Author | Thomas De Quincey |
---|---|
Language | English |
Genre | essay, literary criticism |
Published | October 1823 |
Publisher | London Magazine |
Publication place | England |
Media type | |
Pages | 3 |
Followed by | On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts |
Text | On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth at Wikisource |
"On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth" is an essay in Shakespearean criticism by the English author Thomas De Quincey, first published in the October 1823 edition of The London Magazine . It is No. II in his ongoing series "Notes from the Pocket-Book of a Late Opium Eater" which are signed, "X.Y.Z.". [1] The first part of this dispatch is "Malthus", a much longer essay debunking the economist's theory of overpopulation. [2] : 349, 356
In the previous month's issue of The London Magazine, George Darley wrote "A Third Letter to the Dramatists of the Day". [3] He also analyzes the aftermath of King Duncan's murder and has the same reaction as De Quincey, "The breath seems to stop in one's throat whilst reading these lines; the vital principle is almost suspended..." [4] : 167 De Quincey concludes his essay with a note saying he agrees with Darley's interpretation. [2] : 356
The writer admits to being perplexed since childhood by the knocking at the gate in Act II of Macbeth after King Duncan is killed. The knocking created an effect for him that "reflected back upon the murder a peculiar awfulness and a depth of solemnity". The writer could not account rationally for this response according to the then-accepted canons of literary criticism. He begins by dismissing human understanding as the "meanest faculty" of the mind because it can so powerfully overrule what other senses tell us.
The Ratcliff Highway murders provided the information the writer needed to make sense of the scene. The murderer, John Williams, is praised and faintly damned for spoiling connoisseurs of murder for anything since his massacres. At the scene of his first act of butchery, a servant arrived at the house and knocked while he was still inside. The writer realizes murder is a "coarse and vulgar horror" when appreciated from the victim's perspective. In order to fully understand it, we must sympathize with the murderer, which is precisely what Shakespeare does in Macbeth.
The writer describes someone stirring from a fainting spell as the most affecting moment in the ordeal, because onlookers are assured of the recommencement of a life that was suspended. Macbeth and his wife must step out of the realm of human affairs and transfigure themselves into murderers. Lady Macbeth says she is unsexed, for instance. After their horrible act is done, Macduff knocks on the gate.
Macduff's knock is the return of the world the Macbeths have left. It signals "the pulses of life are beginning to beat again: and the re-establishment of the goings-on of the world in which we live, first makes us profoundly sensible of the awful parenthesis that had suspended them". The essay ends with a rhapsody about Shakespeare's gifts.
De Quincey called his essay "psychological criticism", which was a novel approach to Shakespeare. His work foreshadows the psychological approaches of much later criticism. Though brief, less than 2,000 words in length, it has been called "De Quincey's finest single critical piece" and "one of the most penetrating critical footnotes in our literature". [5] : 131 [6] Commentators who are dismissive of De Quincey's literary criticism in general make an exception for his essay on Macbeth . [5] : 118, 131
Charles Lamb quipped at a dinner party, "[De Quincey] has written a thing about Macbeth better than anything I could write––no––not better than anything I could write, but I could not write anything better." [7] De Quincey's biographer Horace Ainsworth Eaton called the essay "penetrating and philosophic", adding that De Quincey "produced conclusions as significant as anything in Coleridge or Hazlitt". [8]
De Quincey also views his responses to the play in reference to another of his classic essays, "On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts".
The Tragedy of Macbeth, often shortened to Macbeth, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. It is thought to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power. Of all the plays that Shakespeare wrote during the reign of James I, Macbeth most clearly reflects his relationship with King James, patron of Shakespeare's acting company. It was first published in the Folio of 1623, possibly from a prompt book, and is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy.
Thomas Penson De Quincey was an English writer, essayist, and literary critic, best known for his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821). Many scholars suggest that in publishing this work De Quincey inaugurated the tradition of addiction literature in the West.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1823.
Macbeth is a 1971 historical drama film directed by Roman Polanski, and co-written by Polanski and Kenneth Tynan. A film adaptation of William Shakespeare's tragedy of the same name, it tells the story of the Highland lord who becomes King of Scotland through treachery and murder. Jon Finch and Francesca Annis star as the title character and his wife, noted for their relative youth as actors. Themes of historic recurrence, greater pessimism and internal ugliness in physically beautiful characters are added to Shakespeare's story of moral decline, which is presented in a more realistic style.
In his own time, William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was rated as merely one among many talented playwrights and poets, but since the late 17th century has been considered the supreme playwright and poet of the English language.
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821) is an autobiographical account written by Thomas De Quincey, about his laudanum addiction and its effect on his life. The Confessions was "the first major work De Quincey published and the one that won him fame almost overnight".
Macbeth is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi, with an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave and additions by Andrea Maffei, based on William Shakespeare's play of the same name. Written for the Teatro della Pergola in Florence, Macbeth was Verdi's tenth opera and premiered on 14 March 1847. It was the first Shakespeare play that Verdi adapted for the operatic stage. Almost twenty years later, Macbeth was revised and expanded into a French version and given in Paris on 21 April 1865.
Macbeth is a 1948 American historical drama directed by Orson Welles. A film adaptation of William Shakespeare's tragedy of the same name, it tells the story of the Scottish general who becomes the King of Scotland through treachery and murder. The film stars Welles in the lead role and Jeanette Nolan as Lady Macbeth.
Lady Macduff is a character in William Shakespeare's Macbeth. She is married to Lord Macduff, the Thane of Fife. Her appearance in the play is brief: she and her son are introduced in Act IV Scene II, a climactic scene that ends with both of them being murdered on Macbeth's orders. Though Lady Macduff's appearance is limited to this scene, her role in the play is quite significant. Later playwrights, William Davenant especially, expanded her role in adaptation and in performance.
Blackwood's Magazine was a British magazine and miscellany printed between 1817 and 1980. It was founded by the publisher William Blackwood and was originally called the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine. The first number appeared in April 1817 under the editorship of Thomas Pringle and James Cleghorn. The journal was unsuccessful and Blackwood fired Pringle and Cleghorn and relaunched the journal as Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine under his own editorship. The journal eventually adopted the shorter name and from the relaunch often referred to itself as Maga. The title page bore the image of George Buchanan, a 16th-century Scottish historian, religious and political thinker.
Events from the year 1823 in the United Kingdom.
Robert J. H. Morrison is a Canadian author, editor, and academic. He is British Academy Global Professor at Bath Spa University and Queen's National Scholar at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. A scholar of late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature and culture, he is particularly interested in the Regency years (1811–1820), Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Jane Austen, and Thomas De Quincey.
William Shakespeare's style of writing was borrowed from the conventions of the day and adapted to his needs.
"On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts" are a trilogy of essays by Thomas De Quincey begun in 1827. The essays are a satirical account of a gentleman's club that celebrates homicide from an aesthetic perspective. The Ratcliff Highway murders committed by John Williams in 1811 are a keystone throughout the series.
The English Mail-Coach is an essay by the English author Thomas De Quincey. A "three-part masterpiece" and "one of his most magnificent works," it first appeared in 1849 in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, in the October and December issues.
Suspiria de profundis is a collection of essays in the form of prose poems by English writer Thomas De Quincey, first published in 1845. An examination of the process of memory as influenced by hallucinogenic drug use, Suspiria has been described as one of the best-known and most distinctive literary works of its era.
Tait's Edinburgh Magazine was a monthly periodical founded in 1832. It was an important venue for liberal political views, as well as contemporary cultural and literary developments, in early-to-mid-nineteenth century Britain.
The Voodoo Macbeth is a common nickname for the Federal Theatre Project's 1936 New York production of William Shakespeare's Macbeth. Orson Welles adapted and directed the production, moved the play's setting from Scotland to a fictional Caribbean island, recruited an entirely Black cast, and earned the nickname for his production from the Haitian vodou that fulfilled the role of Scottish witchcraft. A box office sensation, the production is regarded as a landmark theatrical event for several reasons: its innovative interpretation of the play, its success in promoting African-American theatre, and its role in securing the reputation of its 20-year-old director.
This is a bibliography of works by Thomas De Quincey, a romantic English writer. Chiefly remembered today for his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821), De Quincey's oeuvre includes literary criticism, poetry, and a large selection of reviews, translations and journalism. His private correspondence and diary have also been published.
The Third Murderer is a character in William Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth (1606). He appears in one scene (3.3), joining the First and Second Murderers to assassinate Banquo and Fleance, at the orders of Macbeth.