"I asked the President if he still remembered the lines"
Posted by: David Bunch
Stephen Greenblatt, author of Will in the World, has an interesting piece in the New York Review of Books titled "Shakespeare and the Uses of Power" in which he tells of a conversation he had with President Clinton about Macbeth.
Stephen Greenblatt, author of Will in the World, has an interesting piece in the New York Review of Books titled "Shakespeare and the Uses of Power" in which he tells of a conversation he had with President Clinton about Macbeth.
"Mr. President," I said, sticking out my hand, "don't you think that Macbeth is a great play about an immensely ambitious man who feels compelled to do things that he knows are politically and morally disastrous?" Clinton looked at me for a moment, still holding my hand, and said, "I think Macbeth is a great play about someone whose immense ambition has an ethically inadequate object."From there Greenblatt gives us a quick run through of Shakespeare's heroes and villains and what their characters tell us about Shakespeare's view of governance, rule, and power.
Brutus' fate is not his alone: in Shakespeare no character with a clear moral vision has a will to power and, conversely, no character with a strong desire to rule over others has an ethically adequate object.Interesting (if not long) read.
