Glossary
The central moral and dramatic unit in Bromwich's reading: an action that cannot be undone and that carries the fate of its agent.
Topic brief
A Jiang Lens evidence brief for this topic, built from source tags, transcript matches, and linked source refs.
deed
A transcript-matched topic anchored by excerpts such as "...to concentrate on the idea of action, the idea of a deed. And Shakespeare's sense in dealing with Macbeth most of all, but also..."
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Topic Scope And Freshness
A transcript-matched topic anchored by excerpts such as "...to concentrate on the idea of action, the idea of a deed. And Shakespeare's sense in dealing with Macbeth most of all, but also..."
Key Notes
definition
He defines the central problem of Macbeth as the nature of doing itself: once a deed is committed, it becomes a bearer of the doer's fate and cannot simply be left behind.
diagnosis
Bromwich contrasts 'what's done is done' with 'what's done cannot be undone' to show the shift from dismissing the past to recognizing a fatal moral consequence in action.
diagnosis
Bromwich argues that Macbeth's famous 'if it were done' speech is not a neutral hesitation but a fantasy of containing murder so completely that no consequence, earthly or eternal, would follow from the deed.
diagnosis
Bromwich says Lady Macbeth is indeed a thoroughgoing female villain, but the play humanizes her by showing that she shares Macbeth's consciousness of the deed's stain and cannot wash herself free of it.
model
He reads Macbeth's address to the dagger as a confession that he was already going toward the murder, so the hallucination aids rather than causes the deed.
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Timestamped Evidence
Transcript
"...to concentrate on the idea of action, the idea of a deed. And Shakespeare's sense in dealing with Macbeth most of all, but also..."
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"...be undone, points to something fatal about the nature of a deed, that it is a bearer of fate, and it is a bearer..."
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"...depth does not change the fact that he's bent on the deed that the witch's have told him or all but told him could..."
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"tries to work him up to the crime again but Macbeth in a very different vein from what we've just heard says to her..."
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"ambition which or leaps itself and falls on the other so the fantasy is in this bank and shoal of time like crossing a..."
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"...the, the fantastical imagining of the harm to nature that their deed has done is actually common to Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, but she,..."
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"So they both. They, they share that awareness and they share. share the repression of that awareness the not wanting to acknowledge the thought..."
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"...the hallucination helps him and you know he embarks on the deed right after that with the words I go and it is done..."
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Relevant Lectures And Readings
Reading
A source-grounded reading of a five-hour hybrid workshop that begins with Macbeth and ends by turning Purgatory, free will, tragedy, envy, and generosity into one model of human transformation.
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Related Topics
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