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Witches and Jesuits: Shakespeare's Macbeth

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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.

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.

'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.

Wills places "Macbeth" firmly within the context of its times. Shakespeare's play, in addition to others written in 1606-7, contains numerous references to the Gunpowder plot, an attempt by radical Jesuits made in 1605 to overthrow the government and Church of England. Wills, also author of "John Wayne's America,: and "Lincoln at Gettysburg," sees "Macbeth," (as is true of ALL media, whether enduring works of art as this is, or daily newspapers), as a political document. Only through a realization of this fact can the play be truly appreciated.

Author Garry Wills' goal is to demonstrate how Shakespeare's "Macbeth" can be performed in a way that is historically correct. Much like certain Supreme Court justices look at "original intent" and historical circumstances in their jurisprudence, Wills examines the historical circumstances surrounding the writing and performance of "Macbeth" in order to provide a more meaningful interpretation of the play. The Scottish Play's real curse, writes Wills, is that we have lost its original meaning and hence the drama of the play is "out of joint." That is, most of the play's excitement takes place in the first few scenes; the play is "front loaded," says Wills. The originalist interpretation Wills sets forth focuses on the political and religious culture following the failed Gunpowder Plot in 1605.

Since the Jacobean popular imagination saw the Gunpowder Plot perpetrators as Catholic (and Jesuit) and Papist conspirators, Jacobean theater saw a flourishing of anti-Catholic plays in the wake of the Plot. In several of these plays witches were under the influence of the demonic Catholic villains. While today we look at such plays with an anthropological and un-superstitious eye--interpreting the witches as symbolic psychological figures--in Shakespeare's time witches were very real. Along this line Wills argues that the witches in "Macbeth" are very real and that they not only push Macbeth towards murdering Duncan, etc., but they influence Macbeth through real witchcraft and that Macbeth can even conjure the witches. Most interestingly, Wills argues that Macbeth becomes a male witch himself.

Wills points out that Macbeth calls on and evokes witches, the crone night, and Hecate in order to help him commit his sinister deeds; and by Act Four Macbeth has the power to conjure the witches: "I conjure you, by that which you profess | Howe'er you come to know it, answer me" (4.1.50). In contrast with Macbeth, Lady Macbeth "is a witch of velleity and gestures, while [Macbeth] is one in fact." Like Macbeth, Lady Macbeth calls on the witches to "unsex" her, etc., so that she can obtain their powers, but she never actually becomes a witch in the sense that Macbeth does. This can help us see why Lady Macbeth goes insane early in Act Five: she realizes that she has committed a grave wrong in attempting to make a pact with the devil's witches. When she cries her famous "Out damned spot!", writes Wills, she is attempting to remove the brand that the devil has placed on her. (Branding by the devil was thought to be very real in Shakespeare's time.)

In essence, Wills' book seeks to act as a corrective to what he sees as the problems with the way the play is popularly staged today. There are many more arguments that Wills packs into this slim volume that I have left out of this summary, but I found the argument that Macbeth becomes a male witch to be most interesting and convincing. Wills' grasp of Jacobean drama and politics is impressive, and his writing is clear and too the point. I highly recommend this book for Shakespeare enthusiasts.

A strange but fascinating little book by Gary Wills who many consider to be a Catholic (upper case C) author. His knowledge is both deep and broad but he fails to convince with "Witches & Jesuits: Shakespeare's Macbeth".

"Macbeth" is known among people who work in the theater as "The Scots Play", since to call it by its actual name will invoke the curse that seems to plague every production of it. Wills sets out to show why it is such a jinx, accepting that it is (he is much more a literary than theater person). His explanation makes no more sense than any other other but his analysis of the structure of Macbeth is worth reading. The book touches on the Gunpowder Plot, comparing it to fears of Communism in the U.S. in the 1950s and goes into some detail regarding the Society of Jesus and their mission in England.

Wills claims that the key to the play is the witches and that because their appearances in the third and fourth acts are truncated or cut altogether that what is left is so different from what Shakespeare desired that it is unplayable. Therefore the constant difficulties that occur--actors becoming ill, getting injured onstage, curtains being dropped at the wrong time, light cues missed or confused, lines forgotten, entrances missed.

The first chapter "Gunpowder", the fifth "Jesuits" and the sixth "Malcolm" are well worth reading.

THIS BOOK WAS SUGGESTED AFTER SEEING BILL CAIN'S NEW PLAY "EQUIVOCATION". THE GUNPOWDER PLOT (AN EARLY 17TH CENTURY ATTEMPT TO BRING DOWN THE GOVERNMENT OF JAMES I BY BLOWING UP THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT WITH THE KING AND ALL THE LORDS INSIDE) SERVES AS THE BASIS FOR THAT PLAY, AND AS REVEALED IN GARRY WILLS BOOK, ALSO FOR MACBETH. THE BOOK PROVIDES DETAILS OF THAT TIME THAT ILLUMINATE PARTS OF THE PLAY THAT WERE, FOR ME, OBSCURE. AS AN EXAMPLE, THE PORTER'S SPEECH IS ALL ABOUT THE EQUIVOCATION OF THE GUNPOWDER PLOT PARTICIPANTS. WILLS DETAILS OTHER PLAYS OF THE PERIOD THAT INCLUDED THE SAME PLOT DEVICE CONCERNING MALCOLM'S CHALLENGE OF THE LOYALTY OF MACDUFF IN ACT 4. HE PROVIDES INVALUABLE INSIGHT INTO THE CONDUCT OF THE WITCHES, DISCUSSING HOW THEY CAST THEIR SPELLS, THE MAGIC CIRCLE INTO WHICH THEY INVITE MACBETH, AND THE MOTIONS THAT DO AND UNDO THEIR SPELLS. BUY AND READ THIS BOOK (AND RE-READ IT) BEFORE THE NEXT PERFORMANCE YOU SEE OF MACBETH. THE EXPERIENCE WILL BE SO MUCH RICHER WITH THE KNOWLEDGE WILLS PROVIDES.

The connection between the Gundpowder Plot and Macbeth is well known. There is little, if any, new scholarship in this book.

Having laid out the price (plus sales tax)for Garry Wills' "Witches and Jesuits", it becomes neccessary to state that I had no trouble in putting it down. First, the author expends a great deal of energy demonstrating that there was a plethora of mindless plays and books about witches, etc. after the (unfortunately unsuccessful) attempt to blow up James and the Parliament. The author never seems to realize that what makes Shakespeare great is how he is DIFFERENT from his contemporaries.

Secondly, the author appears to have an inside track on the mind of God. He states baldly that God was on Malcolm's side, and Malcolm is the most depraved brat in the Canon. Mr. Wills doesn't have a clue as to "What Happens in Macbeth". The book is an excellent exercise in the politics of the Jamesian age,but who cares? James was referred to as the 'biggest fool in Christendom". However if one is searching for Shakespere, look elsewhere.