Macbeth as a Tragedy
There is no such things as Shakespearean Tragedy, there is Shakespearean tragedies, for they do not follow a fixed
literary pattern (These tragedies combine various literary conversions: Aristotle, Seneca and Chaucer) and do not
share common features. Elizabethan dramatists produced a multiplicity of forms that resist any kind of
systemization.
1) Aristotle’s Conception of tragedy:
Aristotle defines a tragedy as “the representation of a weighty and complete doing, having magnitude” arouses
“pity and fear” so as to bring about a “catharsis of these emotions.”
Pity is the emotion one experiences when witnessing “undeserved misery.”
Fear can only be experienced insofar as one perceives a “likeness” to himself in the one falling Macbeth
may be something between pitiable or monstrous, but he will have to be closer to one or the other.
The misfortune of a tragedy must not be a result of depravity. Instead, Aristotle argues, the misfortune, or
fall, must result from error this error must logically proceed from a flaw in character since errant action has
to stem from one’s character
According to Aristotle, Tragedy is about the fortunes and misfortunes of characters who are good, but who suffer
because they commit some error (Hamartia) + events that arouse fear and pity purgation of emotions (Catharsis)
Can Macbeth be seen as a tragic hero and Macbeth seen as a tragedy in these ways?
Noble: Macbeth certainly is. He’s good in battle, has served his country well; he even fights with himself
whether to kill or not to kill the King “Brave Macbeth – well he deserves that name”
His fatal flaw (Ambition): which emerges as soon as he realizes the first prophecy has been fulfilled.
The audience properly feels pity at the undeserved misery that follows from the conjunction of diabolic
forces and Macbeths wife + feels fear while witnessing a man subjected to something, to which we are all
vulnerable Catharsis
Macbeth is a tragic hero per excellence.
2) Seneca’s conception of tragedy:
“No author exercised a wider or a deeper influence upon Elizabethan thought or upon the Elizabethan form of
tragedy than did Seneca” T.S Eliot
Seneca is crucial to Shakespeare
Introduction of the five-act structure
Introduced the use of a chorus to comment on rather than participate in the action
Frequent allusion to deity
Stock characters: ghost; cruel tyrant; faithful male servant; female confidante
Violent acts often reported by messenger rather than acted out on stage
Sensational themes, often leading to revenge and retribution + plots based on revenge
High rhetorical style (Hyperbole/Aphorism/ Epigram /Stichomythia
Soliloquy: Speech delivered while character is alone (solus) intended to communicate his thoughts
Evil ( the cloud of evil, then the defeat of reason by evil)
Can we consider Seneca as the primary source for Macbeth?
Macbeth is a Five-act Play
A stress on witchcraft and the supernatural “weird sisters”
Existence of vaulting ambition
Theme of blood (the three murders)
Self-dramatization of the hero, especially when he dies
The frequent use of stichomythia in dialogues
Invocation of evil “Macbeth is a criminal an immoral man in a moral universe, whose choice of evil unleashes
catastrophic consequences which inflict the whole cosmos” Martindale
“These are a number of features in Macbeth- the heated rhetoric, the brooding sense of evil, the preoccupation
with power, the obsessive introspection, the claustrophobic images of cosmic destruction- which recall Seneca’s
manner and interest, together with an usually high number of passages which seem to derive from his plays”
Martindale
A typically Senecan scenario.
3) Chaucer’s conception of tragedy:
Tragedy is an experience as universal as it is incomprehensible
Man’s attempt to come to terms with his suffering, loss, and disillusionment is at the heart of every tragedy
(tragic guilt/catharsis/Christian redemption)
The sufferer is in need for explanation and consolation
“Is there any cause in nature that make these hard hearts?” King Lear (this question is repeated in almost all
Shakespeare’s tragedies)
Shakespeare’s tragedies should be seed within the tradition established by Chaucer.
