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 Shakespe bes final style appears for the first timecompletely formed, and the variety to this style is much more decidedly visible in Macbeth than in baron Lear .Yet in certain respects Macbeth recalls Hamlet rather than Othello or King Lear. In theheroes of both plays the passage from thought to a full of life resolution and natural action is difficult, and excitesthe keenest interest. In neither play, as in Othello and King Lear, is painful pathos one of the maineffects. Evil, again, though it shows in Macbeth a prodigious energy, is not the icy or stonyinhumanity 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 formerlymore fill the heavens, ghosts rise from their graves, an unearthly light flicke rs about the vanguard of thedoomed man. The special popularity of Hamlet and Macbeth is due in part to approximately 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 repel and yet are destitute ofgrandeur. The reader who looks unwillingly at lago gazes at Lady Macbeth in awe, because though sheis dreadful she is as well as sublime. The whole tragedy is sublime.In this, however, and in other respects, Macbeth makes an impression kinda different from that ofHamlet. The dimensions of the principal 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 umteen parts of Macbeth there is in the language a peculiar compression, pregnancy, energy, correct violence the harmonious grace and even flow, often conspicuous in Hamlet, have almostd isappeared. The chief characters, built on a master at least as large as that of Othello, seem to take a leak attimes an almost superhuman stature. The diction has in places a huge and rugged grandeur, whichdegenerates here and there into tumidity.The solemn majesty of the imperial Ghost in Hamlet, appearing in armour and standing noneffervescent in themoonlight, is exchanged for shapes of horror, dimly seen in the murky air or revealed by the glare ofthe cauldron fire in a iniquity cavern, or for the ghastly face of Banquo badged with blood and staring