Thursday, December 31, 2015

Reading Shakespeare 1: Macbeth Tomorrow Soliloquy

     I am making this post because 2016 means 400 years of Shakespeare. I will try to get to a lot of the verses I know and maybe some of the more significant ones for 2016.

     And by "Reading Shakespeare", I mean reading his verse aloud. It's obvious to some, but if you want to get it, read it aloud. After all, this was meant to be performed. I have seen Kenneth Branagh do Macbeth (The National Theatre Live). I will also be seeing Patrick Stewart's soon.  Here is the soliloquy:

She should have died hereafter.
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
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.
 
I wonder how many who viewed Inarritu's Birdman (2014) notice it being recited there? I first encountered a snippet of this in Diane Barsoum Raymond's Existentialism and the philosophical tradition.  Then I saw Kurosawa's Throne of blood (1957) for a class on Shakespeare. I have yet to see the Justin Kurzel's 2015 adaptation of Macbeth (with Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard).