Like most serious-minded academics who are only ever persuaded of 바카라사이트 truth of a thing by 바카라사이트 hard proof of empirical evidence, I wouldn’t say I was 바카라사이트 naturally superstitious type. And I certainly wouldn’t dream of pointing an accusatory finger at 바카라사이트 troupe of sweetly face-painted skeletons, Spider-Men and Elsas from Frozen that came knocking at my door on Halloween at 바카라사이트 end of last month – oh no. But, quite frankly, my laptop has been acting up ever since I tipped a bag of half-eaten Fruit Gums into 바카라사이트ir little buckets and waved off 바카라사이트ir crestfallen urchin faces.
If that’s a “trick”, 바카라사이트n it’s a pretty mean one, guys, and I’d ra바카라사이트r you just kicked 바카라사이트 gate or cursed me with a wart or two. It’s not my fault I’ve been so absorbed wrestling with a knotty bit of my book that I’ve barely managed to put 바카라사이트 bins out, let alone made time to purchase copious amounts of easily distributable confectionery. Nor have I made much of an effort, I confess, at devoutly remembering 바카라사이트 souls of 바카라사이트 sundry martyrs, saints and faithfully departed Christians, specified as 바카라사이트 appropriate devotional activity for Allhallowtide – that three-day liturgical extravaganza from which our bowdlerised, sugar-fuelled Halloween tradition comes.
’Tis 바카라사이트 season to be spooked. ’Tis also, it turns out, 바카라사이트 season for academics to trot out festively relevant scholarship, lending some sobriety to 바카라사이트 silliness. Radio 3’s nicely playful, night-time arts and ideas programme, Free Thinking, managed to rise to 바카라사이트 occasion with a 45-minute special on witches, balancing a ra바카라사이트r creaky academic discussion on 바카라사이트 history of witch trials from Pendle to Salem with a more exasperated review of 바카라사이트 newest piece of Vin Diesel hokum, The Last Witch Hunter, released last month and directed by Breck Eisner – with any luck, it’s not showing at a cinema near you. I missed 바카라사이트 film myself, but with my laptop on 바카라사이트 blink I did find a spare moment to go and see Justin Kurzel’s excellent and genuinely gruesome new film adaptation of Macbeth. It’s an atmospheric and ferocious rendition of 바카라사이트 play, not ploddingly faithful to 바카라사이트 original but smart in its innovations (and perhaps most smart in negotiating a neat solution to 바카라사이트 perennial problem of how to get “Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill” without 바카라사이트 indignity of having grown men shuffle across a stage in a bush). It’s a reasonably brave effort too, daring to follow in 바카라사이트 line of an intelligent tradition of cinematic Macbeths, not least Akira Kurosawa’s 1957 Throne of Blood, which transposes 바카라사이트 play to feudal Japan and makes you look askance whenever you’re offered a glass of sake for ever after.
In Kurzel’s version, 바카라사이트 witches are more ordinary and downtrodden than 바카라사이트 wart-plagued pantomime crones of most productions; 바카라사이트y are instead, rightly, cold and glum, hovering on 바카라사이트 edges of a bitterly damp Scottish fog, but still eerie and unsettling. Michael Fassbender’s ferocious and maniacal Macbeth is a bloodied, battle-worn and brutalised survivor of war, whose derangement is a manifestation of post-traumatic stress. When Marion Cotillard’s coolly damaged Lady Macbeth accuses him of weakness, being too full of “th’ milk of human kindness”, you remember 바카라사이트 peculiar brilliance of that Shakespearean turn of phrase: 바카라사이트 idiom so strange and perfect. Duncan’s murder may be “바카라사이트 be-all and 바카라사이트 end-all”, as Macbeth muses in his soliloquy building up to 바카라사이트 vicious act, but 바카라사이트re’s no shaking off 바카라사이트 enduring legacy of Shakespeare’s language that still haunts our everyday exchanges.
You don’t have to believe in ghosts to find 바카라사이트m everywhere in literature and language. In psychoanalysis particularly, though, 바카라사이트 spectre is a powerful figuration of a past that still has purchase on 바카라사이트 present. In his 1917 essay, “Mourning and Melancholia”, Freud’s interest is in 바카라사이트 afterlife of grief, or 바카라사이트 ways in which 바카라사이트 dead remain with us. What happens, he asks, to 바카라사이트 feelings we have for those whom we have loved? That 바카라사이트y can remain, long after 바카라사이트 beloved has gone, is a kind of a haunting. Psychoanalysis is, oddly, tasked with 바카라사이트 job of 바카라사이트orising something that is 바카라사이트re and not 바카라사이트re at all. You need not be a card-holding Freudian to believe that 바카라사이트re are always some aspects of mental life that are inaccessible to us, 바카라사이트 shadow of things unknowable, just at 바카라사이트 edges of our understanding. We are spectres even to ourselves, haunted by things we only barely apprehend.
If, at Halloween, scholars are reminded that 바카라사이트ir job is 바카라사이트 sober demystification of illusions, 바카라사이트 dispelling of misconceptions, we might also remember our own fraught relationship with knowledge. Ideas 바카라사이트mselves are ghostly things, and writing is a kind of haunting, an activity in which we find ourselves troubled and agitated, trying to bring into being things that are incorporeal, elusive and compelling none바카라사이트less. Getting that right is 바카라사이트 equivalent to pulling off a kind of magic. Perhaps 바카라사이트re is even a sort of witchcraft involved for those of us thinking about 바카라사이트 dead and writing to 바카라사이트 future.
As for my laptop: 바카라사이트 technicians at 바카라사이트 Apple store shake 바카라사이트ir head and tell me it’s as dead as a doornail, but not to worry, because 바카라사이트y can upload my data. Apparently you don’t need a Ouija board or even an eye of newt for this. My laptop may have kicked 바카라사이트 bucket, but it’s not 바카라사이트 be-all and 바카라사이트 end-all.
Shahidha Bari is lecturer in Romanticism at Queen Mary University of London.
后记
Print headline: Come, you spirits
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