The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 10.1532  Tuesday, 31 August 1999.

From:           Stuart Manger <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Monday, 30 Aug 1999 17:34:05 +0100
Subject: Re: Shakespearian Sunrises
Comment:        SHK 10.1524 Re: Shakespearian Sunrises

By implication, John Ramsay draws attention to a disturbing paradox in
Macbeth. Light is evoked countless times only to intensify its absence,
as if by expressing its 'quintessence even from nothingnesse' Shak is
suggesting the intensity of the kinds of darkness that pervade the play
/ have invaded the country. Duncan's early speech about light / nimble
air is the last time the sun shines in the play until Malcolm talks of
new harvests in Act 5 - implication that the sun will again shine on
Scotland's fields / children - . For some, the line 'I'gin to be awesry
of the sun' is fraught with awfulness: how low must a man be to be
'weary' of the sun? In my northern European context, it takes on even
more intensity. WE can be robbed for weeks on end of sun, such that it
is more wished for when it seldom comes. So for a hero to reject the
very sun itself, and declare that he is WEARY of it suggests that belief
in life / life-principles has ceased, and that there are no fertile or
revivifying significances for him any more. For me, this is one of the
rockest of rock bottom moments in the play. Typical of Shakespeare to
illuminate a moment of such profound weight by so accessible and
immediate an image. of course!

Stuart Manger

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