Macbeth Notes

In progress- Anyone want to do a class reading Macbeth? I will try to work up a Macbeth essay as good as that of Lowenthal, as though I were in the class of de Alvarez again, trying to demonstrate the virtue of the approach.

I have just a couple notes to Macbeth in my Lear book, and have very much rushed past this, his shortest play and one of the 4 or 5 great tragedies.

Tyranny is first an order of soul. This leads to the difficulty of the first attempt to define tyranny as usurpation, which usually does characterize tyranny. Like kingship- the other form of monarchy, the regime is identified with the soul of the monarch, and so will in one sense have as many forms as there are men who happen to be monarchs- some seeking wealth as the good, some honor, and some wisdom. But tyranny is the rule of one aiming toward his self interest rather than the common good. Modern tyranny, or twentieth century totalitarianism, whether of the left or right, is a special sort- the rule of a perverse ideology, using many little tyrants of the classical sort, but under an idea, to which some are even sincerely devoted. This is more the descant upon the deformity of Richard III than it is like Macbeth, who is seduced into wickedness from more normal, if vulnerable, state. That it is an intellectual perversion or perversion of the imagination distinguishes ideological tyranny from that considered by Plato and Aristotle. That justice may be set aside for self interest is the principle of the 3 bad forms of regime, whether governed by one, a few, or the many. The three bad forms of regime will be most like most tyrants, with the perversions of the crown the worst- but some will will simply enjoy their liberty from law in the pursuit of money- for example.

The crown is the great physical illusion, for which these "men" wade through the blood even of women and children. What is that calculation of the tyrant's illusory pleasure in Republic?

We will focus on the witches, the madness of Lady Macbeth, ... The art of the witches is to be compared to that of Sycorax in the Tempest, by which she imprisoned Ariel in a cloven pine when the spirit would not work her earthly and abhorrent commands (Tempest) This is the opposite of the art of Prospero, just as healing is the art of kingship, opposite that of the witches in Macbeth.

In Lear too, the vicious women insult the men (Albany) for lacking courage.

The Witch of Endor in the Bible is the only such Biblical creature, and she summons the only ghost in the Bible. Shakespeare's witches are classical rather than Satanic, as Lowenthal notes. "Triple Hecate's team" is mentioned by Puck in A MSND. The aspects of the moon are 3, Hecate being the "chthonic," then the middle is the fairy kingdom with the Queen and the fairies, and then heavenly feminine, the highest.

Is there an archetype of kingship? There is of the human perfection or phronesis (Plato,Minos). The tyrant thinks this means wealth, power, self interest, the appearance of the earthly manifestation of the human perfection, something like the halo, but 3x removed..

The usurping tyrant is possessed by an archetype. Hence Macbeth can be given the intoxicating dream-like equivocations by the witches, which are in Jungian terms unconscious contents. The archetype can be called the crown, and includes 'how princes become kings-'

The crown represents a human perfection- called by the Greeks phronesis, or practical wisdom. The phronemos is indeed the law...

Not, of course, in the sense that the whim of some human whim is law, but because he is capable of seeing and doing the one objectively right thing in each particular. THAT is the law, and it is ONE, so it cannot be written. It can be called "His Righteousness," or "natural right."

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Mar 12

...the tyrant, willing to wade through blood in lust for the crown 3x removed, takes the place of the father, hence Oedipus. Caesar's dream before crossing the Rubicon... The political pattern occurs also in philosophy- Nietzsche. These are perversions of a faculty of the nature of man.

de Alvarez on the Porter scene: drink as equivocator: The witches have given him an intoxicating hope...wrapped...fair is foul, they have given him an equivocation. My computer is about to break...

Is there an archetype of kingship? There is of the human perfection or phronesis (minos). The tyrant thinks this means wealth, power, self interest, the appearance of the earthly manifestation of the human perfection, something like the halo, but 3x removed..

The play opens with the witches because they are central to the focus of the play, as well as the history...The question of what this is in relation to Macbeth and the Scottish crown or kingship is central to the focus. These seem only able to effect Macbeth because he is susceptible, and all they actually "do" seems only to impress him with foretelling accidents and make suggestions, i.e., speak.

I,ii, the only indication of a Machiavellian theme is the word "fortune, and of Christianity, Golgatha. The warriors plowed ahead despite wounds as though to memorize another Golgatha." The correct analogy of Christian things and the visible political world is in the self-sacrifice of the warrior, for the polity.

It is amazing how much of the plot is historical. The witches, the predictions, and the effect on Macbeth are all in Holinshed.

Macbeth contains one of the three great Shakespearean portrayals in a study of madness, with Lear and Hamlet. White states that it is THE Shakespearean play about madness, which is so in the sense that the true illness of the mind is injustice. But this ignores the madness of tragic victims, such as Lear and Ophelia. But we will study the plat as part of our study of psychology- beginning with the hypothesis that the evil soul is in faction with itself, because the nature of man is just and good.

Like Hamlet, Macbeth is on the fringes of the English history plays, occurring just before King John, with Cymbeline and Lear in the distant past.