[HN Gopher] How many children had Lady Macbeth?
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       How many children had Lady Macbeth?
        
       Author : silt
       Score  : 10 points
       Date   : 2024-07-23 19:40 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (lifeandletters.substack.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (lifeandletters.substack.com)
        
       | gumby wrote:
       | > Shakespeare's plays, according to Knights, were first and
       | foremost "dramatic poems," works of literary art unified through
       | metaphor and language, rather than a record of interactions
       | between characters. To treat Macbeth as the final episode in the
       | life of Macbeth was to confuse literature and history, to take
       | the figures of drama for real persons, with biographies that
       | reached back before the beginning of the play and, if they
       | survived, into its imaginary future.
       | 
       | While I'll agree with Knights that "How many children" is an
       | absurd and pointless question, I otherwise disagree with his
       | position.
       | 
       | For example, a King of Scotland (well, Alba) named Macbeth was a
       | historical figure and people watching the play would know this.
       | It doesn't make _Macbeth_ one of the historical plays, but it 's
       | a deliberate call out to context (else he could have named the
       | character "King Bob", as he did with the characters Romeo and
       | Juliet, or King Lear).
       | 
       | Both art and discourse are full of such, often not even
       | deliberately invoked by the speaker or author. We just swim in
       | multiple contexts simultaneously.
        
       | readthenotes1 wrote:
       | Only one child grew up and birthed Lady Macbeth.
       | 
       | I have no idea how many children conned Lady Macbeth, though, if
       | that's what the question was.
        
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       (page generated 2024-07-23 23:02 UTC)