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 action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude..." Macbeth meets these criteria. Moreover, Aristotle required that a tragedy must be composed of six traits: plot, character, diction, thought, spectacle, and song. Without question, these traits are easily mastered by
             Shakespeare in Macbeth. As can be seen, Macbeth meets the criteria of a tragedy, at least as long as its title character meets the criteria of a tragic hero.
             According to Aristotle, the area where most so-called tragedies fail is the rendition of the tragic hero, but this is where Macbeth truly excels. A tragic hero, according to Aristotle, must be a great man who is destroyed ...