DE Weekly: Hamlet, Shakespeare, & Fortune
Should we capitalize on our free will, or resign ourselves to what fate has in store for us? Is it better to take things into our own hands, or let nature run its course and whatever happens, happens? Does whatever we choose to do––does anything we choose to do––make a difference?
Such are just a few questions explored and answered in some fashion by William Shakespeare in his longest play, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.
DE Weekly: Macbeth, Shakespeare, & Nihilism
“Life’s . . . a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” These words come from the speech “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow” from William Shakespeare’s play The Tragedie of Macbeth.
Reading this quote back, these words could have just as well been written by any of the existentialist authors of the twentieth century. It certainly espouses some of the attitudes toward life that those authors held themselves.