“This disease is beyond my practice”: Shakespeare, Lady Macbeth and the 17th century discourse of somnambulism.

Examines 'Macbeth' Act V scene I against contemporary views of the somnambulist in a range of early sources.

Macbeth, Act V scene I, read off against how sleep-walking was understood in the early modern period

Somnambulism was understood as a disease of the body, not of the mind; trauma was not understood to be involved as a possible trigger.