[lit-ideas] Re: Lighting Fools: Reflections on an Image in Macbeth's "Tomorrow" Soliloquy
- From: "Mirembe Nantongo" <nantongo@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 16:59:13 +0100
Many thanks for these thoughtful reflections. A bleak view of life (hardly
surprising given what Macbeth has just been through and now sees ahead of
him), and bleak on a double count: the grim emptiness of the context
available to "the poor player" and the player's behaviour within that
context. The majority of the soliloquy goes to describing the context and
only two words relate to the player's behaviour. Consider how much is packed
into them, however - the player "struts" and "frets" in his miserable
context. The power of the words comes obviously from all the connotations
possessed by each, but also from their contrast with words not chosen. Why
not: Strides, walks, ambles, trots, shuffles; or gloats, dotes, lives, or
even acts? One wonders: is the player's petty behaviour a necessary result
of his meaningless context?
All best, Mirembe
----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Henninge" <Henninge@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2005 11:55 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Lighting Fools: Reflections on an Image in Macbeth's
"Tomorrow" Soliloquy
> Lighting Fools: Reflections on an Image in Macbeth's "Tomorrow"
> Soliloquy
>
>
>
>
> "To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
> Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
> To the last syllable of recorded time;
> And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
> The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
> Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
> That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
> And then is heard no more: it is a tale
> Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
> Signifying nothing."
>
>
>
> Macbeth has just heard a scream and asked, somewhat resignedly, fearing
> and expecting the worst, what was its cause. A servant replies that Lady
> Macbeth is dead. His companion in crime, she who could not wipe away the
> "damned spot" of conscience, is no more. Macbeth launches instantly into
> a morbid, Hamlet-like brooding over the transience of life, its shadow
> nature. But in Macbeth, Shakespeare lets an element of King Lear's
> madness color his recent widower's thoughts.
>
>
>
> What can Shakespeare have meant by saying, or having Macbeth say, that
> "all our yesterdays have lighted fools/The way to dusty death"? First,
> we have to think of the lighting: he who carries a light, a candle, is
> normally one who has an idea of where the path must lead and requires
> just a form of illumination to allow himself to take that path. But in
> Shakespeare, the person carrying the candle is "all our yesterdays," and
> these "yesterdays" light us, us "fools" to nothing more than "dusty
> death," not a destination of much interest to the average person. And
> this is what troubles Macbeth.
>
>
>
> Life, the subject of his reflection, divided into its particles, its
> syllables, down to the very last "syllable of recorded time," that is,
> the end of history, the end of the world, in other words, not at the
> moment of his speaking, since "recorded time" will continue even after
> he is dead, is criticized for moving so slowly, at such a "petty pace."
> The frustration, though, comes from the substance, or the significance,
> of that which ticks itself off so slowly, guided by mere yesterdays into
> empty tomorrows with no destination but "dust."
>
>
>
> "Out, out, brief candle": the candle that is now out is, of course, Lady
> Macbeth, but Macbeth sees in the extinguishing of one "life" candle
> the--to him--meaningless extinguishing of all life-candles, and even the
> meaninglessness of life itself. And here, dramatically, Shakespeare
> takes his image from the stage. This fragile candle of life, so easily
> snuffed, so ephemeral, so made of nothing, is the very metaphor for the
> actor in a play. In other words, the image has been reversed. An actor
> in a play is comparing the life he as a living human being shares with
> the living human beings in the audience and finds it lacking--in just
> the measure that a character in a play lacks the significance of a
> person who is guided by something more than a mere writer, a hack, who
> creates a "play" full of "sound and fury," popular, for sure, on the
> stage, but unfortunately, in the long run, "signifying nothing."
>
>
>
> Richard Henninge
>
> University of Mainz
>
>
>
>
>
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