Macbeth (Vol. 44) | Howard Felperin (essay date 1975)
Howard Felperin (essay date 1975)
SOURCE: "A Painted Devil: Macbeth" in Shakespearean Representation: Mimesis and Modernity in Elizabethan Tragedy, Princeton University Press, 1977, pp. 118-44.
[In the following essay, originally presented in 1975, Felperin discerns a parodic gap between the Christian view of the world set forth in the medieval mystery plays and Shakespeare's adaptation of that view in Macbeth. On one hand, the critic argues, the play demystifies sacred myths and symbols by representing them as arbitrary constructs, while on the other it demonstrates that they serve an indispensable function in society.]
'Tis the eye of childhood
That fears a painted devil.
—Macbeth, II.ii.53-54
The last of Shakespeare's major tragedies to depend primarily on a native tradition of religious drama is also the most widely and seriously misunderstood in its relation to it. Indeed,...
[The entire page is 9492 words long]
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