Macbeth: A Dagger of the Mind

by Harold Bloom Narrated by Simon Vance

Overview

From the ambitious and mad titular character to his devilish wife Lady Macbeth to the moral and noble Banquo to the mysterious Three Witches, Macbeth is one of William Shakespeare's more brilliantly populated plays and remains among the most widely read, performed in innovative productions set in a vast array of times and locations, from Nazi Germany to Revolutionary Cuba. Macbeth is a distinguished warrior hero, who over the course of the play, transforms into a brutal, murderous villain and pays an extraordinary price for committing an evil act. A man consumed with ambition and self-doubt, Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's most vital meditations on the dangerous corners of the human imagination.

Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom investigates Macbeth's interiority and unthinkable actions with razor-sharp insight, agility, and compassion. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character: Just as we encounter one Anna Karenina or Jay Gatsby when we are seventeen and another when we are forty, Bloom writes about his shifting understanding-over the course of his own lifetime-of this endlessly compelling figure, so that the book also becomes an extraordinarily moving argument for literature as a path to and a measure of our humanity.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

11/19/2018
Acclaimed critic Bloom (How to Read and Why) once again plumbs the depths of a Shakespeare play to reveal new insights, this time offering a richly detailed character sketch of Macbeth. In a close, scene-by-scene reading, Bloom presents Macbeth as an ambitious visionary driven by a “prophetic imagination,” while leaving death and destruction in his wake. Referring to Macbeth’s vision of the bloody dagger, Bloom frames the character’s too-active imagination as a “dagger of the mind,” and his tragic flaw as the “fantasy-making power” that allows him to easily picture himself as king after hearing the witches’ prophecy. As the play progresses, Bloom finds Macbeth growing ever more frustrated by his failure to achieve his desires, and remarks that it is “difficult not to sympathize with a powerful representation of outrage,” causing the audience to identify with Macbeth despite his crimes. Even Lady Macbeth, as Bloom describes her, possesses a “negative exuberance of shuddering beauty,” though this diminishes after the play’s early scenes as the passion between her and her husband wanes and her own desires become frustrated. As he has so often done, Bloom will shift the reader’s perceptions of a literary classic. (Apr.)

From the Publisher

Praise for Macbeth: A Dagger of the Mind:

“The venerable and prolific literary scholar completes his Shakespeare's Personalities series with a lingering and deeply curious, even troubled, look at the titular character in the legendary play... Throughout, the author muses on Macbeth's ‘proleptic and prophetic imagination’ and wonders—all the way to the final paragraph—what it is about this sanguinary, murderous character that so deeply appeals to audiences... Older readers may wish this clear, concise, empathetic volume were available when they were in school.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Acclaimed critic Bloom once again plumbs the depths of a Shakespeare play to reveal new insights, this time offering a richly detailed character sketch of Macbeth. . . Bloom will shift the reader’s perceptions of a literary classic.”—Publishers Weekly

Praise for Iago: The Strategies of Evil

"There are few readers more astute than Bloom...the true value of Bloom’s sensitive reading lies in his ability to articulate his emotional response to the play. He leaves readers with a memorable new perspective on Othello."—Publishers Weekly

Praise for Lear: The Great Image of Authority

“At the outset of this pithy exegesis of King Lear, Bloom describes the play’s title characters as one of Shakespeare’s ‘most challenging personalities’...Bloom guides the reader scene by scene through the play, quoting long but well-chosen swaths of text and interjecting commentary that reveals the nuances of Shakespeare’s word choices...he is also deft at bringing out dramatic contrasts between characters...Bloom’s short, superb book has a depth of observation acquired from a lifetime of study, and the author knows when to let Shakespeare and his play speak for themselves.”—Publishers Weekly

"A measured, thoughtful assessment of a key play in the Shakespeare canon...Bloom brings this dark tale of a king in search of love to life via his incisive close reading of the text.”—Kirkus Reviews

Praise for Cleopatra: I Am Fire and Air

"A masterfully perceptive reading of this seductive play's endless wonders."—Kirkus Review

“Bloom draws upon his extensive reading to place the characters and the story in context alongside the histories from which the plot was adapted...those who have read the play or seen it performed will find Bloom’s passion to be infectious. Recommended for Shakespeare enthusiasts and readers seeking a deeper understanding of one of his greatest creations.” —Library Journal

“Bloom brings considerable expertise and his own unique voice to this book.”—Publishers Weekly

Praise for Falstaff: Give me Life

"Famed literary critic and Yale professor Bloom showcases his favorite Shakespearian character in this poignant work... He has created a larger-than-life portrait of a character who is 'at his best a giant image of human freedom.'"—Publishers Weekly

"In this first of five books about Shakespearean personalities, Bloom brings erudition and boundless enthusiasm."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“[Bloom’s] last love letter to the shaping spirit of his imagination... An explanation and reiteration of why Falstaff matters to Bloom, and why Falstaff is one of literature’s vital forces... A pleasure to read.”—Jeanette Winterson, New York Times Book Review

Kirkus Reviews

2019-01-13

The venerable and prolific literary scholar completes his Shakespeare's Personalities series with a lingering and deeply curious, even troubled, look at the titular character in the legendary play.

Having previously presented brief volumes on Iago, Lear, Cleopatra, and Falstaff, Bloom (Humanities/Yale Univ.) walks us through Macbeth, quoting lengthy passages from the text to illuminate his points. Throughout, the author muses on Macbeth's "proleptic and prophetic imagination" and wonders—all the way to the final paragraph—what it is about this sanguinary, murderous character that so deeply appeals to audiences. For example, Bloom lingers on the grim and grotesque Macbeth-ordered murder of Macduff's wife, son, servants. Although Bloom condemns these events (more than once and unequivocally: "his greatest iniquity"), he also notes that, somehow, we still feel something of a loss when Macduff, later, carries Macbeth's severed head onto the stage for us to see. Although Bloom's interpretations are invariably sound and based on a lifetime of reading and teaching the play, there are times when he ventures near the border of the plausible. He suggests, for example, that it's possible the Macbeths have no children because Macbeth suffers from premature ejaculations. The author also devotes attention to Lady Macbeth, at one point calling her a "fierce virago" who "touches her limit at parricide." Bloom ends with some tributes to the power of Shakespeare's language and imagination. "Shakespeare's bounty, like his Juliet's, is as boundless as the sea. The more you take, the more he has, for his invention and his love for his characters are alike infinite….For all his negativity, Macbeth's vitality survives in our hearts....absorbing him heightens of sense of being."

Older readers may wish this clear, concise, empathetic volume were available when they were in school.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170243976
Publisher:	HighBridge Company
Publication date:	04/02/2019
Series:	Shakespeare's Personalities Series
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Macbeth
Nietzsche asserts, in The Dawn of Day, that “whoever thinks that Shakespeare’s theatre has a moral effect, and that the sight of Macbeth irresistibly repels one from the evil of ambition, is in error. . . . He who is really possessed by raging ambition beholds this its image, with joy; and if the hero perishes by his passion this is precisely the sharpest spice in the hot draught of this joy.”

Shakespeare’s cognitive powers are invested more abundantly in Hamlet than in any other personality, be it Falstaff, Rosalind, Cleopatra, Prospero. His proleptic and prophetic imagination possesses Macbeth, to a degree unmatched by anyone else in the dramas. Macbeth cannot keep up with his own intimations of the night world. No sooner does he envision an action than he leaps into futurity and gazes back at his initial impulse. Macbeth is a weird, an involuntary soothsayer. The Weird Sisters inevitably await him, knowing that he is, in part, their kin.

Readers quite possibly will recognize that they have elements in their imagination that are intensified in Macbeth. I think that many of us fear that we have acted on our darkest impulses before we have fully apprehended them. There is something preternatural in Macbeth. He alone in his drama is in touch with the night world of Hecate and the Weird Sisters. I will soon be eighty-eight and find myself sometimes seeing and hearing things that are not there. This does not cause alarm because it stays on the border of actual hallucinations. But Macbeth has gone across that border. For him nothing is but what is not.

The play begins with the witches entering with thunder and lightning. We see them only briefly. They chant in riddles that are antithetical:

When the battle’s lost and won.

act 1, scene 1, line 4

Fair is foul, and foul is fair.

act 1, scene 1, line 9

Our first account of Macbeth conveys his astonishing ferocity:

For brave Macbeth (well he deserves that name),

Disdaining Fortune, with his brandished steel,

Which smoked with bloody execution,

Like Valour’s minion, carved out his passage,

Till he faced the slave,

Which ne’er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,

Till he unseamed him from the nave to th’ chops,

And fixed his head upon our battlements.

act 1, scene 2, lines 16–23

Slicing your opponent open from crotch to jaw is characteristic of Macbeth, who is described as the husband of the war goddess, or “Bellona’s bridegroom.” After Duncan, the Scottish king, adds the title of Thane of Cawdor to Macbeth’s honors, we return to the three Witches. They accost Macbeth and his fellow captain Banquo:

Macbeth: So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

Banquo: How far is’t call’d to Forres? What are these,

So withered and so wild in their attire,

That look not like th’inhabitants o’th’ earth,

And yet are on’t? Live you, or are you aught

That man may question? You seem to understand me,

By each at once her choppy finger laying

Upon her skinny lips. You should be women,

And yet your beards forbid me to interpret

That you are so.

Macbeth: Speak if you can: what are you?

1 Witch: All hail Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Glamis.

2 Witch: All hail Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor.

3 Witch: All hail Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter.

Banquo: Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear

Things that do sound so fair?—I’th’ name of truth,

Are ye fantastical, or that indeed

Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner

You greet with present grace, and great prediction

Of noble having and of royal hope,

That he seems rapt withal. To me you speak not.

If you can look into the seeds of time,

And say which grain will grow, and which will not,

Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear

Your favors nor your hate.

1 Witch: Hail.

2 Witch: Hail.

3 Witch: Hail.

1 Witch: Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.

2 Witch: Not so happy, yet much happier.

3 Witch: Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none:

So all hail, Macbeth, and Banquo.

1 Witch: Banquo, and Macbeth, all hail.

Macbeth: Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more.

By Finel’s death, I know I am Thane of Glamis,

But how of Cawdor? The Thane of Cawdor lives

A prosperous gentleman: and to be king

Stands not within the prospect of belief,

No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence

You owe this strange intelligence, or why

Upon this blasted heath you stop our way

With such prophetic greeting? Speak, I charge you.

Witches vanish.

act 1, scene 3, lines 38–78

Macbeth was played before King James I, who began as King James VI of Scotland. By tradition, James I was descended from Banquo. In Shakespeare’s sources, Banquo was as guilty as Macbeth, but here he is stalwart and heroic. Finel was Macbeth’s father, while Banquo and Macbeth do not yet know of Cawdor’s treachery. An extraordinary aside marks the advent of Macbeth’s proleptic imagination:

Macbeth: [aside] Two truths are told

As happy prologues to the swelling act

Of the imperial theme.—I thank you, gentlemen.—

This supernatural soliciting

Cannot be ill; cannot be good. If ill,

Why hath it given me earnest of success,

Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor.

If good, why do I yield to that suggestion

Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair,

And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,

Against the use of nature? Present fears

Are less than horrible imaginings.

My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,

Shakes so my single state of man

That function is smothered in surmise,

And nothing is, but what is not.

act 1, scene 3, lines 129–44

The tormented grammar partly suggests Macbeth’s psychic turmoil. His murderous thought, though still a fantasy, so agitates his unaided state of man that function, or potential action, is smothered in surmise, or censored by imagination.

The motto of Macbeth, both play and person, could well be: “And nothing is, but what is not.” “Nothing” is used sixteen times in Macbeth. It is startling for me to realize that those sixteen occurrences are outweighed by thirty-four in King Lear, thirty-one in Hamlet, and twenty-six in Othello. But then, Macbeth is a ruthlessly economical tragedy of just over two thousand lines. The prominence of “nothing” in it is as salient as is the undersong of nothingness in the other three great tragedies of blood.

Videos