Macbeth and Renaissance Humanism
Renaissance Humanism is the intellectual movement that began in Italy in the fourteenth century and lasted roughly until the second half of the seventeenth century. The main characteristic of this movement was, in the first place, a departure from medieval philosophy, with its superstitions and the restrictions imposed on the mind and the actions of man. The Renaissance still kept the idea of the world as a divine hierarchy in which each being or thing has its fixed place, but also evinced a return to the secular philosophy of the classical antiquity with an emphasis on the unlimited capacities of man as the only rational being in the universe. Thus, the Renaissance humanism exploited the belief in man as the image of God himself. Human virtues and especially reason were promoted as the central to the world of Renaissance. Shakespeare blends in his works elements of medieval philosophy and Renaissance humanism. In Hamlet's monologues we find the core of the Renaissance humanism with its emphasis on man as the "paragon of animals". In Macbeth, the humanist philosophy is reflected precisely in the theme of the main theme of the play: the reversal of nature. When the humanity of a single man, Macbeth, becomes corrupt, the entire ord
As Cunningham comments, Macbeth corrupts his own human faculties in order to be able to commit the terrible murders, by hardening his heart and blocking both human instincts and thus the divine word of God as well: "Elizabethan moralists and psychologists moreover-as those of our own day talk about the unconscious and guilt feelings-frequently discuss the commonly accepted psychology of the hardened heart, in which the sinner becomes so fortified and confirmed in the custom of sin that it becomes a habit, corrupting one's human faculties. Characterized by God's providence, plentitude, and pervasive presence, it appears to be a hierarchical, harmonious unity in which all being and goodness flow from God and what everything in the world is depends on God and its place in his scheme of creation. 12) The main plot of the play, the killing of Duncan, the king of Scotland, is a common subject for tragedy during the Renaissance age, and a recurrent one in Shakespeare's plays. Moreover, another symbolic element in the play that relates to the main theme is the fact that Macbeth is promised by the three witches to be immune against the power of any man that is "born of woman. " It is not only the natural, physical environment that becomes extremely chaotic through evil, but the human nature as well. They are both transformed into tools for evil, that appear innocent but hide their unnatural purposes under this false coat: "To beguile the time,/Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,/ Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower, / But be the serpent under't. The sun refuses to shine, the forces of nature run wild and everything seems unreal. Macbeth's corruption as a man reverses the order of the entire universe. When the murder is done, the old man significantly proclaims it as "unnatural", comparing it to the killing of a falconer by an owl. What thou wouldst highly, / That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false, / And yet wouldst wrongly win.
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