Introduction: "THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY"
Welcome, fellow scholars!
This website is a student project designed for a senior level English course at Appalachian State University. Its content is intended to provide other students, Shakespeare enthusiasts, and educators with a scholarly analysis of a particular topic and its relevance pertaining to one of William Shakespeare's plays. As indicated by the above banner, I chose to investigate sleep as it pertains to the tragedy Macbeth.
Sleep, in a purely anatomical examination, can be recognized as a naturally recurring state of the body which possesses a distinct set of characteristics: lack of physical movement, relaxation of most muscles, dulling of the five senses, and suspension of human consciousness. Yet, moving beyond the purely physical aspects of the phenomenon, there is still a great deal that remains unknown about the psychology of sleep--particularly the purposes and mechanisms of sleep. And while the scientific frontier continues to unravel the mysteries surrounding the functions of sleep, literary scholars continue to offer their own concepts about slumber in their works. But it is arguable that none have quite captured the complexity and allure of the "undiscovered country" quite like William Shakespeare. In point of fact, Ronald Hall observes in his article Sleeping Through Shakespeare that: "Shakespeare's works contain about a thousand references of sleep. If you put together all the passages where a character is asleep onstage, you get a total performance time equal to one-and-a-half Shakespeare plays. This excludes all the offstage sleepers that we only hear of, like King Duncan and his sons [ . . . ]" (24).
Factors such as culture, religion, medicine, politics, and law would have heavily influenced Shakespeare's interpretation of sleep in all its divisions. Even so, as you will see in my upcoming analysis of Macbeth, Shakespeare was a connoisseur of articulation who took the common knowledge of his time and expanded on it, giving substance to the abstract and giving his audience something to continue exploring for years beyond his eternal sleep.
This website is a student project designed for a senior level English course at Appalachian State University. Its content is intended to provide other students, Shakespeare enthusiasts, and educators with a scholarly analysis of a particular topic and its relevance pertaining to one of William Shakespeare's plays. As indicated by the above banner, I chose to investigate sleep as it pertains to the tragedy Macbeth.
Sleep, in a purely anatomical examination, can be recognized as a naturally recurring state of the body which possesses a distinct set of characteristics: lack of physical movement, relaxation of most muscles, dulling of the five senses, and suspension of human consciousness. Yet, moving beyond the purely physical aspects of the phenomenon, there is still a great deal that remains unknown about the psychology of sleep--particularly the purposes and mechanisms of sleep. And while the scientific frontier continues to unravel the mysteries surrounding the functions of sleep, literary scholars continue to offer their own concepts about slumber in their works. But it is arguable that none have quite captured the complexity and allure of the "undiscovered country" quite like William Shakespeare. In point of fact, Ronald Hall observes in his article Sleeping Through Shakespeare that: "Shakespeare's works contain about a thousand references of sleep. If you put together all the passages where a character is asleep onstage, you get a total performance time equal to one-and-a-half Shakespeare plays. This excludes all the offstage sleepers that we only hear of, like King Duncan and his sons [ . . . ]" (24).
Factors such as culture, religion, medicine, politics, and law would have heavily influenced Shakespeare's interpretation of sleep in all its divisions. Even so, as you will see in my upcoming analysis of Macbeth, Shakespeare was a connoisseur of articulation who took the common knowledge of his time and expanded on it, giving substance to the abstract and giving his audience something to continue exploring for years beyond his eternal sleep.