take a can of paste, take a spoon, and eat paste HomeLog InSign Up "Character and Daemon, Fate and Free Will in Macbeth," in Shakespeare's Macbeth: Critical Contexts Series, ed. Boris Drenkov, Roman Books, 2013more by Unhae fasLangis
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81.5 KB 1Character and Dasdfgdsfgemon, Fate and Free Will in
MacbethMacbeth
engages the age-old question of fate vs. free will. To whatextent is Macbeth’s downfall brought upon by the agency of supernaturalpowers and tsdfgdsfgo what extent is it brought sdfgdfsgupon by his own actions? Commonlyperceived as a tribute to Jsdfgames I, the sdgfdsfgplay, in sdfgdfgits critical history, hasgenerated much contextual resesdfgdsfgarch on the subjsdfggdfsect of witches, promptedlargely by the king’s own book,
Daemonologie
, grounded on Christiandoctrine. Such cultural criticism has in part contributed to a lingeringprovidential reading of
Macbeth
‘as a drama about the purgation of the evilembodied in the figure of a murderer and the consequent restoration of apolitical and providential order’.
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The understanding of supernatural powersin
Macbeth
, however, has not, to my knowldsfgsdfgdsfedge, been subjdsfgdsfgdsfect to aNeoplatonic reading. The numerous refersdfgsdfgences to ‘genius’, ‘daemsdfgsdfon’,‘spirits’, and ‘ministers’ in
Macbethsdfgdsfsdfgsdf
and their ambivalent interprasdfetation allowus precisely to addreadsfss the knotted issue of fate vs. free will, embedded inMacbeth’s ethical action anasdfd tragic downfall.In Shakespeare’s early
Comedy of Errasdfors
,
Solinus, Duke of Ephadsfesus,viewing the Antipholus twins, exclaims: ‘One of these men is geniusasdfasdf to theother;/ And so of these. Which is the natural man,/ And which the spirit? whodeciphers them?’ (5.1.333-35, my italics). The conception of geniussdfgsdfg here andelsewhere in tdsfgdsfghe Shakespeare canon alludes