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14 - Macbeth and Trauma

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 August 2021

By
Willy Maley
Edited by
David Loewenstein  and
Paul Stevens
David Loewenstein
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University, University Park
Paul Stevens
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Summary

This chapter offers a critical reading of Macbeth as a play preoccupied with war, including civil war and border warfare. Macbeth is arguably the greatest example of a character whose brutality is condemned so soon after being celebrated. There is an exploration of doublethink in a play that holds up savagery as heroism in its opening act in the shape of the severed head of a rebel and holds up the head of the executioner, a hero-turned-villain, in its closing scene. Working at the intersection of military history and medical humanities, this reading of the play tracks the effects and aftereffects of war and wounding, examines modern responses to the play by soldiers and psychiatrists that raise issues around care and control of veterans, addresses the politics of remembering and remembrance, and reflects on recent responses to Macbeth as a drama depicting the consequences of post–traumatic stress disorder.

Keywords

IrelandmedicinememoryScotlandsurgerytraumaveteranswounds
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and War , pp. 239 - 255
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

Further Reading

Bell, Millicent. “Macbeth and Dismemberment,” Raritan, 25 (2006), pp. 13–29.Google Scholar
Boling, Ronald J. “Tanistry, Primogeniture, and the Anglicizing of Scotland in Macbeth,” Publications of the Arkansas Philological Association, 25 (1999), pp. 1–14.Google Scholar
Cahill, Patricia A. Unto the Breach: Martial Formations, Historical Trauma, and the Early Modern Stage, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Cantor, Paul A. “‘A Soldier and Afeard’: Macbeth and the Gospelling of Scotland,” Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy, 24 (1997), pp. 287–318.Google Scholar
Favila, Marina. “‘Mortal Thoughts’ and Magical Thinking in Macbeth,” Modern Philology, 99 (2001), pp. 1–25.Google Scholar
Highley, Christopher. “The Place of Scots in the Scottish Play: Macbeth and the Politics of Language,” in Maley, Willy and Murphy, Andrew (eds.), Shakespeare and Scotland, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2004, pp. 53–66.Google Scholar
Kendall, Gillian Murray. “Overkill in Shakespeare,” Shakespeare Quarterly, 43 (1992), pp. 33–50.Google Scholar
Nosworthy, J. M. “The Bleeding Captain Scene in Macbeth,” Review of English Studies, 22 (1946), pp. 126–30.Google Scholar
Palmer, Patricia. The Severed Head and the Grafted Tongue: Literature, Translation and Violence in Early Modern Ireland, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013.Google Scholar
Pasupathi, Vimala C. “Locating The Valiant Scot,” in Bennett, Susan and Polito, Mary (eds.), Performing Environments: Site-Specificity in Medieval and Early Modern English Drama, London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, pp. 241–59.Google Scholar
Wofford, Susanne L. “Origin Stories of Fear and Tyranny: Blood and Dismemberment in Macbeth (with a Glance at the Oresteia),” Comparative Drama, 51 (2017), pp. 506–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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