Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0276.  Monday, 28 March 1994.
 
(1)     From:   Timothy Bowden <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Sunday, 27 Mar 1994 07:04:15 PST
        Subj:   Re: SHK 5.0268  Re: Macbeth's Death
 
(2)     From:   Charles Edelman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Monday, 28 Mar 94 16:57:00 EST
        Subj:   Macbeth's Death
 
(3)     From:   Phyllis Rackin <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Monday, 28 Mar 1994 09:34:20 -0500 (EST)
        Subj:   Re: SHK 5.0271  Re: Macbeth's Death
 
 
(1)----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Timothy Bowden <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Sunday, 27 Mar 1994 07:04:15 PST
Subject: 5.0268  Re: Macbeth's Death
Comment:        Re: SHK 5.0268  Re: Macbeth's Death
 
> I guess my objection as an audience member of your production would be
> that the only thing that *saves* Macbeth for me at the end of the play
> is that he stays the course, he doesn't cave in, that he goes out "as
> a man," if you will. When I taught Macbeth to inner city minority
> students, that was something they were very pleased to see in the
> play--yes, Macbeth did horrible things, yes, he had a terrible fall,
> but when they brainstormed all the things he *could* have done at the
> end (tried to cut a deal, sneaked away in disguise, committed suicide,
> surrendered outright), they saw guts--macho, to some of them--in his
> ending, a return to the noble figure we glimpsed if only too briefly
> at the beginning of the play. Elise Earthman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
 
I'll bet they all bought into the juvenille macho depravity of Othello,
as well.  I'm wondering if persisting in unspeakable acts in the name of
`manhood' to reach those impressed by such show is a fit objective here.
What's the street application?  A drug dealer trapped in a crack house
with an automatic weapon?
 
"Lookit me, maw, I'm Macbeth!"  (- after Jimmy Cagney in _White Heat_.)
 
(2)----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Charles Edelman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Monday, 28 Mar 94 16:57:00 EST
Subject:        Macbeth's Death
 
To remove "hold enough" from the words previous to them breaks up a
couplet, which seems to me odd.  "Damned be he that cries," left alone by
itself, seems appropriate for a schoolyard fight, which is over when someone
starts crying.
 
My reading of Macbeth's final moments is that he is once again "brave
Macbeth--well he deserves that name"  and that he knows he is going to die,
but is determined to do so bravely.  I do not see any speeches in the Folio
text which would appear consistent with his begging for a halt.  This, of
course, proves nothing, and the suggested staging COULD be both fitting and
interesting.
 
If self-advertisement is permitted, Timothy might find the discussion of the
Macbeth combat in my book, 'Brawl Ridiculous: Swordfighting in Shakespeare's
Plays,' Manchester U.P. 1992, of interest.
 
Best wishes,
Charles Edelman
Edith Cowan University, Australia
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
 
(3)----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Phyllis Rackin <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Monday, 28 Mar 1994 09:34:20 -0500 (EST)
Subject: 5.0271  Re: Macbeth's Death
Comment:        Re: SHK 5.0271  Re: Macbeth's Death
 
Meanwhile, is it so
 
> hard to imagine Macduff, on his dutiful way to see Malcolm crowned at
> Scone, encountering three strange women who wish to have a word with him?
>                                        --Ron Macdonwald
 
No, it isn't.  But given the fact that it isn't, why do you suppose the
text we have doesn't?

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