Locating Macbeth at the Thresholds of Time, Space and Spiritualism

In the preface to Folie et déraison, Michel Foucault unmistakably locates madness at the

limen of cultural identity:

European man, since the beginning of the Middle Ages has had a relation to something

he calls, indiscriminately, Madness, Dementia, Insanity. … [It is] a realm, no

doubt, where what is in question is the limits rather than the identity of a culture.

(Foucault xi)

By describing madness in this way, he demonstrates his understanding of madness as a

cultural phenomenon, defined not by the analysis of a subject’s symptoms, but rather the

shared assumption that a subject is not ‘right’, does not conform to the prevailing ideological

norm. Written in the late twentieth century, his work is a treatise about the wider cultural effects

produced by a policy of confinement of the social outsider. Three centuries earlier, William

Shakespeare completed and staged what are now considered the greatest and most evil of

all his tragedies, the tragedy of Macbeth. Themes of witchcraft, infanticide, suicide and death

pervade the fabric of the play, which possibly contributes to the theatrical superstition that

surrounds its production to this day. Nevertheless, it seems curious to me the play is seldom

discussed as one that focuses on madness, when it deals with two of the most insane and depraved

characters in all of Shakespeare.

1

It seems curious to me that Shakespeare’s tragedies so often revolve around common

themes of “Madness, Dementia, Insanity,” and there is much scholarship as to how this discourse

of madness should be interpreted1, but less with particular reference to Macbeth. Curiouser

still is that Shakespeare’s Renaissance understanding of madness, as demonstrated in

his portrayal of this madness is...

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Somerville, Henry. Madness in Shakespearian tragedy. London: The Richards Press Ltd.,

1929. Print.

Styan, J. L. "The Drama: Reason in Madness." Theatre Journal 32 3 (1980): 371-85. Print.

---. Perspectives on Shakespeare in performance. Studies in Shakespeare vol. 11. New York:

P. Lang, 1999. Print.

Weimann, Robert. Shakespeare and the popular tradition in the theater :studies in the social

dimension of dramatic form and function. Ed. Schwartz, Robert. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins

University Press, 1978. Print.

ii

Wheelwright, Philip. "Philosophy of the Threshold." The Sewanee Review 61 1 (1953): 56-75.

Print.

Wilson Knight, G. The wheel of fire : interpretations of Shakespearian tragedy, with three new

essays. University paperbacks, U. P. 12. [4th rev. and enl. ed. London: Methuen, 1965.

Print.

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