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Abstract:Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s shortest plays in the Shakespearean canon. It is considered one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies. The critical reception of Macbeth appears to be at once simple and complex-just like the play itself. Often the various interpretations have been antithetical,suggesting that in the realm of Macbeth criticism,as with the world that Macbeth perceives,"Nothing is but what is not" (I.iii. 141-142). This present study aims to analyze Macbeth from a Formalistic approach. In Macbeth,Shakespeare shows that what we live in is a world of paradox. Through the weird sisters's paradoxical speeches,the antithetical words of Macbeth and Macduff; Macbeth's killing for Duncan and his killing of Duncan and the name of King and the name of traitor,a paradoxical,thus dialectical world with its complexity is revealed. The language of paradox and sophistry serves to build a fascinating dramatic world; the situational paradox of action helps to build a complicated world of reality.
1、Introduction:
Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's four great tragedies. The play is concise and in places abrupt. "The play omits the before' and after':we only hear about Macbeth's previous successes,reinforced through the adjectives noble' and valiant,"[1]The play is permeated with blood,darkness,fear,ambition,desire and above all,paradox. Opinion on the play's significance ranged from the problematic nature of the witches; free will versus fate; Macbeth's essential goodness or evilness and his bravery or timidity and uncertainty; the role of Lady Macbeth to the question of Banquo's innocence and Macbeth's power of imagination. From a Formalistic point of view,the world is created by language,yet the language is at once a deception and a paradox. Therefore,the world as well as Macbeth himself,is not what as conceived by Macbeth "perfect,whole as the marble,founded as the rock",(III.iv.) but " imperfect". "It is a world in which nothing is certain to keep its shape. Forms shift and consistencies alter,so that what was solid may flow and what was fluid may congeal to stone."[2]The paradoxical speeches of the three witches ---the weird sisters they pass themselves to be ,the antithetical words of Macbeth and Macduff; Macbeth's killing for Duncan and his killing of Duncan and the name of King and the name of traitor are all evidence of a paradoxical,thus dialectical world. The language of paradox and sophistry causes the action of Macbeth and explains Macbeth. The language of paradox informs the evil which slumbers in the hero's soul and gives it its most suitable expression. The world with its most complicated confluences is in the language of paradox.
2、Literature Review:
2.1International researches:
Robert Willson discusses the wordplay in Macbeth,noting particularly the importance of names and titles. Willson observes that titles are "the lures the Witches use to hook their unsuspecting victim," Macbeth,and that the name game' is won by those for whom present titles mean nothing"[3]Bradley suggested that Lady Macbeth's language demonstrates that she is more realistic than her husband. Edith Sitwell examined certain vowel sounds in key speeches which,she claimed,suggest discordant dissonance and contribute to the presentation of evil. M.M. Mahood discussed the puns and double entendres in Macbeth,stating that while it is less obvious than in other Shakespearean plays,the wordplay serves to link the play's themes together into a unified dramatic poem. Several interpretations of the play focused on specifically on Macbeth's use of language. Arnold stein proposed that Macbeth invokes a "word-magic," similar to that of the Weird Sisters,which allows him to transform himself into a murdering "were-wolf" or to pretend innocence. Evans stated that it is this "witchcraft of poetry" that allows Shakespeare to present Macbeth,a murderer,as a sympathetic tragic hero.[4]Denton J. Snider and A.C. Bradley,both influence by the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Fridrich Hegel,interpreted the witches' power in dialectical terms. They asserted that Macbeth's actions are determined by a synthesis of the dialectic of both internal and external forces.[5]
2.2 Domestic researches:
Chen states that "the contrast in Macbeth is one of the important rhetoric devices.[6]Tian Junwu and Sun Jinjin discusses the dialogue in the play from a pragmatic point of view.[7]Zeng Yanbing He interprets the "tragedy of Macbeth as a tragedy of language",and contends that the witches are "a kind of language sign". The "imperfect" language of the three witches drives and elicits Macbeth's ambition; the paradox in the play gives the play an ominous feeling and a tone of tragedy.[8]
3、Theoretical Framework and critical approaches:
"In The Language of Paradox' Cleanth Brooks proposed a New Critical concept of paradox' as the distinguishing feature of literary language,though this concept is not much different from the concetpt of tension' by Allen Tate,or even the idea of defamiliaization' of the Russian Formalists. A few years later Brooks talked about another New Critical concept,irony'. Unlike the classical sense which refers to a rhetorical mode,the romantic use of the word refers to situational' rather than verbal' irony,the fact that the world in its essence is paradoxical and that an ambivalent attitude alone can grasp its contradictory totality."[9]One of the basic terms of formalistic criticism is paradox and the New Critics particularly regard poetry as "a pattern of paradox."[10]"Few of us are prepared to accept the statement that the language of poetry is the language of paradox. Paradox is the language of sophistry,hard,bright,witty; it is hardly the language of the soul Yet there is a sense in which paradox is the language appropriate and inevitable to poetry. It is the scientist whose truth requires a language purged of every trace of paradox; apparently the truth which the poet utters can be approached only in terms of paradox."[11]
4、Analysis /discussion
4.1 The wordplay and paradox in Macbeth
In the very first act and the first scene,three witches hovering in the "desert place",their infamous words of "Fair is foul,and foul is fair" set the tone and the atmosphere for the whole play. Before Macbeth met the three witches,he himself was saying exactly the same words "So foul and fair a day I have not seen."(Act 1 Scene3). When Banquo first saw the witches,he was surprised to see that
"What are these
So withered and so wild in their attire,
That look not like the inhabitant's o' the earth,
And yet are on it? 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."(Act1,Scene 3)
The appearance of the witches are paradoxical,they are neither woman nor man. Their greetings and answers to Macbeth and Banquo are equally paradoxical. Banquo will be
"Lesser than Macbeth,and greater.
Not so happy,yet much happier."(Act1,Scene3)
The credulous Macbeth is "rapt withral" and charges the "imperfect" speakers to tell him more. But Banquo seems to remain skeptical. He remarked:"The earth hath bubbles,as the water has,and these are of them." After the witches vanished,Macbeth says that they vanished "Into the air:what seemed corporal melted as breath into the wind." Doren marked that "It is a world in which nothing is certain to keep its shape. Forms shift and consistencies alter,so that what was solid may flow and what was fluid may congeal to stone."[12]Macbeth remarked that "This supernatural soliciting" that the witches told them "Cannot be ill,cannot be good." The riddling incites Macbeth's "desire".In Act 4,when Macbeth went to visit the witches himself,the Apparition that the witches conjured up,told Macbeth that
1、Introduction:
Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's four great tragedies. The play is concise and in places abrupt. "The play omits the before' and after':we only hear about Macbeth's previous successes,reinforced through the adjectives noble' and valiant,"[1]The play is permeated with blood,darkness,fear,ambition,desire and above all,paradox. Opinion on the play's significance ranged from the problematic nature of the witches; free will versus fate; Macbeth's essential goodness or evilness and his bravery or timidity and uncertainty; the role of Lady Macbeth to the question of Banquo's innocence and Macbeth's power of imagination. From a Formalistic point of view,the world is created by language,yet the language is at once a deception and a paradox. Therefore,the world as well as Macbeth himself,is not what as conceived by Macbeth "perfect,whole as the marble,founded as the rock",(III.iv.) but " imperfect". "It is a world in which nothing is certain to keep its shape. Forms shift and consistencies alter,so that what was solid may flow and what was fluid may congeal to stone."[2]The paradoxical speeches of the three witches ---the weird sisters they pass themselves to be ,the antithetical words of Macbeth and Macduff; Macbeth's killing for Duncan and his killing of Duncan and the name of King and the name of traitor are all evidence of a paradoxical,thus dialectical world. The language of paradox and sophistry causes the action of Macbeth and explains Macbeth. The language of paradox informs the evil which slumbers in the hero's soul and gives it its most suitable expression. The world with its most complicated confluences is in the language of paradox.
2、Literature Review:
2.1International researches:
Robert Willson discusses the wordplay in Macbeth,noting particularly the importance of names and titles. Willson observes that titles are "the lures the Witches use to hook their unsuspecting victim," Macbeth,and that the name game' is won by those for whom present titles mean nothing"[3]Bradley suggested that Lady Macbeth's language demonstrates that she is more realistic than her husband. Edith Sitwell examined certain vowel sounds in key speeches which,she claimed,suggest discordant dissonance and contribute to the presentation of evil. M.M. Mahood discussed the puns and double entendres in Macbeth,stating that while it is less obvious than in other Shakespearean plays,the wordplay serves to link the play's themes together into a unified dramatic poem. Several interpretations of the play focused on specifically on Macbeth's use of language. Arnold stein proposed that Macbeth invokes a "word-magic," similar to that of the Weird Sisters,which allows him to transform himself into a murdering "were-wolf" or to pretend innocence. Evans stated that it is this "witchcraft of poetry" that allows Shakespeare to present Macbeth,a murderer,as a sympathetic tragic hero.[4]Denton J. Snider and A.C. Bradley,both influence by the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Fridrich Hegel,interpreted the witches' power in dialectical terms. They asserted that Macbeth's actions are determined by a synthesis of the dialectic of both internal and external forces.[5]
2.2 Domestic researches:
Chen states that "the contrast in Macbeth is one of the important rhetoric devices.[6]Tian Junwu and Sun Jinjin discusses the dialogue in the play from a pragmatic point of view.[7]Zeng Yanbing He interprets the "tragedy of Macbeth as a tragedy of language",and contends that the witches are "a kind of language sign". The "imperfect" language of the three witches drives and elicits Macbeth's ambition; the paradox in the play gives the play an ominous feeling and a tone of tragedy.[8]
3、Theoretical Framework and critical approaches:
"In The Language of Paradox' Cleanth Brooks proposed a New Critical concept of paradox' as the distinguishing feature of literary language,though this concept is not much different from the concetpt of tension' by Allen Tate,or even the idea of defamiliaization' of the Russian Formalists. A few years later Brooks talked about another New Critical concept,irony'. Unlike the classical sense which refers to a rhetorical mode,the romantic use of the word refers to situational' rather than verbal' irony,the fact that the world in its essence is paradoxical and that an ambivalent attitude alone can grasp its contradictory totality."[9]One of the basic terms of formalistic criticism is paradox and the New Critics particularly regard poetry as "a pattern of paradox."[10]"Few of us are prepared to accept the statement that the language of poetry is the language of paradox. Paradox is the language of sophistry,hard,bright,witty; it is hardly the language of the soul Yet there is a sense in which paradox is the language appropriate and inevitable to poetry. It is the scientist whose truth requires a language purged of every trace of paradox; apparently the truth which the poet utters can be approached only in terms of paradox."[11]
4、Analysis /discussion
4.1 The wordplay and paradox in Macbeth
In the very first act and the first scene,three witches hovering in the "desert place",their infamous words of "Fair is foul,and foul is fair" set the tone and the atmosphere for the whole play. Before Macbeth met the three witches,he himself was saying exactly the same words "So foul and fair a day I have not seen."(Act 1 Scene3). When Banquo first saw the witches,he was surprised to see that
"What are these
So withered and so wild in their attire,
That look not like the inhabitant's o' the earth,
And yet are on it? 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."(Act1,Scene 3)
The appearance of the witches are paradoxical,they are neither woman nor man. Their greetings and answers to Macbeth and Banquo are equally paradoxical. Banquo will be
"Lesser than Macbeth,and greater.
Not so happy,yet much happier."(Act1,Scene3)
The credulous Macbeth is "rapt withral" and charges the "imperfect" speakers to tell him more. But Banquo seems to remain skeptical. He remarked:"The earth hath bubbles,as the water has,and these are of them." After the witches vanished,Macbeth says that they vanished "Into the air:what seemed corporal melted as breath into the wind." Doren marked that "It is a world in which nothing is certain to keep its shape. Forms shift and consistencies alter,so that what was solid may flow and what was fluid may congeal to stone."[12]Macbeth remarked that "This supernatural soliciting" that the witches told them "Cannot be ill,cannot be good." The riddling incites Macbeth's "desire".In Act 4,when Macbeth went to visit the witches himself,the Apparition that the witches conjured up,told Macbeth that