Lady Macbeth

While many recognize Macbeth as representative of King James I’s obsessions with absolutism and witchcraft, the play’s explorations of gender also reveal a tangible influence from the conversation surrounding the royal’s assumed femininity and hesitancy to drive England to war. More explicitly, Shakespeare’s play concerns the “womanly infirmity” of the Macbeths in their reluctance towards violence. Much like the unstable, newly-Jacobean England, the environment of Macbeth encourages a universal rejection of feminine weakness. However, the narrative path of Lady Macbeth exploits her attempt to overcome the rigid definitions of female behavior as a measure of her immorality in a way it does not for her husband. Moreover, only Lady Macbeth will meet a stereotypical conclusion by succumbing to hysteria, despite Lord Macbeth having more reason for a descent into madness. Thus, while the theatrical realm rejects general deviancy, Lady Macbeth exclusively faces a villainization founded upon the basis of sex.

This paper explores Macbeth's free will. Since all the prophecies come true in the play, it could be considered that Macbeth was predestined to all the events he experiences. However, it can also be considered that, being only fated to be king, Macbeth makes the premonitions occur the way they occur, being his decision to kill Duncan what triggers his tragedy. To defend this idea, I carry out a throughout analysis of Macbeth's and Lady Macbeth's extreme (self-)awareness, their calculating and speculative reasonings, and their haste for the crown, taking into consideration as well the idea of potentiality of good and evil.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Mark Alznauer

Part I: Tragedy

1. The Beauty of Fate and Its Reconciliation. Hegel’s The Spirit of Christianity and Its Fate and Goethe’s Iphigenia in Tauris
Douglas Finn (Villanova University)

2. Two Early Interpretations of Hegel’s Theory of Greek Tragedy. Hinrichs and Goethe
Eric v. d. Luft (Gegensatz Press)

3. Hegel and the Origins of Critical Theory. Aeschylus and Tragedy in Hegel’s Natural Law Essay
Wes Furlotte (Thompson Rivers University)

4. The Tragedy of Sex (for Hegel)
Antón Barba-Kay (Catholic University of America)

5. Substantial Ends and Choices without a Will. Greek Tragedy as Archetype of Tragic Drama
Allegra de Laurentiis (SUNY Stony Brook)

6. Freedom and Fixity in Shakespeare’s Tragic Heroes
Rachel Falkenstern (St. Francis College)

Part II: Comedy

7. Taking the Ladder Down. Hegel on Comedy and Religious Experience
Peter Wake (St. Edward’s University)

8. From Comedy to Christianity. The Nihilism of Aristophanic Laughter
Paul T. Wilford (Boston College)

9. Hegel and “the Other Comedy”
Martin Donougho (University of South Carolina)

10. The Comedy of Public Opinion in Hegel
Jeffrey Church (University of Houston)

Part III: History

11. Hegel’s Tragic Conception of World History
Fiacha D. Heneghan (Vanderbilt University)

12. Hegel on Tragedy and the World-Historical Individual’s Right of Revolutionary Action
Jason M. Yonover (Johns Hopkins University)

13. Philosophy, Comedy, and History. Hegel’s Aristophanic Modernity
C. Allen Speight (Boston University)

Contributors
Index

Despite being nearly fifty-years-old, Roman Polanski's 1971 "Macbeth" is the most recent full-film version, and it stands the test of time. Overall, the acting, cinematography, and sets are high quality, and the screenplay, also written by Polanski, was nicely adapted from Shakespeare's play. In this movies review, I give a brief summary of the plot, followed by a synopsis of the film that highlights the adaptations made in transferring of the play to the screen. Lastly, I discuss Polanski's rhetorical choices: abbreviating some aspects in the play, while amplifying other aspects on screen.

Si bien Freud quizás no haya estudiado a Kierkegaard, Lacan, en algún seminario o escrito, recomendó a sus discípulos, que bien valía dar una revisadita a la obra del filósofo danés y, a raíz, de un grupo de estudio sobre una obra de Juan David Nasio, que se titula "¿Por qué repetimos siempre los mismos errores?", hago un texto en el que intercalo a los autores del título de mi artículo más otros filósofos griegos y modernos.

William Shakespeare has developed the plot of his play Macbeth through the effective use of transitions<br> to the major characters. Among them, the character that is most prone to regular transitions in life is the<br> central character of Macbeth. This research paper explores the trajectory of transitions through which<br> Shakespeare develops the plot of his play through the character of Macbeth concerning his changing<br> situations and positions. While analysing the play with the help of Schlossberg's Transition theory,<br> specifically through the concept of 4S's, the perspicacity of Macbeth's trajectory of different transitions in<br> the pattern of one after the other is visible throughout the play. With the help of textual and<br> interpretative analysis of the play, the situation, psychological aspects, support and strategies to cope<br> with the transition in Macbeth are explored in the research. Through the pers...

An article written for educational screen studies magazine Screen Education. This article investigates the narrative devices implemented by Polanski in his film adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1971), with particular focus on the haunting and sinister themes portrayed, alongside the very personal tragedies faced by the filmmaker only years prior to the film's production.

This paper aims to elaborate on the abuse of power among the characters in Macbeth due to thirst for power and to explain the reasons for Lady Macbeth’s thirst for masculinity. This paper uses rational analysis to explore the message the 16th-century playwright reveals. Symbolism, imagery and irony analysis were made to analyze the data. Through the myriad of sources, Shakespeare offers a vivid and grotesque depiction of a man and his wife demise due to their involvement with sin, offering a profound caution to his audience of the dangers of the ambition, lust or thirst for power beyond their control. ‘Thirst for Power and Masculinity in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth’ has elaborated on the destructive power in the pursuit of the characters’ thirst and hunger for power and masculinity that is incorporated inside the characters in Macbeth.

Keywords: Thirst, Power, Masculinity, Ambition, Abuse, Lust, Hunger

This article tries to provide a thorough analysis of Nikolai Leskov’s rewriting of Lady Macbeth, the Shakespearean character, in the novella Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, from the perspective of Translation and Adaptation Studies. The focus will be placed on the ideology of the author who, with full knowledge, rewrites a previous work to adapt it to a specific context. Apart from Leskov’s work, attention will be also paid to two of its subsequent adaptations: Dmitri Shostakovich’s homonymous opera and William Oldroyd’s filmic version, Lady Macbeth. Finally, the importance of these processes for the development of target literary systems will be discussed and emphasized.

Elizabethan England is often referred to as “the Golden Age” (of England) but it was perhaps not so favourable for the women of that age. It was a predominantly patriarchal society. Shakespeare, being one of the most prominent playwrights and consequently an important reflector of the society of his times, remained ambiguous in his portrayal of women. The society he belonged to, considered qualities like courage, valiance, honour, strength and reason, to be essentially male attributes while those of weakness, frailty and indecision  to be of female’s. Thus, we have characters like Portia, Rosalind and Viola who are made to put on the guise of men in order to execute actions requiring courage and strength of character. Similarly, we have the very powerful character of Lady Macbeth, in Macbeth, who is rendered powerless just when her husband is at the crescendo of his ambition, so that it is the male character, Macbeth, who executes the final necessary actions. The aim of the present paper is to analyse  Shakespeare’s portrayal of the power and the very limitation of it vested in women in general, and Lady Macbeth, in particular, with reference to the works of L.C.Knights, Janet Adelman and Kenneth Muir, among others.

This article will consider depictions of two different mythical women in the Victorian period, namely the characters of Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth and the Jewish folkloric figure of Lilith. It will consider different interpretations of such mythical women by comparing John Singer Sargent’s Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth (1889) with Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s sonnet ‘Body’s Beauty’ (c.1866-8). It will argue that Sargent creates a myth of womanhood in the character of Lady Macbeth via his portrait of Ellen Terry, largely inspired by her costume. It will compare this to the legend of Lilith as an alternative female myth; as that myth is expressed in Rossetti’s sonnet. The article will argue that these two artefacts depict differing interpretations of mythical women as versions of the femme fatale in the context of increased female self-expression and autonomy in the latter half of the nineteenth century.

Traditionally, both criticism and adaptations of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth tend to present the titular female character as monstrous. Lady Macbeth is often portrayed as ambitious and manipulative, without any enquiry into her motivations. Vishal Bhardwaj’s 2004 Maqbool is unique in cinematic Shakespearean adaptations in that it gives Nimmi (Lady Macbeth) a complex backstory, as well as pressing motivations for actively instigating and carrying out Abba-ji (Duncan)’s murder.
This paper will explore how Bhardwaj successfully adapted several elements suggested in the text (such as isolation, impotence, and ambition), analysing Bhardwaj’s strategy for translating the play into an Indian context and looking into the specific changes that result in a relatable female character, taking into account issues such as the present situation of women in India.
The changes Bhardwaj made to the text—namely transforming it into a love story—result in a Lady Macbeth character that, far from being monstrous, is compelling. Bhardwaj successfully translated several elements and created in Nimmi a character that is both “faithful” to the Lady Macbeth characteristics and a humanized, relatable woman. Bhardwaj’s version helps redeem the vilified Lady Macbeth character.

Macbeth, written by William Shakespeare (1564-1616), is a play about death, deceit, and corruption. At the center of all this is Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth, and there is an on-going relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. This relationship is one of the functions of the play that creates most of the actions, reactions, moods, feelings and attitudes. As the play progresses, their relationship changes dramatically as a result of how each of them handles their emotions following King Duncan's murder.

This thesis focuses on four female characters from four of William Shakespeare’s plays. The plays that I look into are The Winter’s Tale, Twelfth Night, Macbeth and Hamlet. I have analyzed these four characters through the lens of the theory of the Four Temperaments, in order to see the way many of Shakespeare’s fictional characters embody these temperaments, and although some of them can be seen as having several humoristic traits, others possess a superfluity of one particular temperament. The plays provide textual evidence that can identify these different temperaments as being apparent in the characters. I will argue that Viola is an example of the Sanguine temperament, Hermione exemplifies the Phlegmatic character, Ophelia the Melancholic temperament and Lady Macbeth is an example of the Choleric temperament.
The personality traits of these four female characters are revealed by both their actions throughout the plays, and also by several textual allusions to each of the four humors. By exploring these four characters, we become familiar with the temperaments that each character embody, and thus are able to possess a greater knowledge of the driving forces behind the many villains and heroes in Shakespeare’s dramas. In addition, the plays bring up central issues about the ideology of Early Modern English society. Although some of these plays are not necessarily set in England, they still reflect the contemporary ideology. By using psychoanalytical and feminist insights, we widen our understanding of Shakespeare’s works, the Theory of the Four Temperaments and the view of women in the Renaissance. By looking into issues like gender conventions and gender roles, we see how these characters are driven by numerous factors, not only their temperaments. Moreover, I will argue that we are able to gain insight into how Shakespeare’s view of women and gender roles expressed through the texts changes to become more complex from his earlier to his later plays.

In this work we are going to elaborate a reading of the Shakespeare's text Macbeth, with our attention on Lady Macbeth. She is the main aim of our analysis since she possesses that component that situates her on the threshold of fascination and horror, at the limit of the beautiful and the sinister, of the seduction and the repulse. In our opinion it is not a sacrifice which the woman does, it is not about a sacred office which Lady Macbeth carries out, but a pact with the horrific. By renouncing her sexuality "Unsex me here!", we think she renounces sex and any sexual activity with Macbeth. By becoming desexualised, the woman invests herself with a powerful imaginary phallus which makes her become total and absolute in her husband's eyes. By detesting her feminine sexuality and incorporating the masculine she becomes a Great Goddess.

The delineation of gender roles in Shakespeare's Macbeth yields an array of critiques wrought with contention, most notable in the characterization of Lady Macbeth. While many critics argue that Lady Macbeth's quests for power are irrevocably masculinized, Stephanie Chamberlain claims in Fantasizing Infanticide: Lady Macbeth and the Murdering Mother in Early Modern England that this power is "conditioned on maternity." She argues that Lady Macbeth uses descriptions of infanticide and nursing to undermine the patrilineal order, "momentarily empowering the achievement of an illegitimate political goal." Though perhaps not adhering to traditional gender roles in her attempts to incite Duncan's murder, Chamberlain ultimately maintains that the dominant source of Lady Macbeth's power is poignantly female. While this criticism is certainly valid, the elemental aspects of the play can better be explained by viewing Lady Macbeth's momentary ascension to power as the product of a masculine invocation. In this analytical framework, her use of violent, unnatural images such as infanticide represent, not an attempt to gain power through a "maternal agency,"3 or a traditionally female channel, but a rejection of this channel altogether. Instead, Lady Macbeth attempts to gain power by invoking masculine violence and cold, male indifference. This notion is supported by and explains the unnatural tone that punctuates scenes involving Lady Macbeth and other female characters that threaten what a patrilineal society would deem the "natural gender order." This association between women with male qualities, or women trying to gain power and status through masculine channels (instead of patrilineage) and the "unnatural" provides a basis for Shakespeare to deliver consequences in congruence with the early modern English social context during which the play was written. A violation of the "natural" order, the consequence for Lady Macbeth's invocation of the masculine to access what was traditionally only available to women through their status as mothers, is madness. For the witches, it is alienation.

The purpose of this literary analysis essay is to examine identity in Richard II and Macbeth by William Shakespeare. We will study identity in both tragedies; however, we will focus only on Richard II and the language's role in the construction of his identity as well as Macbeth's crisis in identity and the idea of "the single state of man". Lastly, we will analyse Lady Macbeth and gender identity. Some authors such as Harold Bloom, James Well , John Joughin and A.C. Bradley will support the ideas presented and add important information according to their points of view.

A lo largo de dos siglos, desde 1840 hasta 2002 se presenta un recorrido histórico-estetico a propósito de diversos tratamientos operísticos del personaje schakesperiano de Lady Macbeth. En primer lugar el Macbeth de G. Verdi, seguidamente el de Bloch, la Lady Macbeth de Schostakovich y finalmente el Macbeth de Sciarrino.

The aim of this study is to shine a new light upon Lady Macbeth. After a brief introduction on the history of the play and on its synopsis, we'll see how Lady Macbeth can be considered a modern character ahead of her time thanks to two particular moments of the tragedy: the monologue in 1.V and the dialogue in 1.VII. Her statements on womanhood and maternity, the historical position of her gender and the (verbal) relationship with her husband will show that she is more than a manipulative character: she represents, instead, an example of emancipation and, at the same time, a role model for future generations.

This article tries to provide a thorough analysis of Nikolai Leskov’s rewriting of Lady Macbeth, the Shakespearean character, in the novella Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, from the perspective of Translation and Adaptation Studies. The focus will be placed on the ideology of the author who, with full knowledge, rewrites a previous work to adapt it to a specific context. Apart from Leskov’s work, attention will be also paid to two of its subsequent adaptations: Dmitri Shostakovich’s homonymous opera and William Oldroyd’s filmic version, Lady Macbeth.
Finally, the importance of these processes for the development of target literary systems will be discussed and emphasized.

This paper explores how both female protagonists Lady Macbeth and Kate Hardcastle manipulate the men they are involved with in order to change certain aspects of their personalities; however, their differences in intent lead to varying results. Received 87% in a second-year undergraduate English course.

Fazem parte deste volume não apenas textos que procuram considerar as relações da execução e criação de um determinado produto midiático, mas também aqueles que almejam refletir a condição midiática enquanto estrutura e sua relação com seu contexto de produção.

William Shakespeare has developed the plot of his play Macbeth through the effective use of transitions to the major characters. Among them, the character that is most prone to regular transitions in life is the central character of Macbeth. This research paper explores the trajectory of transitions through which Shakespeare develops the plot of his play through the character of Macbeth concerning his changing situations and positions. While analysing the play with the help of Schlossberg's Transition theory, specifically through the concept of 4S's, the perspicacity of Macbeth's trajectory of different transitions in the pattern of one after the other is visible throughout the play. With the help of textual and interpretative analysis of the play, the situation, psychological aspects, support and strategies to cope with the transition in Macbeth are explored in the research. Through the perspective of transition, the readers can understand how Macbeth gets shifted from one state of mind to the other in which he tried to situate himself to his best. The insights of this research open scope to further analysis of Shakespeare's other plays that deal with the same.

Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth (2015) presents its characters through an ambivalent religious light that confers them redemptive and even godlike qualities rarely explored in other adaptations. In particular, the film takes a stand against condemning Lady Macbeth’s traditionally considered fearsome femininity by highlighting her body as locus for the re-signification of discourses around motherhood, loss, pain and desire alongside religiously-loaded notions of (dis)embodiment. This is most interestingly conveyed through the inclusion of Christian imagery, with some of the play’s key scenes reimagined to portray Lady Macbeth as a penitent Madonna figure that eventually ascends to an immaterial plane thanks to her acute suffering and repentance. It is precisely because this Lady Macbeth is surrounded by Christian symbolism that she comes across as more deserving of being redeemed from her otherwise reprehensible morals, long attached to constructed ideas of femininity. In direct dialogue with Lady Macbeth and her struggles, Kurzel’s Weird Sisters appear as mysterious women connected to the Celtic background of the Scottish Highlands, here envisioned as druids that embody the different stages of womanhood and hint at its multiplicity. Evoking the image of The White Goddess as explored by Robert Graves ([1948] 1999: 384), these witches/druids appear to welcome Lady Macbeth in the above-mentioned otherworldly plane: seemingly offering her an alternative to Christian ideas of transcending the (female) body in order to salvage the self. In any case, Kurzel’s text is conspicuous for introducing religious imagery and connotations to depict a Lady Macbeth whose corporality and consequent (dis)embodiment of affects such as pain and desire might atone for her acts. Joanna Levin puts forward that “before we move to celebrate what was once denigrated, we must be sure that we do not recycle patriarchal constructions in the effort to reappropriate an authentic version of femininity” (2002: 45). For that reason, the aim of this paper is to determine the extent to which Kurzel’s text challenges or conforms to gender stereotypes in its attempt to allegedly redeem Lady Macbeth by using Christian and Pagan notions of womanhood and (dis)embodiment. This way, it is possible to delve deeper into the ambiguous representation of gender and religion in the wider context of Shakespearean scholarship and adaptation, and what it has to say today.

Una de las figuras shakesperianas más problemáticas a la vez que multidimensionales, Lady Macbeth, encabeza aún hoy en día las listas de personajes femeninos más malvados de la literatura. Macbeth (2015), versión dirigida por Justin Kurzel, pone su foco principal en la maternidad, la pérdida y la corporeidad de Lady Macbeth como lugar de encuentro entre su vulnerabilidad y su poder, redimiéndola así de una imagen completamente inhumana. El objetivo de este artículo es analizar esta adaptación como una reescritura revisionista que enfatiza la corporeidad de Lady Macbeth para eximirla de alguna manera de su cuestionable moral sin censurar la brutalidad y complejidad de un personaje que ha sido, en su mayor parte, doblemente juzgado por sus actos y su cuerpo.

La tesina tratta, seppur in maniera breve, il rapporto che intercorre tra due regine del Male: Lady Macbeth e Gezabele. Partendo dallo studio condotto da Lesley Hazleton nell'opera "Jezebel: The Untold Story Of The Bible's Harlot Queen" (2007) e attraverso l'analisi di passi scelti, si potrà risalire alle origini della scelta del male da parte di Lady Macbeth, rilevando quali episodi biblici abbiano particolarmente ispirato Shakespeare per la realizzazione di uno dei suoi personaggi femminili più rappresentanti.

Queen Elizabeth's reign informs dramatists to deal with the themes of power and politics in this era, since the sovereign's gender is one of the fundamental social and political considerations of Elizabethan period. The English display an ambivalent reaction to the idea of woman ruler, as a ruler is always identified with masculinity. Queen Elizabeth's reign arouses a vague anxiety among the English people who perceive an inherent danger within female rule. In this context, this study aims to analyze perception of inherent danger within female rule in Fulke Greville's Mustapha (1594) and W. Shakespeare's Macbeth (1606) by focusing on the representation of female participation in state affairs in the light of Hegel's construction of the state. According to Hegel, nature assigns man to the state, and woman to the family; man maintains his power in public affairs while the woman is expected to fulfill the responsibility of training children to be citizens of the state rather than participating in public affairs. In Mustapha, Greville sets his play in the Ottoman state and depicts Rossa (Hurrem Sultan) as an ambitious, manipulative, and intriguing character. Similarly in Macbeth, Shakespeare stages Lady Macbeth as a power-hungry and intriguing character. Rossa (Hurrem Sultan) and Lady Macbeth's preference of political to familial is depicted as unnatural by their nature that results in disorder for the state. This study aims to demonstrate that Greville and Shakespeare represent female participation in the state as a disruptive force in the light of Hegel's construction of the state. Öz Kraliçe Elizabeth hükümdarlığı, dönemin oyun yazarlarını güç ve politika temalarına değinmeleri konusunda yönlendirir; çünkü hükümdarın cinsiyeti Elizabeth döneminin önde gelen sosyal ve politik hususlarından biridir. İngilizler kadın hükümdar fikrine çelişkili bir tutum sergiler, çünkü hükümdarlık erkeklik ile özdeşleştirilir. Kraliçe Elizabeth hükümdarlığı, kadın yönetiminde mevcut bir tehlike sezen İngilizler arasında tanımlanamayan bir endişeye yol açar. Bu bağlamda, bu çalışma Hegel'in devlet inşası ışığında, kadının devlet işlerine katılmasına odaklanarak, Fulke Greville'nin Mustapha (1594) ve W. Shakespeare'in Macbeth (1606) oyunlarında kadın yönetimindeki mevcut tehlike algısını incelemeyi amaçlar. Hegel'e göre, doğa erkeği devlete, kadını ise aileye tayin eder; erkek gücünü kamu işlerinde idame ettirirken, kadının kamu işlerine katılmak yerine, kamuya vatandaş yetiştirme sorumluluğunu üstlenmesi beklenir. Mustapha oyununda, Greville Osmanlı Devleti'ni konu alır, ve Hürrem Sultan'ı hırslı, manipulatif ve entrikacı karakter olarak resmeder. Benzer bir şeklide, Macbeth oyununda Shakespeare Lady Macbeth'i gözünü iktidar hırsı bürümüş entrikacı karakter olarak sahneler. Hürrem Sultan ve Lady Macbeth'in politik olanı ailevi olana tercih etmeleri cinsiyetlerinin doğasına aykırı olarak resmedilir ki, bu da devlet düzeninin bozulmasına neden olur. Bu çalışma, Hegel'in devlet inşası ışığında, Greville ve Shakespeare'in kadının devlet işlerine katılmasını yıkıcı güç olarak resmetmettiklerini göstermeyi amaçlar.

A lo largo de dos siglos, desde 1840 hasta 2002 se presenta un recorrido histórico-estetico a propósito de diversos tratamientos operísticos del personaje schakesperiano de Lady Macbeth. En primer lugar el Macbeth de G. Verdi, seguidamente el de Bloch, la Lady Macbeth de Schostakovich y finalmente el Macbeth de Sciarrino.