Examine the representation of the Supernatural and the Diabolical in Shakespeare’s Tragedies of Macbeth and Hamlet, with reference to how these themes may have influenced the formation of the Gothic genre.
In this essay I will be examining how Shakespeare, through the tragedies of Macbeth and Hamlet, addressed anxieties of his era including regicide (the diabolical), religion and witchcraft, and how these anxieties were explored through the means of the supernatural in order to combat the contextual restraints of this era. I will also investigate his use of expressing these concerns through the use of allegorical supernatural beings, considering the Gothic dimensions within these two plays and how they may have influenced the creation of the Gothic genre. I will be paying close attention to contextual influences that may have lead to the creation and inclusions of these dark themes in these text, and how these influences are factors that also contribute to my argument of Macbeth and Hamlet being stimulation to the initiative of the Gothic genre.
The first Gothic text was Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764), which pre-date these two plays by a century, however as the Gothic genre is a product of the gothic revival, originating in the 18th and 19th centuries, we can see how the works of Shakespeare may have had an influence in this genres conception due to its experimentation with elements now found in the Gothic and topics common in the Gothic genre. The Gothic genre has always been one that is unstable, and I argue that these two Tragedies are cosmetically Gothic. Botting writes that;
These days it seems increasingly difficult to speak of ‘the Gothic’ with any assurance […] adjectives often need to be inserted to supplement the indefinition of the category: ‘the eighteenth century Gothic’, ‘Victorian Gothic’. (Botting, the Gothic; Essays and Studies 2001’Preface: the Gothic’, p.1)
In saying this, I believe that it is appropriate to look at these two texts of Shakespeare’s along side Gothic criticism, especially when considering the use of Supernatural within them. I will also be taking into consideration the use of themes that are used in these two plays which are now fundamental within the shaping of the Gothic text, for example;
Gothic fictions since Walpole have most often been about aspiring but middling, or sometimes upper middle-class, white people caught between the attractions or terror of a past once controlled by overweening aristocrats…and forces of change that would reject such a past yet still remain held by aspects of it (including desires of aristocratic or superhuman powers). (Hogle, Introduction: the Gothic in west culture, p.3)
In other words, Hogle argues that a Gothic text deals with the theme (as well as other which I will later explore) of a person caught between classes and aspiring to gain power. This is very easy to relate this to the characters of Macbeth, who is determined to achieve power, and Hamlet, who is exploring the past in order to change who holds power in the present. Whilst building upon this argument, I will be looking into other Gothic athletics within these two plays, using Gothic criticism in order to explore them in order to support the idea that Shakespeare’s work was an anticipation of this genre.
Hamlet was most likely written in 1600, yet the precise date is uncertain due to the complexity of this text, being that there is several editions of Hamlet, all varying to different extents from each other. It is a plot that is based upon the story of Amleth, from Danish History, compiled by Saxo during the late 12th century. It is a text that is;
Fraught with uncertainty, it is tempting to think that our unresolved questions [in the text] are largely as a result of the perplexities that must inevitably come with the passage of time and the vagaries of editors’
(Greenblatt, Hamlet, ‘Introduction, p.287)
Greenblatt continues to write that the audience is never truly certain of many things within this play, including; the extent to which the ghost is trustworthy, the nature of the ghost, the amounts of Gertrude’s (Hamlet’s mother) guilt for the marriage of her husband brother, the sincerity of Hamlet’s madness, if Hamlet loves Ophelia, whether Ophelia’s suicide is intentional, and so forth. Greenblatt goes on to write that its language and use of dramatic poetry seems to mark an significant shift in Western drama, disclosing dark themes that were usually concealed, showing the complex nature of human kind and their physiological structure, this could have helped to inspire the way in which the Gothic genre explores similarly dark themes. It is also notable that, due to the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud, critics have speculated over Hamlets possible Oedipus complex, a common psychosis explored within Gothic texts.
Hamlet, as well as Macbeth, uses many pioneering changes within dramatic writing. This is seen in how Shakespeare utilized a blending of the elements of Comedy and Tragedy, which was usually rigidly separate in drama at the time, and how this blending invented comic relief, something that Aristotle’s conventions of the Tragedy (‘the Unities’, Poetics, 335 BC) would not have allowed. Gothic texts are often a osculation between mundane and extraordinary, dark humor and macabre actions, and it is easy to see how the revolutionary work of Shakespeare could have been a key factor in this inclusion in the Gothic. More over, classic drama did not allow more than three performers to speak in a scene and were never to talk to the audience or themselves. In this way Shakespeare plays were pioneering to dramatic literature and in the creation of experimental texts and genres. Bryson writes;
[Shakespeare] could […] kill off the title character with the play half done […] write a play like Hamlet, where the main character speaks 1,495 lines (nearly as many as the number of words spoken all the characters combined in The Comedy of Errors) but disappears for unnervingly long stretches […] He constantly teased reality, reminding the audience that they were not in the real world but in the theater. (Bryson, 2007, p.102)
It is through this method of theater production that Shakespeare was able to explore tabooed topics within society, safe from judgment and prosecution, something that could have influenced the Gothic text as this genre deals with the prohibited and forbidden within the texts contextual society.
Macbeth first printed in 1623 (first folio), however this play is usually dated 1606 due to a joke (Macbeth, 1.3.135- 2.2.11) in which there is a subtle reference to treason which could allude to the execution of Henry Garnet (detailed in Macbeth,‘introduction’, Greenblatt, p.783 -791).This play is mostly a creation of Shakespeare that was as a result his company becoming the King’s men, using themes and ideas that where interests of James I, including regicide and the role of women/witchcraft. This could also be why this play is much shorter than Shakespeare’s others, due to James preference towards shorter plays. Indeed, Shakespeare’s Company was popular with the King, Bryson writes;
James remained a generous supporter of Shakespeare's company, using them often and paying them well. In the thirteen years between his accession and Shakespeare’s death, they would perform before the King 187 times. (Bryson, 2007, p.132)
The source of the plot of Macbeth is most likely from Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (1587) however key changes to this text, such as; suppressing Banquo’s involvement in the assistance in the murder of King Duncan, exaggerating the extent of Macbeths evilness, shortening Macbeths the rein as king and ageing King Duncan. As James I believed himself to be a descendant of Banquo, it is clear why Shakespeare alters these elements in the plot as all changes help to highlight Banquo as a honorable descendent, thus implying that James is as equally as honorable. James I was a Protestant menarche that preceded a Catholic rein, and this caused a duality of attitudes towards the King.
The severest Catholic challenge to a Protestant rule was […] when a group of conspirators placed thirty- six barrels of gunpowder […] in the cellar beneath the Palace of Westminster in advance of the state opening Parliament […] taking with it the King, Queen and their two sons. […] the reaction against Catholics was swift and decisive. They were barred from key professions and, for a time, not permitted to travel more than five miles from home. (Bryson, 2007, p. 133- 134)
It is because of this conflict between Catholics and Protestants that Shakespeare focuses upon supernatural beings such as the Hamlets Witches and the Ghosts for both texts.
The use of ghosts in both of these texts shows a link to the Gothic supernatural, linking with the conflict between Catholics and Protestants. It is notable here to point out that Catholicism is the only religion to believe in ghosts as they believe they are the result of a sole caught in purgatory, forced to live in the in between of life and death to serve as penance, haunting the living to act as a caution for sin. Due to Catholicism being virtually illegal at the time, Shakespeare use of Catholic idea within his place was quiet radical being that he was openly exploring a side of religion that was prohibited which, interestingly, he performed in front of the King.
Hamlet deals mainly with the Supernatural through the ghost of the dead King of Denmark, Hamlet’s father. The plays first line ‘Who’s there?’ (Hamlet, 1.1) is important due to its initial questioning upon the state everything, including ghosts. What are they, are they real, and are they who they say they are? The answer to this is, we do not know and can never know. By asking this question Shakespeare is challenging everything about the structure of a ghost, thus questioning everything about its creator; religion. The characters never fully believe it is the King, referring to it as an apparition, and being like the King in appearance.
HAMLET: Angles and ministers of grace defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin of the dammed.
Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou com’st in such questionable shape
That I will speak to thee. I’ll call thee Hamlet,
King, father, royal Dane. O answer me! (Hamlet, 1.4, 20-26)
In this quotation we can see how Shakespeare is using Hamlet to question the validity of appearance and motive of a ghost. The ghost motives are compared to the two beliefs of Christian afterlife’s, heaven and hell, Hamlet wishes to know if this apparition is present for good or evil means, however due to the nature of ghost and their ‘questionable shape’, Hamlet is unable to deduce which moral side this ghost is from. In other words, he is aware that his presence is a paradox. He is neither of heaven or hell but of the between and just as he is also the between of life and death. Hamlet says that he will call him ‘Hamlet, King, father’ (1.4, 26) and in Shakespeare scripting this line the audience sees, as Hamlet himself believes, that this ghost is not entirely the dead King. This idea is explored later in the play in the quotation below. These lines also explore my previous points about religion, detailing what it is to be in purgatory, exploring aspects of Catholics.
GHOST: I am thy father’s spirit,
Doomed for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day confined to fast in fires
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purged away.
[…]
If thou dist ever love thy dear father love –
[…]
Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder. (Hamlet, 1.4, 11- 25)
This shows that even the apparition is not stable within his self definition. He begins with saying that he is indeed Hamlets father, yet ends by referring to the dead King in the third person, implying a distance between the ghost and the dead King, furthering the audiences and Hamlet’s suspicions that the ghost is not the King, but a fraud present to create conflict. Yet when Claudius is seen struggling to pray and reacting so badly to the play within the play, the audiences’ believability with the validity of the ghost is altered yet again. I believe that Shakespeare's use of ghosts in this play is to emphasize the contradictions within religion, as he wasn’t overly religious himself he may have found the conflict between the two branches of Christianity to be impractical.
In Macbeth, ghosts and the spectral are used for different effect. They appear mainly alongside the witches in order to associate them further with the abnormal, seen in Macbeth 3.5 and 4.1, which are strange in tone that has often lead to questioning the authenticity of these section within the play. However, the madness of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are explored with the inclusion of astral hallucinations such as the dagger (Macbeth,2.1, 33) and un-washable blood in the hands of Macbeth (2.2, 55- 60) and Lady Macbeth (5.1, 24- 58). Also guilt is explored through the ghost of Banquo (3.4, 36 – 106 and 4.1, 127 -139) the armored head (4.1, 85) and bloody children (4.1, 92 -110). Indeed ghosts are not as significantly used as in Hamlet, as in Macbeth, witchcraft is the most prominent use of the supernatural in this text, which also addresses the diabolical. It is difficult to believe today the extent to which this society believed and feared witches. Notenstein writes that;
It was a matter that concerned all classes from the royal household to the ignorant denizens of country villages […] thrifty peasants worrying over their crops, clergymen alert to detect the Devil in their own parishes, medical eager to profit by the fear of evil women, justices of the peace zealous to beat down the works of Satan—all classes, indeed—believed more or less sincerely in the dangerous powers of human creatures who had surrendered themselves to the Evil One. […]T he crime of sorcery had been dealt with in a few early instances by the common-law courts, occasionally (where politics were involved) by the Privy Council, but more usually, it is probable, by the church. This, indeed, may easily be illustrated from the works of law. Britton and Fleta include an inquiry about sorcerers as one of the articles of the sheriff's tourn. A note upon Britton, however, declares that it is for the ecclesiastical court to try such offenders and to deliver them to be put to death in the king's court, but that the king himself may proceed against them if he pleases.
(Notenstein, 1911, A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718, p.1 - 6)
In this quotation we can see how close the associations with witchcraft and the devil, therefore religion, was within the time of these plays and the effect being accused of witchcraft would have upon a person. James opinions were very strongly against witches, linking them and their supernatural powers as a threat (regicide) and plotting against the throne, the apparent theme in Macbeth; Notenstein goes on to write;
James had very definite opinions on the subject and hesitated not at all to make them known. His views had weight. It is useless to deny that the royal position swayed the courts. James's part in the witch persecution cannot be condoned, save on the ground that he was perfectly honest. He felt deeply on the matter. It was little wonder. He had grown up in Scotland in the very midst of the witch alarms. His own life, he believed, had been imperilled by the machinations of witches. He believed he had every reason to fear and hate the creatures. (Notenstein, 1911, A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718, p.94)
In this text the witches represent perversion of nature and fate, but also aid the representation that man is weakened and corrupted by wayward women, seen also with Lady Macbeth. This idea has been rife in English society due to its origination within the Christian religion (Eve tempting Adam with the forbidden fruit). We encounter them firstly in Macbeth, 1.1 and then again in 1.3, in which these three Weird/Wyrd Sisters (the second word ‘Wyrd’ from the old English for fate, perhaps Shakespeare referring to the three Greek Fates, or Moirai, who controlled the thread of life for all mortals from birth to death, eluding to the idea that the witches have supernatural control over Macbeth and the events within this play) discuss where they have come from, what wicked things they have done and when they will next meet. In the line;
FIRST WITCH: But in a sieve I’ll sail.
Like a rat without a tail (Macbeth, 1.3, 8 - 9)
We can see how Shakespeare is looking at the unnatural elements that accused witches represented at the time such as representing distortion in natural order, this is seen in the quotation above as is not possible for a permeable object, such as a sieve, to be able to be buoyant enough to enable her to sail upon. Also in this quotation we can see how Shakespeare emphasizes the witches’ abnormality through the use of rhyme and rhythm throughout their dialogue. This is highlighted additionally, as they rhyme with each other, keep a rhythm together and speak together, creating the inhuman idea of these three people being very close to being just one. This could link to the fear of women conspiring together in order to overpower men. It is notable that witches powers and equipment are all from the domestic life of women, which are subverted to implicate evil; such as the sieve in the quotation, the broom, the cauldron etc. They also use an odd logic within juxtaposition, seen in the lines ‘when the battle’s lost and won’ (1.1, 4) as obviously when one side win, the other loses, and ‘All is foul, and foul is fair’ (10) which is virtually repeated by Macbeth ‘so foul and fair a day I have not yet seen’ (1.3, 36) which helps to extend the idea that the witches control Macbeth. They also use the second apparition to say ‘laugh to scorn the power of man, for none of woman born shall harm Macbeth’ (4.1, 95- 97), using the misleading logic of McDuff being extracted from his mother womb, rather than born. As well as the third apparition to say ‘Macbeth shall never vanquished be until Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill Shall come against him’ (106- 109) leading Macbeth to believe through these two predictions that he is unbeatable, as woods can not naturally move, which adds to his horror as the army hides behind trees to reach him. This feature of prophesy is used frequently with the witches, a feature that is now common within the Gothic.
FIRST WITCH: All hail Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis.
SECOND WITCH: All hail Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor.
THIRD WITCH: All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be King hereafter!
[… to Banquo …]
FIRST WITCH: Hail!
SECOND WITCH: Hail!
THIRD WITCH: Hail!
FIRST WITCH: Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.
SECOND WITCH: Not so happy, yet much happier.
THIRD WITCH: Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none.
So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo! (Macbeth, 1.3, 46 – 66)
This quotation is the first example of prophesy made to Macbeth. I have written previously, James I was obsessed with witchcraft and fearful of regicide, believing himself to be Banquo’s descendant, in this quotation we can see very obviously how Shakespeare is appealing to the ego of James by accentuating the grandeur of Banquo and linking the witches to the diabolical and scheming associated with regicide. Through the course of the play we can see how Shakespeare is showing the outcome of treason in the fate of Macbeth.
It is clear that Shakespeare was very involved within the history of England as well as its current issues and how great of a power the culture around him affected what he wrote about and the ways in which he explored old and current ideas and themes. As result he created works that were significant during their first performances, which are still as compelling presently. His use of the supernatural is indeed an interesting topic, as he uses supernatural beings not only to explore topics that his society would not have allowed, but also to address matters of life and psychology of mankind. Through addressing regicide (the diabolical), religion and witchcraft, I believe that I have shown how closely they relate to the Gothic method of focusing upon anxieties, with the intention of expressing his own views upon the hypocrisy within his culture. These texts indeed show how these two and simular text have clearly influenced the shaping of many genres in form and context, including the genre of the Gothic.
Primary texts
Greenblatt, Stephen; Cohen, Walter; Howard, Jean E. and Eisaman Maus, Katherine (eds.1997) The Norton Shakespeare: Based on the Oxford Edition, Tragedies, ‘Macbeth’ and ‘Hamlet’. New York and London; Norton & Company.
Secondary texts
Botting, F. (2001) the Gothic; Essays and Studies 2001. Suffolk; Boydell and Brewer Ltd.
Buchanan, J (2005). William Shakespeare; the great comedies and tragedies, ‘Introductions’. Wordsworth Editions; Hertfordshire. (p.481-486 and p.819-823).
Bryson, B (2007). Shakespeare, the World as a Stage. Harper Press; London.
Greenblatt, Stephen; Cohen, Walter; Howard, Jean E. and Eisaman Maus, Katherine (eds.1997) The Norton Shakespeare: Based on the Oxford Edition, Tragedies, ‘Introductions’. New York and London; Norton & Company.
Hogle, J. (2002) The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction- Introduction: the Gothic in Western Culture. Cambridge; Cambridge University press.
Notenstein, W (1911). A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718. Project Gutenberg. Available: <http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31511/31511-h/31511-h.htm> Last accessed 12th May 2013.
Watts, C (2005). Macbeth, William Shakespeare, ‘Introduction’. Wordsworth Editions; Hertfordshire. (p.9 -23).
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