Critical Essay | Critical Essay by William O. Scott

Critical Essay by William O. Scott

SOURCE: Scott, William O. “Macbeth's—and Our—Self-Equivocations.” Shakespeare Quarterly 37, no. 2 (summer 1986): 160-74.

In the following essay, Scott explores the relationship between self-knowledge and verbal equivocation in Macbeth.

MALCOLM

                                                            For even now

I put myself to thy direction, and

Unspeak mine own detraction, here abjure

The taints and blames I laid upon myself,

For strangers to my nature. I am yet

Unknown to woman, never was forsworn,

Scarcely have coveted what was mine own,

At no time broke my faith, would not betray

The devil to his fellow, and delight

No less in truth than life. My first false speaking

Was this upon myself. …

MACDUFF

Such welcome and unwelcome things at once

'Tis hard to reconcile.

(Macbeth, IV.iii.121-39)

[G. E. Moore] had a kind of exquisite purity. I have never but once succeeded in making...
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