Double, Double: Paradox in Macbeth
By August 7, 1606, the day on which some historians claim
Macbeth was first performed, William Shakespeare’s two tetralogies of English history plays were by some estimates already seven years behind him. A new king had come from the north in 1603 to unify the crowns of England and Scotland, an accession that gave Shakespeare, then halfway through his career, a new patron and new politics to negotiate. A long-standing reading of
Macbeth rests upon the foundation of its ultimate patronage and the scene of its first performance for King James I himself and the visiting King Christian IV of Denmark. Many critics have long read the play as if not specifically commissioned by then certainly intended as a compliment to the King, and a complement to his political and spiritual tracts. Further analysis, however, reveals significant disruptions in what Alan Sinfield terms this Jamesian Reading.