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“Something Wicked This Way Comes”: Machiavelli, Macbeth, and the Conquest of Fortuna

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2016

Michael P. Zuckert
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Abstract

As in all or almost all Shakespeare plays the opening scenes of Macbeth are key to setting up the problem the play addresses. In his Scottish play Shakespeare uses the opening scenes to set the two main contexts in which the regicide, usurpation, tyranny, and fall of the tyrant occur. The two are, we might say, the earthly or political context and the cosmic or superhuman context represented by the witches. In presenting these two contexts Shakespeare appears to be engaging in a dialogue with Machiavelli's Prince, taking cues from Machiavelli's political analysis on how to understand the political character of Scotland and taking issue with Machiavelli's ultimate agenda of a conquest of Fortuna.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 78 , Special Issue 4: Shakespeare's Politics in Honor of the 400th Anniversary of his Birth , Fall 2016 , pp. 589 - 607
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 2016 

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References

1 All citations to Macbeth are taken from Shakespeare, William, The Norton Shakespeare: Based on the Oxford Edition, ed. Greenblatt, Stephen et al. , 2nd ed. (New York: Norton, 2008)Google Scholar. Parenthetical citations refer to the act, scene, and line numbers, respectively.

2 Machiavelli, Niccolὸ, The Prince, trans. Mansfield, Harvey C., 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 17 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid., 18.

5 Ibid.

6 See The Prince, chap. 15.

7 Ibid., 58.

8 Ibid., 59.

9 Ibid., 49.

10 Ibid., 48.

11 Ibid., 58.

12 Davis, Michael, “Courage and Impotence in Shakespeare's Macbeth ,” in Shakespeare's Political Pageant: Essays in Literature and Politics, ed. Alulis, Joseph and Sullivan, Vickie (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996), 220 Google Scholar.

13 Machiavelli, The Prince, 58.

14 Ibid., 65–68.

15 Ibid., 71.

16 Lowenthal writes that “Duncan's plan to frustrate Macbeth's ambition is almost invisible, well planned, and well executed—but unsuccessful”; that “a series of apparently disparate actions on Duncan's part… taken together, display the coherence of a plan—and a good plan”; that it is a “well-conceived plan that did not work”; and that Macbeth shows us that “one serious bit of miscalculation or ignorance (of Lady Macbeth's character by Duncan) can thwart an otherwise excellent plan.” See Lowenthal, David, “Macbeth,” in Shakespeare and the Good Life: Ethics and Politics in Dramatic Form (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1997), 186, 187, 189, 192Google Scholar.

17 Machiavelli, The Prince, 33.

18 Ibid.

19 See Lowenthal, “Macbeth,” 198, 226, and 228.

20 See Lowenthal, “Macbeth,” 186, 220.

21 See Lowenthal, “Macbeth,” 179.

22 Ibid., 179, 182–86, and 234.

23 For an account of and response to this position, see Lowenthal, “Macbeth,” 181–84.

24 See Lowenthal, “Macbeth,” 186, 189–192.

25 Machiavelli, The Prince, 98.

26 Ibid., 61.