Table of Contents
1. Introduction 4
1.1 Dramatic Art: Shakespeare as a Master of the Psychologization of the Drama 4
1.2 Subject of Interest 6
2. The Emergence of the Individual in the Middle Ages 8
3. The Historical and Intellectual Background with Regard to Individuality 9
4. The Elizabethan Psychology 11
5. Imagination and Its Significance for Shakespeare 12
6. The Negative Aspects of Imagination and Human Wishes as per Dr. Samuel
Johnson with Regard to Macbeth 15
7. Macbeth’s Essential Character Traits and Mental Condition as a Basis for the
Forms of Expression and the Power of his Imagination 18
8. The Essence and Impacts of Macbeth’s Imagination – The Power of Imagination 26
8.1 The Essence and Forms of Expression of his Imagination 26
8.2 The Impacts of Imagination on his Thinking and his Mental Condition 30
8.3 The Impacts of his Imagination on his Concrete Actions 33
8.4 The Impacts of his Imagination on the Course of the Plot 35
9. Imagination and Reality – Two Entirely Different Worlds in Macbeth – Annotations
on the Dual Time Structure in the Drama 38
9.1 The Discrepancy Between Imagination and Reality in Macbeth 38
9.1.1 General Information 38
9.1.2 Macbeth Between Two Different Worlds 39
9.1.3 The Dagger Monologue and Findings Derived From it 41
9.1.4 Macbeth’s Vision of Banquo’s Ghost During the Banquet Scene 45
9.1.5 Macbeth’s Summoning of the Witches 46
9.1.6 The Decrease and the End of his Visions 48
9.1.7 Macbeth’s Loss of Reality 48
9.1.8 Findings 50
9.2 The Discrepancy Between Imagination and Reality for Lady Macbeth 50
10. The Forms of Expression of Macbeth’s Imagination and Their Significance as
a Means of Projecting Wishes and Fears Into the Future 53
10.1 Imagination as a Mirror of Secret Hopes and Desires: Positive Anticipation
of the Future and Disillusionment in the End 53
10.1.1 Macbeth’s Hopes and Desires 53
10.1.2 Macbeth’s Complete Disillusionment 57
10.1.3 Findings 60
10.2 Imagination as a Mirror of Fears and Apprehensions: Negative Anticipation
of the Future 60
10.3 Imagination as an Expression of a Disturbed and Sick Psyche 70
10.3.1 Macbeth’s Paranoid Schizophrenia 70
10.3.2 Macbeth’s Self-Alienation and Split Personality 72
11. Macbeth – A Ruthless Power-Seeker or a Defenseless Victim of his own Imagination? – Shakespeare’s Sympathy Steering 75
11.1 Macbeth as a Ruthless and Cruel Power-Seeker 76
11.2 Macbeth as a Victim of his Imagination 79
12. The Nihilism in Macbeth as a Present Relevance 84
13. Conclusion 85
Sources 88
I. Primary Literature 88
II. Secondary Literature 88
1. Introduction
1.1. Dramatic Art: Shakespeare as a Master of the Psychologization of the Drama
William Shakespeare can justifiably be labelled as a master of the psychologization of the drama. He created dramatic forms that were entirely innovative for his time, and through his diverse innovations he effectuated a reformation of the drama, whose impacts are relevant still today. To begin with, those innovations shall be shortly explained.
Thus “It is not the victims of wickedness and sin that the play is concerned with, but wickedness and sin itself, yet not from an attitude of orthodox certainty, but from a dramatic point of view so close to the protagonist that any superior detachment is made impossible.” (Mehl, p.106, l.1-4). Therefore the recipient can identify himself with the protagonist and oftentimes – just like in the case of Macbeth – also feel sympathy for him.
Furthermore, as for Shakespeare it is to be observed how the archetypical label of the tyrant makes more and more room for a complex and individual composition. The externalized presentation progressively gives way to an internalization which grants insights into the psyche of the tyrant and, through fine mental differentiation, underlines his uniqueness as a personality (Unterstenhöfer, p.49, ll.6-14).
The Roman historian Tacitus (c.56 AD – c.120 AD) already attempted to fathom the deeper problems of the regularities of the inner life and, thereby, paved the way for Shakespeare to transfer the psychological ideas of the Tacitean historiography onto the drama (Unterstenhöfer, p.50, l.24-28).
Through a strong differentiation of the psychological happenings of his tyrannic protagonists – as in Macbeth – Shakespeare, with his artistic skills and creativity, worked out a significant innovation of the drama: the discovery of “a particular concept of self or, more precisely, a ‘self-identity’.” (Mascuch, p.18, l.7-8).
Shakespeare was the first to use imagination, which was not supposed to reach its blooming period before Romanticism, in order to create grim scenarios and visions for his tragic protagonists and, in this way, be able to make their motivation for their respective actions more plausible and transparent for the audience. Even though its character is still of experimental nature at that time, through the introduction of imagination the poet contributes substantially to the psychologization of the drama.
Only Shakespeare’s discovery of new linguistic devices for the depiction of a gradually developing ‘psychology’ at that time – which nevertheless primarily only comes into its own in his later works – could ultimately implement such a multilayered fantasy-thinking, as for instance presented in the dagger-monologue (Macbeth1, Act 2, Scene 1, ll.33-64) which will be touched upon subsequently, into the poetic vision (see Clemen, p.49, ll.9-11).
An important and repeatedly recurring means that Shakespeare makes use of, in order to clearly showcase deeper insights into the mental world and psychological processes of his protagonists to the recipient, is the monologue. By means of the monologue the audience becomes an intimate witness of the presented thoughts and feelings, in a sense, so as if they could take an unfiltered insight into the innermost spheres of a person (Mürb, p.34, l.28-30).