Monday, June 1, 2015

I am trying to find the quote about "man struts and frets his petty place on the stage" by William Shakespeare. Reflective about society,...

This line is from a passage in Shakespeare's "Macbeth."  Macbeth has just been informed of his wife's death in Act V, Scene 5:



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.  



Macbeth reflects upon the temporality of life itself and its insignificance in the universal scheme.  Also of note are the lines "It is a tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/ Signifying nothing."  William Faulkner's novel, "The Sound and the Fury" is narrated in the first part by thirty-three-year-old Benjy Compson, who is mentally disabled.

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