This Shakespeare Line Still Reigns As The Greatest In Literary History

Nearly five centuries later, literature’s GOAT line still belongs to William Shakespeare. It’s a quote from “the Scottish play,” his iconic work of betrayal and power madness, Macbeth. Though it was written at the turn of the 17th century, Shakespeare’s bit about “sound and fury” feels like it belongs to the contemporary world.

Macbeth is one of literary history’s greatest tragedies. If you read it in high school and didn’t get it, the play is worth going back to.

The play’s most legendary line, and one of Shakespeare’s all-time top quotes, comes as Macbeth’s short, bloody reign as king is about to end. 400+ years later, it resonates across time to a shocking degree.

Shakespeare’s Untouchable Takedown Of The “Sound And Fury” Of Life Is Still Literature’s Top Quote

Macbeth’s Low Point Is Literature’s High Bar For Literary Perfection

William Shakespeare lived and wrote at a time when the old world was becoming the modern world. In fact, he played an outsized role in the birth of modernity, thanks to his next-level use of the fledgling English language. His plays were ahead of their time in the 1600s, which is why they feel thoroughly timeless centuries later.

The ultimate example of that is the title character’s grim assessment of life in Act V of Macbeth. This comes after Macbeth learns that his wife has taken her own life, having been driven to despair by guilt over the murders they committed to seize the Scottish throne.

Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury

Signifying nothing.

To put it in contemporary terms: that’s hardcore.

Life isn’t just short and painful, Shakespeare has Macbeth say. It’s meaningless and stupid too. It’s the 17th-century equivalent of Rust Cohle’s nihilistic True Detective monologues. It is a profound expression of the awfulness of human existence, one that set a high bar for all literature that has followed in its wake.

Shakespeare’s Greatest Line Speaks To Anyone Who Feels Out Of Control In Life

The Great Playwright Perfectly Captured The Chaos Of Existence

What makes Macbeth’s terminal soliloquy, particularly its final lines, hit so hard even over four centuries later? It’s raw and unfiltered, for starters. It’s still in Shakespeare’s signature iambic pentameter, but it doesn’t have an overtly poetic feel to it. That is, the line has a lyrical flow without obviously conforming to a pre-set rhythm.

The senselessness of the world weighs heavily on all of us today…Macbeth proves Shakespeare was feeling it too way back in the day.

More importantly, it is darkly relatable to anyone who thinks life is too chaotic, too random, too unfair. Or worse, that it doesn’t make any sense. The senselessness of the world weighs heavily on all of us today; you can’t read news headlines without feeling that weight. Macbeth proves Shakespeare was feeling it too way back in the day.

Now, more than ever, it often feels like life is “a tale told by an idiot,” one where the plot doesn’t make any sense and the ending is highly unsatisfying. So often, literature is meant to serve as a balm for feelings like this. Shakespeare doesn’t sugarcoat anything. He doesn’t want the truth to go down easily.

The “Sound And Fury” Line From Macbath Is The Undisputed Champion Of Literary Realness

An Intense Quote That Feels Totally Contemporary

If you think Shakespeare is boring, you’re wildly wrong. Shakespeare is highly readable, and also eminently quotable. But as many great lines as there are in the Shakespearean canon, few are as much of a full-on vibe as Macbeth’s “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” summation of life’s futility.

The line has lived rent-free in the heads of writers for centuries. It inspired the title of William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, plus many other literary works over the past four centuries. In a “best quote” bracket, it would practically be a lock for the finals, even going against the 20th and 21st centuries’ best bits of dialogue.

It’s an easy pick for the undisputed champion of literary lines. It’s a line that could easily be mistaken for something that just came out, which is truly the most remarkable part about it. No quote before Shakespeare’s Macbeth, or since, has delivered such a brutally unvarnished takedown of life itself.

What do you think, readers? Does Shakespeare still hold the claim to the greatest quote of all time?