Shakespeare’s writing about a believable society of civil servants and soldiers and royalty, and if you think it’s just about a man in a kilt who doesn’t get on with his wife, you’re missing the point. The play is much more resonant than that. Imagine the despair at the end when young Malcolm stood there and said what he was going to do, with such clarity and lack of passion. This was the man who lied so convincingly to Macduff in the England scene, when he said he was acquainted with all the evils of the flesh [4.3]. He could describe them, he could imagine them vividly. And you think ‘Oh
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