Blood and Revenge: Animal Metaphors and Nature in Macbeth and the Oresteia

Duluo Nie

doi:10.18778/2083-8530.30.09

Authors

Duluo Nie School of International Studies, Sun Yat-sen University, China

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-8530.30.09

Keywords:

blood-shedding, animal metaphors, violence, Macbeth, the Oresteia, tragedy, revenge, human nature

Abstract

Renowned classicist Gilbert Murray has made compelling arguments about the connection between Aeschylus and Shakespeare in his famous essay Hamlet and Orestes: A Study in Traditional Types. Through a close reading of the Oresteia and Macbeth, it is not difficult to find that the latter play, to some extent, is an intentioned “translation” and “rewriting” of the great theatrical tradition of the Attic tragedy, especially that represented by Aeschylus. The dramatic elements inviting such a comparative reading, among many other things, include the motif of bloodstained hands, masculine queens, sleeplessness and dream terrors, and most important of all, the mechanism of blood-shedding and revenge. This paper discusses their affinity through the lens of allusions to birds, and animals, inversion of the established order, and its final restoration to reveal Macbeth as a play that is fundamentally concerned with the classical theme of blood-shedding and revenge with its borrowing of multiple dramatic techniques.

Author Biography

Duluo Nie, School of International Studies, Sun Yat-sen University, China

Duluo Nie is currently a research fellow at Sun Yat-sen University. His teaching and research interests include classical studies, specifically the history of ancient rhetoric and ideas, and Shakespeare’s reception of classical antiquity. Aside from a monograph on pseudo-Longinus’ On the Sublime, he has published articles and translations on subjects like Greek historiography, lyric poetry, and drama.

References

Aeschylus. Aeschylus: With an English Translation by Herbert Weir Smyth. In 2 Volumes. Ed. Herbert Weir Smyth. London: W. Heinemann G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1926.

Aristotle, History of Animals. Aristotle in 23 volumes, Vol. 11. Trans. D. M. Balme. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd., 1932.

Aristotle, Poetics. Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 23. Trans. W. H. Fyfe. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1932.

Bernard M. W. Knox. “The Lion in the House (Agamemnon 717-736 [Murray]).” Classical Philology 47.1 (1952): 17-25. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/363443

Collins, John Churton. Studies in Shakespeare. London: Archibald Constable & Co., 1904.

Furness, H. H. [1893]. Macbeth Variorum Edition. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1903.

Graham, Elspeth. “The Training Relationship: Horses, Hawks, Dogs, Bears, and Humans.” The Routledge Handbook of Shakespeare and Animals. Eds. Karen Raber, Holly Dugan. London: Routledge, 2021. 177-189. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003057192-19

Hazlitt, W. C. Faiths and Folklore of the British Isles. Vol. II. New York: Benjamin Bloom, 1965.

Lopez, Jeremy. The Arden Introduction to Reading Shakespeare. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781472581068

Muir, Kenneth. Shakespeare Survey: Volume 19, Macbeth. London: Cambridge University Press, 1967. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521069009

Peradotto, John J. “Some Patterns of Nature Imagery in the Oresteia.” The American Journal of Philology 85.4 (1964): 378-393. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/293019

Poole, Adrian. Tragedy: Shakespeare and the Greek Example. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 1987.

Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Ed. A. R. Braunmuller. London: Cambridge University Press, 1968.

Showerman, Earl. “Shakespeare’s Greater Greek: Macbeth and Aeschylus’ Oresteia.” Brief Chronicles 3.37 (2011): 37-70.

Thomson, J. A. K. Shakespeare and the Classics. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1979.