on
3.5/5
Non-Fiction
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Rating: 4/5
Pages: 150 (including introduction and short biography)
Started: 8 June 2023
Finished: 10 June 2023
Summary:
After a prophecy from the three weird sisters that he will become King of Scotland, and because of his wife's persistent scheming, thane Macbeth embarks down a path of murder and ambition, leading to his "moral degradation" and ultimate demise.
Thoughts:
This play only started clicking for me during the last few acts, but for the sections that I was fully engaged in, I had so much fun I realized that plays are meant to be heard not read, so I read the two final acts aloud to myself, which made the language make so much more sense, to the point where I stopped wanting to read any scene summaries before each scene.
Shakespeare really was brilliant. Every line in the play was either gloriously rich or unhingedly hysterical. I especially loved the iambic pentameter--I tend to speak and read thing with unique pauses, and the line-breaks for the pentameter took care of those pauses for me, which was super cool. I mostly did this read-through with the goal of understanding and enjoying the play, with the thought that I'd read it a second time in a few months to analyze more deeply, but I still had a few thoughts that stood out during this read, especially about religion and gender.
I know that the play is a tragedy, and that the eponymous Macbeth is set as the protagonist, but while I was reading I thought it easier to mentally divide all the characters into the two sides that eventually become clear in the final battle scenes: Macbeth and Lady Macbeth along with the witches and murderers on one side, and then Duncan and all the various other heirs and lords. Effectively, my division was between Banquo's side and Macbeth's, the good victors and the agents of evil and chaos who, except for the witches, die for their crimes. Considering this dichotomy, I found it very interesting to look at the motivations and values of each set of characters. Of course, Macbeth's ambition is his downfall and all that (and now "vibrant distress, as the introduction describes it, is one of my new favorite phrases), but his ambitious actions are all catalyzed by the scheming of a woman. First the weird sisters put the idea of kingship into his head, and then his wife creates the plan to kill the king. Yes, he goes along greedily with all the plots, but they are not originally his own--he is more an ambitious, opportunity-taking puppet to the stronger wills of the women who machinate behind him. By contrast, Banquo's side is motivated by righteous revenge against Macbeth's evil deeds. Their motivation is distinctly and only male. I know it's not super fair to yell at Shakespeare for being a misogynist, but that is a bit suspicious.
Similarly, Shakespeare portrays Christianity as good and paganism or atheism as evil. The witches' ritual around the cauldron in IV. i. involves several distinctly pagan elements--circling ("round about the cauldron go") and the use of sacrifice ("by the pricking of my thumbs") as well as the invocation of Hecate, the goddess of magic who is part of the Greek polytheistic pantheon that is generally considered a Pagan religion under Christianity. By contrast, the good and victorious Malcolm uses distinctly Christian wording ("by the grace of Grace" V. viii.). Similarly to the male/female division, Shakespeare's association of good with Christian phrasing and evil with Pagan actions casts Christianity in a far better light.
Though it took a while to click, I had a lot of fun reading this play, and am looking forward to my re-read sometime soon.
Words (as taken from the introduction):
Vertiginous (adj) causing vertigo, especially by being very high or very steep
Vaunted (adj) boasted about
Invidious (adj) unjust
Solipsistic (adj) relating to the theory that all that is surely known to a person is their own consciousness
Wassail (n) spiced ale or mulled wine