an originally gentle and womanly nature
had been worked up to a concentration and high tension which could not
long endure, or ought we to seek for such signs of a deeper motivation
as will make this collapse more humaly intelligible to us?
It seems to me impossible to come to any decision. Shakespeare's
MacBeth was a *piece d'occasion*, written for the ascension of James,
who had hitherto been King of Scotland. The plot was ready-made and
had been handled by other contemporary writers, whose work Shakspeare
probably made use of in his customary manner. It offered remarkable
analogies to the actual situation. The "virginal Elizabeth", of whom it
was rumored that she had never been capable of child-bearing and who
had once described herself as "a barren stock", in an anguished outcry
at the news of James' birth, was obliged by this very childlessness of
hers to let the Scottish king become her successor (cf. MACBETH, III,
ii
Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown,
And put a barren sceptre in my gripe,
Thence to be wrench'd with an unlineal hand,
No son of mine succeeding.)
And he was the son of that Mary Stuart whose execution she, though
reluctantly, had decreed, and who, despite the clouding of their
relations by political concerns, was yet of her blood and might be
called her guest.
The accession of James I was like a demonstration of the curse of
unfruitfulness and the blessings reserved for those who carry on the
race. And Shakespeare's MacBeth develops on the theme of this same
contrast. The three fates, the "weird sisters", have assured him that
he shall indeed be king, but to Banquo they promise that *his* children
shall obtain possession of the crown. MacBeth is incensed by this
decree of destiny; he is not content with the satisfaction of his own
ambition, he desires to found a dynasty and not to have murdered for
the benefit of strangers. This point is overlooked when Shakespeare's
play is regarded only as a tragedy of ambition. It is clear that
MacBeth cannot live for ever, and thus is there but one way for him to
disprove that part of the prophecy which opposes his wishes - namely
to have children himself, children who can succeed him. And he seems
to expect this from his vigorous wife:
Bring forth men-children only;
For thy undaunted mettle should compose
Nothing but males. (I,vii)
And equally it is clear that if he is decieved in this expectation he
must submit to destiny; otherwise his actions lose all purpose and are
transformed into the blind fury of one doomed to destruction, who is
resolved to destroy beforehand all that he can reach. We watch MacBeth
undergo this development, and at the height of the tragedy we hear the
shattering cry from Macduff, which has often been recognized to have
many meanings and possibly to contain the key to the change in MacBeth:
He has no children! (IV,iii)
Undoubtedly that signifies "Only because he is himself childless could
he murder my children"; but more may be implied in it ,and above all it
might be said to lay bare the essential motive which not only forces
MacBeth to go far beyond his own true nature, but also assails the hard
character of his wife at its only weak place. If one looks back upon
MacBeth from the culmination reached in these words of Macduff's, one
sees that the whole play is sown with reference to the
father-and-children relation. The murder of the kindly Duncan is
little more than parricide; in Banquo's case MacBeth kills the father
while the son escapes him; and he kills Macduff's children because the
father has fled from him. A bloody child and then a crowned one are
shown him by the witches in the conjuration scene; the armed head seen
previously is doubtless MacBeth's own. But in the background arises
the similar form of the avenger, Macduff, who is himself an exception
to the laws of generation, since he was not born of his mother but
ripped from her womb.
It would be a perfect example of poetic justice if the childlessness of
MacBeth and the barrenness of the Lady were the punishment for their
crimes against the sanctity of geniture - if Macbeth could not become a
father because he had robbed children of their father and a father of
his children, and if Lady Macbeth had suffered the unsexing she had
demanded of the spirits of murder. I believe one could without more
ado explain the illness of Lady MacBeth, the transformation of her
callousness into penitence, as a reaction to her childlessness, by
which she is convinced of her impotence against the decrees of nature,
and at the same time admonished that she has only her self to blame if
her crime has been barren of the better part of its desired results.
In the Chronicle of Holinshed (1577) whence Shakespeare took the plot
of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is only once mentioned as the ambitiuous wifre
who instiagtes her husband to murder that she herself may be queen. Of
her subsequent fate and the development of her character there is no
word at all. On the other hand, it would seem that there the change
in Macbeth to a sanguinary tyrant is motivated just in the way we have
suggested. For in Holinshed ten years pass between the murder of
Duncan, whereby Macbeth becomes king, and his further misdeeds; and in
these ten years, he is shown as stern but righteous ruler. It is not
until after this period that the change begins in him, under the
influence of the tormenting apprehension that the prophecy of Banquo
will be fulfilled as was that of his own destiny. Then only does he
contrive the murder of Banquo, and, as in Shakespeare, is driven from
one crime to another. Holinshed does not expressly say that it was his
childlessness which urged him to these courses, but there is warrant
emough - both time and occcasion - for this probable motivation. Not
so in Shakespeare. Events crowd breathlesssly on aone another in the
tragedy, so that to judge by the statements made by the persons in the
play, about one week represents the duration of time assigned to it.
This acceleration takes the ground from under our attempts at
reconstructing the motives for the change in the character of MacBeth
and his wife. There is no time for a long-drawn disappointment of
their hopes of offspring to enervate the woman and drive the man to an
insane defiance; and it reamins impossible to resolve the
contradictions that so many subtle inter-relations in the plot, and
between it and its occasion, point to a common origin of them in the
motive of childlessness, and that yet the time period in the tragedy
expressly precludes a development of character from any but a motive
contained in the play.
What, however, these motives can have been which in so short a space of
time could have turned the hesitating, ambitious man into an unbridled
tryant, and his steely-hearted instiagator into a woman gnawed sick by
remorse, it is, in my view, impossible to divine. I think we must
renounce the hope of penetrating the triple obscurity of the bad
preservation of the text, the obscure intention of the dramatist, and
the hidden purport of the legend. But I should not admit that such
investigations are idle in view of the powerful effect which the
tragedy has upon the spectator. The dramatist can indeed, during the
representation, overwhelm us by his art and paralyse our powers of
reflection; but he cannot prevent us from subsequently attempting to
grasp the psychological mechanism of that effect. And the contention
that the dramatist is at liberty to shorten at will the natural time
and duration of the events he brings before us, if by the sacrifice of
common probability he can enhance the dramatic effect, seems to me
irrelevant in this instance. For such a sacrifice is only justified
when it merely affronts probability (as in Richard III's wooing of Anne
beside the bier of the king whom he has murdered) , and not when it
breaks the casual connection; beside the dramatic effect would hardly
have suffered if the time-duration had been left in uncertainty,
instead of being expressly limited to some few days.
One is so unwilling to dismiss a problem like that of MACBETH as
insoluble that I will still make another attempt by introducing another
comment which points toward a new issue. Ludwig Jekels, in a recent
Shakespearian study, thinks he has divined a technical trick of the
poet, which might have to be reckoned with in MACBETH, too. He is of
the opinion that Shakespeare often splits up a character into two
personages, each of whom then appears not altogether comprehensible
until once more conjoined with the other. It might be thus with MacBeth
and the Lady; and then it would be of course futile to regard her as an
independent personage and seek to discover her motivation without
considering the MacBeth who completes her. I shall not follow this
hint any further, but I would add, nevertheless, a remark which
strikingly confirms the idea - namely, that the stirrings of fear which
arise on the night of the murder, do not develop further in him but in
the Lady. It is he who has the hallucination of the dagger before the
deed, but it is she who later succumbs to mental disorder; he, after
the murder, hears the cry from the house" Sleep no more! MacBeth does
murder sleep...MacBeth shall sleep no more", but we never hear that
King MacBeth could not sleep, while we see that the Queen rises from
her bed and betrays her guilt in somnambulistic wanderings. He stands
helpless with bloody hands, lamenting that mot great Neptune's ocean
can wipe them clean again, while she comforts him; "A little water
clears us of this deed"; but later it is she who washes her hands for a
quarter of an hour and cannot get rid of the bloodstains: "All the
perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand". Thus is
fulfilled in her what his pangs of conscience had apprehended: she is
incarnate remorse after the deed, he is incarnate defiance - together
they exhaust the possibilities of reaction to the crime, like two
disunited parts of the mind of a single individual, and perhaps they
are the divided images of a single prototype.
[The rest of the essay discusses the same theme in Ibsen's Rommersholm]
In the last months of life, while in English exile on the eve of WW II,
Freud wrote to a friend of his determination to keep working to the
very end - " At least I'll die with harness on my back, like King
MacBeth".
- CMC
Caius Marcius
In <01bc5a96$e170edc0$6c9845cf@mindspring> "William Ryan"
<atba...@mindspring.com> writes:
>
>Ms. West et al:
>
>Anyone for a "Bad Freud" contest (something similar to the annual
"Bad
>Hemmingway Contest")? We could pick one of the Bard's plays ("Hamlet"
is
>too obvious -- say, "Midsummer Night's Dream") and ask entrants to
limit
>their Freudian interpretations to 500 words or less.
Doesn't Freudian psychoanalysis now come under the jurisdiction of the
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Dead Horses? (founded by
Arthur Koestler).
If you would strike at a more powerful opponent, one that is ruining WS
for an entire generation, why not conduct a parody contest of the
trendy deconstructionist-multicultural academic nonsense that
"interprets" WS. My guess is that such a contest would be impossible,
in that current academic jargon is parody-proof. It would be
impossible to devise a parody of it more preposterous that the solemnly
-offered current publishing.
- CMC
Caius Marcius
Freud in an 1915 essay writes regarding MACBETH:
>In the Chronicle of Holinshed (1577) whence Shakespeare took the plot
>of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is only once mentioned as the ambitiuous wife
>who instiagtes her husband to murder that she herself may be queen. Of
>her subsequent fate and the development of her character there is no
>word at all. On the other hand, it would seem that there the change
>in Macbeth to a sanguinary tyrant is motivated just in the way we have
>suggested. For in Holinshed ten years pass between the murder of
>Duncan, whereby Macbeth becomes king, and his further misdeeds; and in
>these ten years, he is shown as stern but righteous ruler. It is not
>until after this period that the change begins in him, under the
>influence of the tormenting apprehension that the prophecy of Banquo
>will be fulfilled as was that of his own destiny. Then only does he
>contrive the murder of Banquo, and, as in Shakespeare, is driven from
>one crime to another. Holinshed does not expressly say that it was his
>childlessness which urged him to these courses, but there is warrant
>enough - both time and occcasion - for this probable motivation. Not
>so in Shakespeare. Events crowd breathlesssly on aone another in the
>tragedy, so that to judge by the statements made by the persons in the
>play, about one week represents the duration of time assigned to it.
>This acceleration takes the ground from under our attempts at
>reconstructing the motives for the change in the character of MacBeth
>and his wife. There is no time for a long-drawn disappointment of
>their hopes of offspring to enervate the woman and drive the man to an
>insane defiance; and it reamins impossible to resolve the
>contradictions that so many subtle inter-relations in the plot, and
>between it and its occasion, point to a common origin of them in the
>motive of childlessness, and that yet the time period in the tragedy
>expressly precludes a development of character from any but a motive
>contained in the play.
Of all the assertions about Shakespeare made by Freudians over the
years, the idea that the action of MacBeth occurs within a single week
strikes me as the most improbable of all. To be sure, the idea does
not seem to originate with Freud; he footnotes a reference to J.
Darmstetter, in an 1887 book or essay titled MACBETH. Surely the play
occurs over a much longer time-span, if not the full ten years allotted
by Holinshed. To cite one only one example, how long would it have
taken Macduff to flee to England, and then return at the head of an
army, given the primitive conditions of travel in 11th-Century Britain?
So how much time elapses between MacBeth's defeat of Cawdor and
MacBeth's death? Any ideas?
- CMC
Wolfgang Preiss
cori...@ix.netcom.com(Caius Marcius) wrote:
>Of all the assertions about Shakespeare made by Freudians over the
>years, the idea that the action of MacBeth occurs within a single week
>strikes me as the most improbable of all. To be sure, the idea does
>not seem to originate with Freud; he footnotes a reference to J.
>Darmstetter, in an 1887 book or essay titled MACBETH. Surely the play
>occurs over a much longer time-span, if not the full ten years allotted
>by Holinshed. To cite one only one example, how long would it have
>taken Macduff to flee to England, and then return at the head of an
>army, given the primitive conditions of travel in 11th-Century Britain?
>
>So how much time elapses between MacBeth's defeat of Cawdor and
>MacBeth's death? Any ideas?
One week seems really too little time. Let's recapitulate (but be
aware, I'm basically nitpicking here. It's not really that relevant.
Be also aware that the stage directions concerning the place of a
scene are not Shakespeare's. They are later interpolations):
- The beginning of the play should be in spring, March maybe. This was
the time of choice for military campaigns in antiquity and the middle
ages.
- In I.2, Duncan is in a camp. This camp is either close to Forres
(and Inverness)in the north of Scotland or close to Fife in the south,
which is more than 100 miles away from Forres (and Inverness). The
bloody man obviously comes from an ongoing battle nearby. Ross comes
"from Fife, great king". If there is only one battle ("Norway himself"
resp. "the Norweyan Lord" is mentioned in both reports, so it can be
only one battle), the camp has to be near Fife.
- I.4 takes place in the castle/palace of Forres. Macbeth, who "rides
well", could have made the distance in four or five days. Old Duncan
needs at least one week to get from Fife to Forres.
- The remainder of Act I and the whole of Act II take place at
Inverness. At least one day's travel for Duncan. (Why is Inverness
Macbeth's castle? He is Thane of Glamis, and Glamis is in the south,
close to Fife?)
- In II.4, Macduff mentions that Macbeth is "gone to Scone to be
invested." That's another ride across Scotland; add ten more days for
both ways.
- Now, Macbeth resides in Forres. He needs yet another day to get rid
of Banquo.
- Macbeth visits the weird sisters in IV.1 and decides: "the castle of
Macduff I will surprise." Macduff is the Thane of Fife, so the
murderers (or the order) have to cross Scotland once more. Four days.
- Ross visits Lady Macduff in IV.2 and reports to Macduff in England
in IV.3. At least one week for the voyage.
- Malcolm orders the counter strike to begin. The army has to travel a
minimum of ten days to Scotland, including the final battle.
This brings us to approximately 40 days, if we just count the minimum
amount of time it takes to run back and forth across Scotland and
England. The real amount of time necessary
- for Malcolm to get the support of the English King and to assemble
the army
- for Macbeth to completely piss off his former fellow thanes, and
- for Macbeth to move his household first from Inverness to Forres and
then from Forres to Dunsinane
is not even counted in. If one takes into account that the historical
Macbeth had to *build* Dunsinane before he could move there, it would
be even more time consuming.
I always think of the story as taking a whole year to take place: from
the initial battle against Norway to the final battle.
--
Wolfgang Preiss \ E-mail copies of replies to this posting are welcome.
\ (Not necessary if you're posting from Europe.)
wopr"at"stud.uni-sb.de \ To contact me by e-mail, remove the final "2" from
\ the reply-to: address.
Uni des Saarlands \ Sorry for the inconvenience. You know why.
Wolfgang Preiss
gho...@tiac.net (Gerry Horton) wrote:
>wo...@stud.uni-sb.de2 (Wolfgang Preiss) wrote:
>>I always think of the story as taking a whole year to take place: from
>>the initial battle against Norway to the final battle.
>A year seems far too short. Doesn't MacB decline from vigorous
>youth to past-prime? Old age looms, when "that which should
>accompany old age....I cannot look to have?"
Macbeth declines from a thane who can respect himself and is respected
by others (and who has a promising career before him) to a tyrant who
is despised by everyone, including himself. The speech "I have lived
long enough" you're referring to does not have to be spoken by an old
or aging man. It can be delivered by a young man disillusioned about
what he has to expect of the rest of his life. Read: <I have lived
long enough - my subjects hate me and curse me now, and they won't
love me when I'm old either (as they did love Duncan). There's no
point in living much longer.> One year seems ample time to realize
that.
>Lady M has enough time
>not only to become estranged, but to give up hope of reconciliation.
What exactly do you mean by 'estranged'? Depending on how one
interprets Lady Macbeth's change, it takes some time, agreed. But if
she basically experiences a nervous breakdown caused by stress and
guilt, this could be happening overnight.
>And both have felt the curse of childlessness, which would take a
>while to sink in.
That's interesting. Macbeth is very much occupied with the question
who will inherit his title, but he is busy killing other people's
offspring rather than begetting his own. Where do either Macbeth or
the Lady express their wish for children?
>Ten years feels right.
Ten years feels way too long for me, especially from the point of view
of the opposition: what were Malcolm and Macduff doing all the time?
Fleance would have time to grow up and enter the battle. I still think
that one year (maybe two at most) is sufficient time.
Robert J. Fusillo
The Untamed Shrew suggests that it would take time for the trip
to England by Macduff and his return. Remember, Bolingbroke
left the shores of England, raised money and an army and returned
to march on Richard II in the course of one scene. Life was in the fast
lane back then!
rjf
Robert J. Fusillo
Robert J. Fusillo (rfus...@havoc.gtf.gatech.edu) wrote:
: Maybe Middleton did the deed when he borrowed the only manuscript
: to add his with scene!!!! Aha!
: rjf
Sorry, that should have read witch scene, of course. If you're going to
try to be clever, be careful dammit!
rjf
A West
Caius Marcius (cori...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
: In <01bc5a96$e170edc0$6c9845cf@mindspring> "William Ryan"
Exactly. Hence Freud - even the layman has some idea of what he wrote
about (phallic symbols and incest seem to be the things which people
associate with him) and it's easy to write something funny. The type of
writing you describe is not interesting enough to have a parody, and nor
is it worth the time and effort.
We could do PC versions of things - Shylock and Othello probably being
number one candidates, and Gertrude as a liberated woman or something.
That's something else which is ruining Shakespeare - the banning of plays
in schools on the grounds that they're not politically correct. One
headmistress a few years back tried to ban her school from seeing Romeo
and Juliet on the grounds that it was too overtly heterosexual. It sounds
a bit paranoid to me, but I don't know what Freud would say about it...
Alex West (female)
aw6...@bristol.ac.uk