Tammy’s Reviews > The Meaning of Shakespeare > Status Update

Autolycus gives a clue into the play’s diversities: “And when I wander here and there, I then do most go right.” I think Shakespeare is showing off how many contraries, anachronisms, crazy geoegraphies, time jumps, he can do and still pull it all together.

I - Mamilius is like his father because his tale conjures something out of nothing, ex nihilo. We never hear the boy's tale due to his father's entrance. They both can summon things that are not there. Later, when the news is shared of Perdita is found, they say it is like an old tale (Jack and Tollers). There are three uses of "old tale." It is a blend of genres like polyphonic with notes of discord that resolve.

Macbeth XI Goddard nails it. War is winter and spring is peace. Just as Narnia eventually melted and spring came, the same will happen in Scotland. The cutting down of oak branches is marching to the castle symbolizes the king bringing peace.

Macbeth X Goddard makes sense of Edward the Confessor’s healing power. It would seem like a plot sagger except that Shakespeare’s greater point is the force for good of the ideal king and the chain of being. Christians can easily believe in the existence of evil forces for we rely on good forces. Moderns who believe that finding pleasure in cruelty can creative negative psychic forces should have a good counterpart.

Macbeth IX People who don’t get Shakespeare things Act IV lags because the cruel couple only show up in the first scene. However, if the actors do their job right, the scene between Malcolm and Macduff could be very tense. Malcolm is trying to figure out if Macduff is one of Macbeth’s assassins. Macduff is trying to figure out if Malcolm killed his own father to become king. It paints a picture of the ideal king.

Macbeth VIII After the deed, she became all fear and no action. Macbeth hides his plans from her. Macbeth on the other hand started off as all fear and no action. He was indecisive and even regretted the deed immediately. At that point, he became all action to mask his fear. There are times that he was mocking other characters for the fear but he’s talking about himself. In the end, his acts are out of desperation.

Macbeth VIII I just finished reading Dante’s Inferno and Goddard reminds me of the ninth level where the souls of living beings have already gone to Hell. They are traitors and in the third ring of the ninth level are souls who betrayed their guests. I wonder if Shakespeare meant to show that Lady Macbeth’s soul is already in Hell. He says that she lacked no imagination and acted impulsively.

Macbeth VII Who are the weird sisters? The play makes it clear that, if they are not supernatural spirits, they are in touch with them. Their brew contains the worst of the worst things in nature. They seek to destroy, not to create. These filthy hags represent uncontrolled appetite and passion. Macbeth makes these choices so it is not fate. Lady Macbeth invites them into her being.

Macbeth VI Music, imagery, atmospher point to dark forces behind human life. The knocking sense is Macbeth standing at the gates of hell--it’s his last chance to repent. Macbeth has hypersensitive hearing so it works for him to hear the knocking first and then the porter. He hears things that Lady Macbeth does not. After Duncan’s death is announced, does she feint fainting or is it real, out of fear?

Macbeth V Violence is expected of the common man, not the noble man. Because Macbeth has so much doubt and Lady Macbeth does not, his fall is greater. She only has doubts that emerge in her madness after the fact. Demons and angels are out of fashion for moderns so the moral struggle has been reduced to a battle between conscious and subconscious (instinct, heredity, influences under the surface).