It will be an interfaith marriage….

Imagine that on September 11 the terrorists who attacked our country were even more successful…that one of the planes struck not just the Pentagon, but also the White House and the Supreme Court and House and Senate buildings as well:

Of course, we don’t have to think too hard because it nearly happened.  In England in 1605, a similar catastrophic event nearly wiped out Parliament, all of the judges, the Prince, and all of his successors.  The thwarted plan, discovered at the last moment, is known as the Gunpowder Plot. Papists, under the direction of Jesuits in Rome, had infiltrated Parliament and smuggled gunpowder kegs beneath the building.

Garry Wills, in his study Witches and Jesuits:  Shakespeare’s Macbeth offers a compelling argument for the reasons Macbeth has so often failed in modern times.  There is even an alleged “curse” surrounding the staging of the play.  Actors become injured (Olivier sprained his ankle opening night), directors lose their way (Orson Welles), managers die (Lilian Baylis).  But, Wills contends, there is more missing from Macbeth: a fundamental misunderstanding of the motivations that compelled Shakespeare to write the tragedy. 

It all comes back, he says, to the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.   The shock of what almost happened is akin to the aftermath of the national shock of Pearl Harbor or the Kennedy assassination, and now, the trauma of a nation post- 9/11.  In the years after these events, there were numerous allusions, both direct and indirect, to the attacks.  Even today, the “date which will live in infamy” need not be identified to most people: we know it refers to December 7, 1941, the date of the attack on Pearl Harbor.   Similarly, in the 17th century,  the Gunpowder Plot was universally known and referenced continually,  not only in Shakespeare, but also in the writing of many of his contemporaries. 

Wills asks us to reconsider Macbeth in this light, especially in order to understand the problems of Act II, turning the focus away from Macbeth and Lady Macbeth and refocusing on the larger social dramas of religion, politics, and the healing of England. 

Posted Mon, 14 Jul 2008 09:16:18 and filed under nonfiction, jamie, Websites, eNotes, Authors, Shakespeare, Literature. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.