Witches in Shakespeare's work: Macbeth and the sociopolitical context.
An author like Shakespeare, one of the most important writers in Western literature, could not escape the beliefs in magic of his time. In his work he managed to bring together the sensibilities of popular culture while using universal references, typical of Greco-Roman traditions.
Although some authors received intellectual training, most of the authors of the English "Renaissance" theatre were self-taught from modest origins: His predecessor Christopher Marlowe would die in a tavern brawl, while William Shakespeare surrounded himself with characters from the London underworld. Being the son of a merchant, he was able to afford to be schooled, learning about the classics as well as Latin grammar, although there is not much documentation about his biographical origins.
It was common at the time to have these works financed by the nobility, to please the common people. Therefore, much of the content was directed as moralistic messages as a loudspeaker towards them, channelling collective unrest.
In 1642, the theatres were closed. In the middle of the English Civil War, they were forced to close by the republicans of Oliver Cromwell, who saw it as a frivolous spectacle in the middle of a war.
Most of Shakespeare's creations were dedicated to King James I and VI of Scotland, this nobleman being the one who wrote a work against witches (and tobacco) at the end of the 16th century, called Daemonologia. It deals with themes such as werewolves and vampires, as well as necromancy and other types of black magic.
The monarch was directly involved in the North Berwick witch trials, skipping the execution of a well-known wizard in Scotland in 1591:
It is said that one of the accused, Agnes Thompson, performed black masses with covens of hundreds of witches. Supposedly, she would end up causing a storm that made the marriage between King James and his consort Anne difficult. She was condemned when she revealed private conversations during the wedding night between the two, leading to paranoia in the monarch joining the witch hunt.
Along with her, there was another confession from a person who would perform a love spell on a cow, by mistake. These types of testimonies were given under torture, and would not be repealed until the middle of our twentieth century.
In response, Macbeth takes place in Scotland with a budding monarch who, due to a prophecy from some witches predicting his rise to the throne, enters a self-destructive spiral for losing the power he had achieved.
These three witches find their parallel with the Greek moirae Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos, each one played their role in cutting the thread of life with their scissors. Even the goddess Hecate appears.
Being prey to fate is a recurring theme in Greco-Roman tradition, with Hamlet being a ghost who makes self-fulfilling prophecies of the events that transpired in the plot, the conflict being how the characters try to escape from it.
In Tricolon, the three witches introduce conflict into Macbeth's heart, making him split between loyalty and his ambition to be king, turning this doubt into a self-fulfilling prophecy at the end of the play.
<< Cheers, Macbeth! Cheers to you, Thane of Glamis!" //"Cheers to you, Thane of Cawdor!" //"Cheers, for you shall be king after this!">>
In the rest of Act I, they use limericks as nursery rhymes with onomatopoeia as spells, as well as putting into a cauldron <<the skin of the viper, the wool of the bat friend of darkness, the tongue of the dog, the dart of the scorpion, eyes of a lizard, muscles of a frog, wings of an owl...>> or "killing pigs" to convey the otherness associated with this group. Typical ingredients of accusations and the complexity of grimoires are also mentioned, between fantasy and reality: << dragon scales, wolf teeth, mummy humor, stomach of a voracious shark (…) liver of a blasphemous Jew (…) yew branches cut on the night of a lunar eclipse, (…) fingers of a child strangled by his mother at birth and thrown into a well… >>
The appearance of the supernatural in Macbeth has made it a kind of curse, just by mentioning its name in the middle of a theatrical production. Certain accidents and tragedies surround the work, such as the fire at Shakespeare's own Globe Theatre in 1613 or the tragedy of Astor Place in 1849, which would pit the supporters FORREST vs. MACREADY against each other in the midst of the conflict between the British and the Americans.
The curse of "Macbeth" dates back to its very premiere, where the death of an actor who was to play Lady Macbeth, stabbed with real daggers instead of props, led to Shakespeare taking on the role. In addition, the king would ban the play shortly after because of the spells it featured.
In 1947, actor Harold Norman died on stage , and his alleged ghost is said to appear in the same theatre every Thursday.
In 1942, several actors died and the stage designer committed suicide.
In 1953, a performance ended in fire.
In 2013, Kenneth Branagh accidentally injured a fellow cast member.
The Royal Shakespeare Company has a ritual to ward off bad luck if someone utters the word "Macbeth" inside the theatre, which involves walking out, turning around three times, spitting, cursing and then knocking on the door to re-enter. The legend of the curse persists, marking tragedies and mishaps in performances throughout time.
There are those who venture to speculate that Shakespeare may have used forbidden practices in the writing of these scenes; his interest in the occult was accentuated with one of his last works called "The Tempest" where the magician Prosperus appears. Using his magic he wants to find revenge, however it is through Christian values such as forgiveness that he achieves his liberation.
He is accompanied by Ariel, a supernatural being capable of manipulating situations at will, and Caliban, representing the native tribes of Latin America with a telluric knowledge of the nature of the island and the spirits that inhabit it.
In her work "Caliban and the Witch" the feminist author Silvia Federici draws a parallel between how colonial structures have affected the oppression of these subjects, stripped of their own medical knowledge that did not fit into the new frameworks of industrial production or modernist rationalism.
There are other works that include witches that do not carry the curse associated with the historical moment, such as Goethe's Faust within the romantic artistic movement:
Disillusioned with his academic life, Faust makes a pact with the devil, Mephistopheles, in which he exchanges his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly experiences. On Walpurgis Night, they participate in rituals loaded with symbolism, surrealistically representing how human limits are transcended.
Therefore, William Shakespeare would be a reflection of the sociopolitical and cultural tensions represented in the "theatre of the world" that led to our contemporary age, amalgamating superstitions with social criticism, history and literature.
Nuria Acquaviva - nacquavivaps@gmail.com
Bibliography:
- Castilla Gómez, M. Las brujas y otros seres fantásticos en la obra de W. Shakespeare. Universidad de Sevilla. Comunicación nº 5, 2007 (pp. 347-360)
- Greenblatt, S. "Shakespeare Bewitched", en New Historical Literary Study: Essays on Reproducing Texts. Representing History, Princeton, Princeton UP, 1993 (pp.108-135)
- Klein, R.W. Brujas, magos y hechiceros. Ed. Imaginador, 2004.
Related posts:
> Walpurgis Night and the May Day rituals (Beltane)
> Early Modern Age and Pagan Cults. Witchcraft in Western Europe.
