Macbeth (Vol. 44) | Susan Snyder (essay date 1994)
Susan Snyder (essay date 1994)
SOURCE: "Theology as Tragedy in Macbeth" in Christianity and Literature, Vol. 43, No. 3-4, Spring-Summer, 1994, pp. 289-300.
[In the following essay, Snyder explores the question of causality in Macbeth through a discussion of the biblical narrative of Hazael, who learns from the prophet Elisha that one day he will be king of Syria—and who subsequently murders the reigning monarch. The critic proposes that in both stories the effects of supernatural prophecies cannot be established, for free will and fate are so entangled in each narrative that neither can be seen as ultimately responsible for the tragic imperative that drives each man to regicide.]
Modern chronologies of Shakespeare's works generally place Macbeth directly after King Lear. The two tragedies may even have been written in the same year, 1606. They are nevertheless very different, in a way that can be...
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