Harold Bloom’s cryptic statement that the “Tomorrow” speech is “as fierce a Gnostic declaration as exists in our language”, in the introduction to Modern Critical Interpretations: Macbeth, finds a referent in the last essay of the book. Quoting from “‘Thriftless Ambition,’ Foolish Wishes, and the Tragedy of Macbeth” by Robert Watson:

What if man’s greatest and most characteristic quality is trapped in a world where it can express itself only as sin, or at least where its natural activity will be perceived and punished as a violation of natural law by a jealous paternal God? This was the belief of the Gnostics, who felt that some higher God had planted a spark of his own divinity in each person, but that we have been trapped into a natural world inimical to that divine essence by a lower and envious God-the-Father.

The interpretation is then similar to a nihilist interpretation, but the sense of wrongness is added to the overwhelming sense of emptiness. Life as a “brief candle” and a “walking shadow” is not only ephemeral and swift, it has been wrongly made thus, by Macbeth’s and arguably Lady Macbeth’s “violation of natural law”.

Not that I necessarily agree with Bloom and Watson, but now I understand where they’re coming from.

In my reading — the titles I’ve mentioned so far, as well as Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life (S. Schoenbaum) — one striking feature is the discussion between scholars as to particular details. Some, such as the size of the theatre’s stage or the existence of a curtained inner stage, are clearly in contention, whereas my previous education on the point implied, by omission or uncorrected misperception, that they were settled. I thought it pertinent (or at least amusing) to post a few of those glossed-over dustups:

• All of Shakespeare’s plays were performed at the Globe.
• Any reference to or description of bear-baiting is theoretical; this was not actually done.
• The period in which Shakespeare wrote was politically and religiously stable.
• Shakespeare thought of himself as a playwright.
• Not much is known about Shakespeare’s parents, siblings, spouse, or children.
• Shakespeare wrote everything attributed to him, and no one has ever questioned that.
• We have plenty of information about Shakespeare’s life, such as birth and death dates and his education.
• Shakespeare was ridiculously smart compared to other people who lived at the same time.
• Shakespeare was one of a very few people who wrote plays at the time.

For the sake of Google-savvy students with deadlines and poor comprehension skills, I must emphasize that the list above contains misperceptions, that is, items that are largely wrong.

Got any favorites to add?

Today’s lunchtime reading was “A Painted Devil: Macbeth“, in which Howard Felperin pulls out elements from the play that were themselves pulled from medieval Christian tragedies like the Harrowing of Hell and Massacre of the Innocents. Felperin analyzes the way Shakespeare uses these referents to cast Macbeth as the Devil and Malcolm in the epic role of apocalyptic Christ, for example, yet such casting is intentionally incomplete; Shakespeare humanizes the characters, and other parts of the play, in order to flesh out the skeletonic forms of the ritual drama and take Macbeth beyond those forms.

Felperin mentions that the Christian plays are “familiar to all students of medieval literature and drama”, and that “Shakespeare’s own Marlovian mono-drama, Richard III, falls squarely within this tradition of Christian tragedy, and its similarities with Macbeth were pointed out as far back as the eighteenth century.”

Here in two quotes is proof that there’s literal centuries of criticism, bodies of work and traditions of interpretation even for individual plays, of which I am completely unaware. Reading that, and reading Maynard Mack, Jr.’s “A Voice in the Sword” (both printed in Modern Critical Interpretations: Macbeth, which yes, I’m still meandering through), I can’t help but feel inadequate.

But that’s exactly what this “gap year” is designed to remedy. That’s why I’m reading anthologies of interpretation, reading the plays along with criticism. It wouldn’t be difficult to dig in the library for analysis and comparative criticism of Shakespeare and medieval Christian tragedy, or for Tamburlaine or Doctor Faustus, should I be so inclined.

Having read this much, I at least know that such a tradition exists.

Almost since I started this site, I’ve been nagged by the question of how to interpret the “Tomorrow” speech in Macbeth. How does it fit into the play? How would an actor pull off this big, well-known speech stuck in between small talk? What’s Macbeth feeling here? How is he reacting? And what emotion inflects the speech?

My interpretation so far: Macbeth’s plans have been progressing well enough until Act V. He has ascended the throne, he is protected by two prophecies that make him feel invincible, and he hasn’t suffered any major setbacks. He hears his wife’s scream (though he doesn’t know it’s hers) and pretty much blows it off as it’s intruding on his glorious plotting. Then he gets the news, and … what?

I’m relatively sheltered as far as performances go; I don’t know how actors generally play this. In my head, however, Macbeth pauses for a long time, and finally he delivers the first line in shock and grief, a quiet near-monotone: “She should have died hereafter.” The remainder of the speech swells with his grief and frustration until he nearly shouts “sound and fury signifying” — drops to a whisper — “nothing.” Another pause, and the play moves on.

I’m aware that my reading is a big fat Christmas ham; I was unaware, however, that it was totally opposite from traditional readings. L.C. Knights, in his 1956 essay “Macbeth: A Lust for Power” (in Bloom’s Shakespeare: Invention of the Human), asserts that Macbeth doesn’t care about his wife’s death, that his acts up to this point have put him in a prison and his reaction is the only possible reaction: “He is like a bear tied to a stake, he says; but it is not only the besieging army that hems him in; he is imprisoned in the world he has made.”

Later: “His wife’s death, it has often been observed, means nothing to him.” Knights also mentions the “essential meaninglessness” in the speech and that “however terrible [evil's] power it can only lead to ‘nothing.’”

In his introduction to the book, Bloom calls the speech “as fierce a Gnostic declaration as exists in our language”, the whole play nihilistic, and “so badly acted in its most crucial part that the petty pace of fallen time is only accentuated.” (Other actors must concur with my interpretation.)

Harold Goddard’s essay Macbeth in the same book calls the speech a culmination of “moments of blank apathy” and “the ne plus ultra in English words of the meaninglessness of life”.

I am clearly out of the loop on interpretations of this speech. I need to watch some performances and see how actors have handled this — and, of course, keep reading.

Readers, how do you place this speech in the context of the play? Any performances to recommend?