Critical Notes On Macbeth
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Ч sleep: most vulnerable, innocent and yet prone to nightmare and hidden desires and fears; the dark, unconscious, unknown, uncontrolled and yet necessary realm of experience
Ч struggle between conscious and unconscious; controlled and uncontrolled behavior
Ч equivocation–the porter; fair is foul; confusion; dreams equivocate; ghosts; witches; prophcies; bubbles in the earth; equivocation of the fiend V.vi. 43
Ч tyranny and tyrannicideproblem of evil; integrity, saving faith; mistrust–Noriega, Cieaucescu
Ч nature, kindness, growth, fertility, chain of generations, love, beauty vs. unnatural, monstruousity
Ч as much of heaven as of hell–anti atheism V.i. 41: “What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our powr to accompt.” didacticism; contra tamburlaine and mach.; cf. Faustus
Ч extremes of sanctity and unholiness; dantesque; manifestation of gods order in world
Ч Closeness to PL: Witches as serpent; AE in Garden; temptation, evil, guilt; Man and Women; milton planned tyrannicide story
Ч rashness and hesitation; contrast to Hamlet
Ч doubling: Macduff and Macbeth; two ladies; Banquo and Duncan;
Ч blood and blood–spilling of blood; bloodiness of the play and importance of blood as the continuity dynasty
Ч Cleanth Brooks
Ч apply New Crit–study of metaphysical use of metaphor– to Sh.
Ч analysis of clothing imagery in one specific line–“daggers unmannnerly breechd with gore–and throughout the play
Ч very concentrated and apparently incoherent metaphor that opens when unpacked, (esp. p. 210-11)
Ч symbol of babe–most powerful [prospero, lear, HIV]
Ч issue of fertility; growth; potential and future lineage; seed of Banquo–cf. babe Elizabeth in HVIII= tomorrow and tomorrow; the issue of futures; this is what M. learns is futile; his struggle doesnt give him tomorrow
Ч contrast HVs future; Macbeth not looking to the long term and neither is Henry
Ч Macbeth is trying to conquer the future–“war with the future”; found a dynasty; this is why he is so involved with LM
Ч If it were done when tis done
Ч wants to jump the life to come
Ч duties to Duncan are called “children”