UNDERSTANDING THE “ROOKY WOOD” (COMMENT).

I posted here some five years ago about William Empson’s emphasis on Shakespeaere’s liking of multiple meanings. I quoted Empson’s comment on one example of what scholars would do to the use of the word “rooky” in MacBeth. Empson quoted a scholar who had rejected half a dozen meanings for “rooky” to argue for the one right definition. Empson of course would have embraced all the meanings suggested.

Sebastian Born commented on that post:

“I wonder whether Shakespeare was also alluding to the meaning of ‘rook’ as in ‘to rook someone’ is to defraud them. So he is alluding to a fraudulent wood, which is what happens when the wood comes to Dunsinane?”

I wholeheartedly agree. I had not seen this reading of “rooky” before, and it adds a lot to MacBeth. The notion that there is a treacherous wood then appears early in the play.

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