Witches and Jesuits: Shakespeare's Macbeth [Hardcover]

Garry Wills (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 5, 1995 | ISBN-10: 0195088794 | ISBN-13: 978-0195088793 | Edition: 1ST

In his Pulitzer prize-winning 1993 book Lincoln at Gettysburg, Garry Wills showed how the Gettysburg Address revolutionized the conception of modern America. In Witches and Jesuits, Wills again focuses on a single document to open up a window on an entire society. He begins with a simple question: If Macbeth is such a great tragedy, why do performances of it so often fail? After all, the stage history of Macbeth is so riddled with disasters that it has created a legendary curse on the drama. Superstitious actors try to evade the curse by referring to Macbeth only as "the Scottish play," but production after production continues to soar in its opening scenes, only to sputter towards anticlimax in the later acts. By critical consensus there seems to have been only one entirely successful modern performance of the play, Laurence Olivier's in 1955, and even Olivier twisted his ankle on opening night. But Olivier's ankle notwithstanding, Wills maintains that the fault lies not in Shakespeare's play, but in our selves.

Drawing on his intimate knowledge of the vivid intrigue and drama of Jacobean England, Wills restores Macbeth's suspenseful tension by returning it to the context of its own time, recreating the burning theological and political crises of Shakespeare's era. He reveals how deeply Macbeth's original 1606 audiences would have been affected by the notorious Gunpowder Plot of 1605, when a small cell of Jesuits came within a hairbreadth of successfully blowing up not only the King, but the Prince his heir, and all members of the court and Parliament. Wills likens their shock to that endured by Americans following Pearl Harbor or the Kennedy assassination. Furthermore, Wills documents, the Jesuits were widely believed to be acting in the service of the Devil, and so pervasive was the fear of witches that just two years before Macbeth's first performance, King James I added to the witchcraft laws a decree of death for those who procured "the skin, bone, or any other part of any dead person--to be employed or used in any manner of witchcraft, sorcery, charm, or enchantment." We see that the treason and necromancy in Macbeth were more than the imaginings of a gifted playwright--they were dramatizations of very real and potent threats to the realm.

In this new light, Macbeth is transformed. Wills presents a drama that is more than a well-scripted story of a murderer getting his just penalty, it is the struggle for the soul of a nation. The death of a King becomes a truly apocalyptic event, and Malcolm, the slain King's son, attains the status of a man defying cosmic evil. The guilt of Lady Macbeth takes on the Faustian aspect of one who has singed her hands in hell. The witches on the heath, shrugged off as mere symbols of Macbeth's inner guilt and ambition by twentieth century interpreters, emerge as independent agents of the occult with their own (or their Master's) terrifying agendas. Restoring the theological politics and supernatural elements that modern directors have shied away from, Wills points the way towards a Macbeth that will finally escape the theatrical curse on "the Scottish play."

Rich in insight and a joy to read, Witches and Jesuits is a tour de force of scholarship and imagination by one of our foremost writers, essential reading for anyone who loves the language.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Pulitzer Prize-winning Wills (Lincoln at Gettysburg) here turns his attention to a new interpretation of MacBeth. Originally performed in 1606, a year after the failed Gunpowder Plot to blow up the English monarchy and Parliament, the play was written, Wills argues, in the context of this event and in Shakespeare's belief that the Jesuits had backed the treason. Supportng his theory with careful research, Wills compares MacBeth with other "gunpowder" dramas and provides an informed analysis of the play's characters. Positing that the witches have been marginalized by modern directors in the play's second half, Wills claims that Shakespeare intended them to serve as a demonic presence throughout. Illustrations not seen by PW.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Wills (Certain Trumpets, LJ 5/1/94) tackles the problem of the often-perceived lopsidedness of Macbeth, in which an exciting, supernatural first half is followed by an anticlimactic, secular second half. He convincingly demonstrates that Macbeth falls into a category he calls Gunpowder plays, which allude to the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 and the issues it raised in the Jacobean mind, such as witchcraft and cosmic evil. By showing how pervasive this theme is in Macbeth, Wills recaptures the gripping tension that Shakespeare's audience must have felt when witnessing, for example, the scene involving Malcolm and Macduff in Act IV (which modern audiences often find tedious). Wills shows that the supernatural, diabolical element is as fully present in the second half of the play as in the first and that this can be conveyed on a modern stage. The result, he claims, will be a reintegrated Macbeth that no longer falls into two distinct halves. For comprehensive literature collections.
Bryan Aubrey, Fairfield, Ia.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 1ST edition (January 5, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195088794
• ISBN-13: 978-0195088793
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #339,951 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Garry Wills is one of the most respected writers on religion today. He is the author of Saint Augustine's Childhood, Saint Augustine's Memory, and Saint Augustine's Sin, the first three volumes in this series, as well as the Penguin Lives biography Saint Augustine. His other books include "Negro President": Jefferson and the Slave Power, Why I Am a Catholic, Papal Sin, and Lincoln at Gettysburg, which won the Pulitzer Prize.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wills opens up "Macbeth" to a new level of understandinig., September 19, 1998

By 

Kay "Kay" (Maine USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Witches and Jesuits: Shakespeare's Macbeth (Oxford Paperbacks) (Paperback)

In "Witches and Jesuits," Gary Wills provides the political and social background of England during the time that Shakespeare wrote "Macbeth." Using the Gunpowder Plot and other events of the time, Wills delves deeper into the underlying meaning of the Scottish play than any other critical treatment, and even includes an explanation about why Shakespeare wrote the Hecate scene. It is an extremely enjoyable read, rare for analyses of Shakespeare.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fresh Look at the Scottish Play, December 8, 2004

By 

richard_t "richard_t" (Overseas) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Witches and Jesuits: Shakespeare's Macbeth (Oxford Paperbacks) (Paperback)

Wills' little book takes a fresh look at Macbeth. It's certainly not a revelation that Macbeth was influenced by the Gunpowder Plot and King James' interest in the occult, but Wills' exploration goes deeper. His point of departure is the well-known difficulty in staging Macbeth, a play that bounces from the witch-infested battlefield to an intensely private murder and the interplay between Macbeth and his wife. But all of that is finished a third of the way through the play, to be followed by seemingly disjointed scenes with Malcolm in England, with Hecate and the witches, and other bits that many modern productions simply omit.

Wills argues that the environment in England after the 1605 Gunpowder Plot --an attempt by a band of Jesuits to blow up the King, the crown prince, all the senior judges and the entire Parliament-- was not unlike the grave national mood in the US after Pearl Harbor (or perhaps after 9-11, one might add). Macbeth was written the following year, and, Wills believes, is one of many "Gunpowder" plays that showed the Jesuits as satanic, clever liars who made pacts with the devil and sought to overturn the natural political order. In this context, the witch scenes in the play, as well as several other scenes (the porter pretending to be Hell's gatekeeper, Malcolm's verbal testing of Macduff in England) take on a new light. They are not extraneous to the closet murder story, but are themselves key to understanding Macbeth's motives. Macbeth was seduced by the devil and eventually becomes a witch himself. Clever lies ("equivocating") are a trademark of the conspirators, and are a natural offense against language and right.

Wills' conclusions are that Macbeth need not be a "cursed" play. If directors and actors would rethink its historical context and seek to understand Shakespeare's message at a time of national crisis, they could redraw the logical links between the disparate scenes and present the play in the way it was intended. This is a wonderful book. Wills is a pleasure to read, whether he writes about Lincoln, Venice or Shakespeare, he always brings a fresh view that is well-worth thinking through.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars He Weaves a Compelling Spell, February 19, 2001

By 

James R. Mccall (Libertyville, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Witches and Jesuits: Shakespeare's Macbeth (Oxford Paperbacks) (Paperback)

'Macbeth' is a play with a problem, according to Wills. Most directors consider it has too many witches and sprites, so they cut a lot of song and dance. Then there's that banquet scene climax that comes too soon and dribbles off into the seemingly pointless byplay between Malcolm and Macduff in England. Most of this is faithful to Shakespeare's source (Holinshed), but did the Bard fail to wrestle the material into a coherent drama?

Wills makes a case for considering the play in its context of current events and dramatic conventions. In particular, he believes that the recently-foiled Gunpowder Plot loomed so large in the public (and particularly, the royal) mind that much of what seems mysterious or pointless to us can be seen as plain references to the Plot and the Jesuit perpetrators of it.

He is a master of the material, and his enthusiasm and high intellectual vigor make this a joy to read. His solution to the 'problem' of Macbeth is radical: Macbeth is a witch, and the supernatural element should be stressed, not played down. Even the scene with Malcolm and Macduff can be rescued if one can see Malcolm as a counter-witch, good as against Macbeth's evil, rather than as cautious wimp.

The book is full of ideas for interpreting passages that have always been puzzles, and pulling the drama together. His ultimate justification is that Shakespeare was taking advantage of the times -- and that his first audience for the play was James I himself -- and so DID know what he was doing, that much that falls flat now worked well then. I would love to see a production that -- somehow! -- retrieved this vanished topicality.