Introduction

1. Illusion

Macbeth was first produced at a time of radical theatrical change in England. It seems to have been written during 1606 (pp. 59-64) and to have been presented at the Globe Theatre fairly late in that year, and so to have been conceived for performance in daylight, in a constantly light space which could not be physically transformed into darkness. Two years later, in 1608-9, Shakespeares company, the Kings Men, took over the medieval friary and was therefore basically a dark space into which artificial light had to be introducedwhich has been the normal state of all European theatres ever since. From then until the London theatres were finally closed in the 1650s after repeated injunctions from Cromwells government the repertory had to be adapted for performance in both theatres, in both conditions. Shakespeares last plays, from The Winters Tale to The Tempest (including his collaborations with Fletcher) show remarkable ingenuity in devising spectacular effects which could take advantage of the dark theatre and of the experience of the company in participating in Court masques, while still being performable at the Globe. Most of Shakespeares earlier plays could no doubt have been easily adapted for revival in the new situation since the basic configuration of the stage seems to have been much the same, but Macbeth was a special case: about two-thirds of this play written for the daylight theatre is set in darkness.

All theatre depends, in one way or another, on illusion, but Macbeth is exceptional in affirming continuously a direct contradiction of the natural conditions: the transformation of daylight into darkness is a tour de force which established illusion as, not merely a utility, but a central preoccupation of the play, dramatically announced by an opening unique in Shakespeares plays, the use of the non-naturalistic prologue by the Weird Sisters in 1.1. there follows a carefully controlled range of forms of dramatic illusion which needs to be enumerated, not only because it is so frequently mutilated by the naturalistic tradition of modern theatre, but also because it clarifies the study of illusion as a structural foundation of the play.

【前言】

This edition of Macbeth has taken over ten years to prepare, an inordinately long time, due to a variety of interruptions as well as to my own dilatoriness. It would have been longer still without the benefit of Kenneth Muirs Arden edition, originally published as far back as 1951, but finally revised with a new Introduction as recently as 1984; I am deeply indebted to Professor Muir, both for that volume, and for his kindness, encouragement, and friendship over many years. An editors first debt is always to his predecessors. the essential reference work for Macbeth is the New Variorum of 1901, faithfully chronicling the variants of all scholarly predecessors from the beginning of the eighteenth to the end of the nineteenth centuries. My successors will hope for an extension through the very active scholarship of another, nearly exhausted, century, and they could be much helped by a similar digest of the numerous surviving prompt-books and editions derived from prompt-books. Drama is an ephemeral art-form, and the changes made in text and structure are constantly revealing of the theatrical potentialities of even so great a text as this: Macbeth belongs to the theatre, and I have learnt from far more productions than I can mention in the Introduction.

Fifty years ago, Macbeth was put to sleep in my mind by the all-too-common unhappiness of studying it for School Certificate; it seemed as impossible to wake as the Sleeping Beauty, despite my profession. Twenty-five years later, professor Wolfgang Clement had the generous idea of using a grant from the Volkswagen Institute to invite younger Shakespearians to Munich for a few weeks to visit his Department and its Shakespeare Library, and to be shown the City and its environs. In the celebrated church of St. John Nepomuk I experienced a conversion, not of a religious kind, but to a perception of baroque art. What was most strange was that it was Macbeth which came so powerfully into my mind: for better or for worse, my debt to that occasion will be obvious in this volume.