MACBETH, it is probable, was the last-written of the four great tragedies, and immediately preceded
Antony and Cleopatra.(note 1, p 331]. In that play Shakespeare's final style appears for the first time
completely formed, and the transition to this style is much more decidedly visible in Macbeth than in
King Lear .Yet in certain respects Macbeth recalls Hamlet rather than Othello or King Lear. In the
heroes of both plays the passage from thought to a critical resolution and action is difficult, and excites
the keenest interest. In neither play, as in Othello and King Lear, is painful pathos one of the main
effects. Evil, again, though it shows in Macbeth a prodigious energy, is not the icy or stony
inhumanity of lago or Goneril; and, as in Hamlet, it is pursued by remorse. Finally, Shakespeare no
longer restricts the action to purely human agencies, as in the two preceding tragedies; portents once
more fill the heavens, ghosts rise from their graves, an unearthly light flickers about the head of the
doomed man. The special popularity of Hamlet and Macbeth is due in part to some of these common
characteristics, notably to the fascination of the supernatural, the absence of the spectacle of extreme
undeserved suffering, the absence of characters which horrify and repel and yet are destitute of
grandeur. The reader who looks unwillingly at lago gazes at Lady Macbeth in awe, because though she
is dreadful she is also sublime. The whole tragedy is sublime.
In this, however, and in other respects, Macbeth makes an impression quite different from that of
Hamlet. The dimensions of the principal characters, the rate of movement in the action, the supernatural
effect, the style, the versification, are an changed; and they are all changed in much the same
manner. In many parts of Macbeth there is in the language a peculiar compression, pregnancy, energy,
even violence; the harmonious grace and even flow, often conspicuous in Hamlet, have almost
disappeared. The chief characters, built on a scale at least as large as that of Othello, seem to attain at
times an almost superhuman stature. The diction has in places a huge and rugged grandeur, which
degenerates here and there into tumidity.
The solemn majesty of the royal Ghost in Hamlet, appearing in armour and standing silent in the
moonlight, is exchanged for shapes of horror, dimly seen in the murky air or revealed by the glare of
the cauldron fire in a dark cavern, or for the ghastly face of Banquo badged with blood and staring
with blank eyes. The other three tragedies all open with conversations, which lead into the action: here
the action bursts into wild life amidst the sounds of a thunderstorm and the echoes of a distant battle. It
hurries through seven very brief scenes of mounting suspense to a terrible crisis, which is reached, in
the murder of Duncan, at the beginning of the Second Act. Pausing a moment and changing its shape it
hastes again with scarcely diminished speed to fresh horrors. And even when the speed of the outward
action is slackened, the same effect Is continued in another form: we are shown a soul tortured by an
agony which admits not a moment's repose, and rushing in frenzy towards its doom. Macbeth is very
much shorter than the other three tragedies, but our experience in traversing it is so crowded and
intense that it leaves an impression not of brevity but of speed. It is the most vehement, the most
concentrated, perhaps we may say the most tremendous, of the tragedies