Introduction
- Illusion
Macbeth was first produced at a time of
radical theatrical change in England.
It seems to have been written during 1606 (pp. 59-64) and to have been
presented at the Globe Theatre fairly late in that year, and so to have been
conceived for performance in daylight, in a constantly light space which could
not be physically transformed into darkness. Two years later, in 1608-9, Shakespeares
company, the Kings Men, took over the medieval friary and was therefore
basically a dark space into which artificial light had to be introducedwhich
has been the normal state of all European theatres ever since. From then until
the London
theatres were finally closed in the 1650s after repeated injunctions from
Cromwells government the repertory had to be adapted for performance in both
theatres, in both conditions. Shakespeares last plays, from The Winters Tale
to The Tempest (including his collaborations with Fletcher) show remarkable
ingenuity in devising spectacular effects which could take advantage of the
dark theatre and of the experience of the company in participating in Court
masques, while still being performable at the Globe. Most of Shakespeares
earlier plays could no doubt have been easily adapted for revival in the new
situation since the basic configuration of the stage seems to have been much
the same, but Macbeth was a special case: about two-thirds of this play written
for the daylight theatre is set in darkness.
All
theatre depends, in one way or another, on illusion, but Macbeth is exceptional
in affirming continuously a direct contradiction of the natural conditions: the
transformation of daylight into darkness is a tour de force which established
illusion as, not merely a utility, but a central preoccupation of the play,
dramatically announced by an opening unique in Shakespeares plays, the use of
the non-naturalistic prologue by the Weird Sisters in 1.1. there follows a
carefully controlled range of forms of dramatic illusion which needs to be
enumerated, not only because it is so frequently mutilated by the naturalistic
tradition of modern theatre, but also because it clarifies the study of
illusion as a structural foundation of the play.
【前言】
This edition of Macbeth has taken over ten
years to prepare, an inordinately long time, due to a variety of interruptions
as well as to my own dilatoriness. It would have been longer still without the
benefit of Kenneth Muirs Arden edition, originally published as far back as
1951, but finally revised with a new Introduction as recently as 1984; I am
deeply indebted to Professor Muir, both for that volume, and for his kindness,
encouragement, and friendship over many years. An editors first debt is always
to his predecessors. the essential reference work for Macbeth is the New
Variorum of 1901, faithfully chronicling the variants of all scholarly
predecessors from the beginning of the eighteenth to the end of the nineteenth
centuries. My successors will hope for an extension through the very active
scholarship of another, nearly exhausted, century, and they could be much
helped by a similar digest of the numerous surviving prompt-books and editions
derived from prompt-books. Drama is an ephemeral art-form, and the changes made
in text and structure are constantly revealing of the theatrical potentialities
of even so great a text as this: Macbeth belongs to the theatre, and I have
learnt from far more productions than I can mention in the Introduction.
Fifty
years ago, Macbeth was put to sleep in my mind by the all-too-common
unhappiness of studying it for School Certificate; it seemed as impossible to
wake as the Sleeping Beauty, despite my profession. Twenty-five years later,
professor Wolfgang Clement had the generous idea of using a grant from the
Volkswagen Institute to invite younger Shakespearians to Munich for a few weeks to visit his
Department and its Shakespeare Library, and to be shown the City and its
environs. In the celebrated church
of St. John Nepomuk I
experienced a conversion, not of a religious kind, but to a perception of
baroque art. What was most strange was that it was Macbeth which came so
powerfully into my mind: for better or for worse, my debt to that occasion will
be obvious in this volume.
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