Daemonic Figures: Shakespeare and the Question of Conscience

Macbeth is universally recognized as Shakespeare's great drama of the absolute and fatal frustration brought on by the pangs of conscience. In a book of striking originality and uncommon insight, Ned Lukacher explores a previously undiscovered story--the role of Shakespeare himself in the history of conscience. Focusing on key moments in that history, Daemonic Figures traces the influence of Shakespeare's works on Heidegger's and Freud's interpretations of conscience.