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.
Topic brief
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Lady Macbeth
A transcript-matched topic anchored by excerpts such as "...Shakespeare's sense in dealing with Macbeth most of all, but also Lady Macbeth, who is in some sense the instigator of his violent action,..."
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Topic Scope And Freshness
A transcript-matched topic anchored by excerpts such as "...Shakespeare's sense in dealing with Macbeth most of all, but also Lady Macbeth, who is in some sense the instigator of his violent action,..."
Key Notes
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
He presents Lady Macbeth as someone who deliberately imagines herself outside nature, almost witch-like, in order to convert Macbeth's hesitant ambition into efficient action and the pursuit of power.
model
Bromwich argues that the Macbeth marriage evolves from Lady Macbeth goading him into murder to Macbeth later managing her, which reveals both their compatibility and their shared inability to separate agency from deed.
question
Jiang presents a third Dantean pressure point by contrasting Greek tragic women with Dante's elevated treatment of women, then asking what Shakespeare is doing with female power in Macbeth.
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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
Bromwich extends the earlier psychological model by arguing that both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth repeatedly displace their own impulses onto something slightly external.
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Timestamped Evidence
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"...Shakespeare's sense in dealing with Macbeth most of all, but also Lady Macbeth, who is in some sense the instigator of his violent action,..."
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"No contradiction there. But they're said in a very different tenor. The person who says what's done is done, or to use the more..."
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"been setting herself up as the person willing to face um violation of nature violation of duty because of the great um gift that..."
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"...in this family. But already in that scene, Macbeth is comforting Lady Macbeth, no longer having to be roused by her, as he eventually..."
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"Tell her exactly what's up. Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest Chuck, till thou applaud the deed. One of the, I can only call..."
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"Because if you think about it, if Tiresias, the fortune tellers, didn't provide these fortunes, then Oedipus would not have had the tragedy that..."
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"Well, Lady Macbeth is a thoroughgoing female villain, and yet she is quite humanized by the end. She not only says what's done cannot..."
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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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"more instance of the consistency of this portrayal that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are always putting off onto something slightly external the impulses that..."
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"...at a couple points of it but only say now that Lady Macbeth comes in"
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"...sort of consolation it's true to life in that regard um lady macbeth of course all this while uh has"
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"...wrong. No longer part of nature, to use the word that Lady Macbeth has used. That idea of being here, where there is the..."
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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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