From Heaven To Hell: Macbeth as a Tragic Hero
William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, a play written for the Elizabethan Theater circa 1606, tells the story of an esteemed Scottish nobleman who rises to the throne by murder and subterfuge, only to descend again into madness and damnation. Critics through the years have heralded Macbeth as one of the finest English tragedies by England’s finest dramatist. However, some might still ask: “Is Macbeth truly a tragic hero, or is he simply the protagonist of a bleak satire, doomed by powers beyond his control?” The answer to the former can be only an adamant, “Yes." Before one can fully understand that Macbeth is a deeply tragic character, it must first be established, in brief, what a tragedy is, and that Macbeth is one. Shakespearean drama inherits many of its roots from the Greek drama of many centuries before. Aristotle, the quintessential philosopher of the Greek era, considered tragedy to be a genre that is serious in nature, deals with the emotions of pity and terror, and gives the audience a heightened sense of being through the “catharsis” of these emotions. In his book, Poetics, which is widely considered to be the first definitive model of literary criticism, Aristotle stated that, “Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an act
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Approximate Word count = 1444
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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