macbeth :: essays research papers

MACBETH, it is probable, was the last-written of the four great tragedies, and immediately precededAntony and Cleopatra.(note 1, p 331. In that play Shakespeares last(a) style appears for the first timecompletely formed, and the transition to this style is a good deal more decidedly visible in Macbeth than inKing Lear .Yet in certain respects Macbeth rec on the wholes Hamlet rather than Othello or King Lear. In theheroes of both plays the passage from thought to a critical resolution and action at law is difficult, and excitesthe keenest interest. In neither play, as in Othello and King Lear, is painful poignancy one of the maineffects. Evil, again, though it shows in Macbeth a prodigious energy, is not the icy or stonyin charitableity of lago or Goneril and, as in Hamlet, it is pursued by remorse. Finally, Shakespeare nolonger restricts the action to purely human agencies, as in the two preceding tragedies portents oncemore engage the heavens, ghosts rise from their graves, an unearthly light flickers about the head of thedoomed man. The circumscribed popularity of Hamlet and Macbeth is due in part to some of these commoncharacteristics, notably to the fascination of the supernatural, the absence of the spectacle of extremeundeserved suffering, the absence of characters which horrify and ram and yet are destitute ofgrandeur. The reader who looks unwillingly at lago gazes at Lady Macbeth in awe, because though sheis dreadful she is also sublime. The whole calamity is sublime.In this, however, and in other respects, Macbeth makes an impression quite different from that ofHamlet. The dimensions of the bargainer characters, the rate of movement in the action, the supernaturaleffect, the style, the versification, are an changed and they are all changed in much the samemanner. In many parts of Macbeth at that place is in the language a peculiar compression, pregnancy, energy,even violence the on-key grace and even flow, often conspicuous in Hamlet, have nearlydisappeared. The chief characters, built on a scale at least as large as that of Othello, seem to attain at times an almost superhuman stature. The diction has in places a huge and elusive grandeur, whichdegenerates here and there into tumidity.The solemn majesty of the royal Ghost in Hamlet, appearing in armour and standing silent in themoonlight, is exchange for shapes of horror, dimly seen in the murky air or revealed by the splendor ofthe cauldron fire in a dark cavern, or for the dark face of Banquo badged with blood and staring