Shakespeare made a broad range of allusions to the eye, vision and blindness The eye was often seen as an expression of character (“Let me see his eyes, that when I note another man like him, I may avoid him.” ( Much Ado About Nothing )) and also portrayed human emotion (“I see a strange confession in thine eye” ( Henry IV )). In the dagger scene just before Macbeth kills Duncan, the eye and its vision become the expression of Macbeth’s emerging sense of guilt over the impending regicide. The guilt is transmuted into the hallucination of the dagger covered with gouts of blood. In King Lear , vision is tantamount to power and virility. The loss of sight is equated with the loss of power and induced physical helplessness, illustrated by the grisly onstage blinding of the Duke of Gloucester for his loyalty to Lear.

Submitted by Mark J. Mannis from the Cogan Ophthalmic History Society