SHAKESPEARE is my Homeboy

Macbeth criticism

Goldberg, Jonathan. "Speculations: Macbeth and Source" from Post-Structuralist Readings of English Poetry

Goldberg's essay questions our understanding of source as a heterogeneous source. He argues for the multiplicity of "speculations" or what he describes as an uncontainable number of "hall of mirrors" which a study of the source seems to create.

In his essay, Goldberg examines Shakespeare's shaping of Holinshed's source. He questions and expands upon Kermode's earlier argument that "Shakespeare deals freely with his source." He raises difficult questions associated with our understanding of source, when he asks "What is the source of a "composite" text?" (Goldberg 40).

Goldberg discusses the way in which Shakespeare's transmission (or adaptation) of the source creates what he describes as "specular contaminations." One way that Goldberg describes this phenomenon is through Shakespeare's adaptations of Holinshed, in terms of changing lines of dialogue from the witches (in Holinshed's version) to Duncan in I.iv (Goldberg 40).

Next, Goldberg questions the possible reasons for these "contaminations:" "Could Shakespeare have represented the contaminations of spectral resemblance before James I? Intentionally? Secretly?" (Goldberg 43). Goldberg suggests that this phenomenon of seeing James in the character of Macbeth is like a hall of mirrors with endless possible reflections and speculations.

Goldberg explores the subversive ways in which "this great King" referred to Macbeth and James. Goldberg goes on to explain that, through its employment of dualism, the masques of Jonson, such as The Vision of Delight or Pan's Anniversary operate in a very similar way to Macbeth. Both Jonson's masques and Macbeth can be seen dually as royal compliment and subversion as well (Goldberg 49), in which good and evil characters seem to mirror one another. Not only do characters create a mirror, according to Goldberg, but also "invocations, arrivals, dances. Dualism would seem to be a mirror effect" (Goldberg 48)

Finally, Goldberg describes the way in which the show of Kings (I.iv) can be seen as a masque-like event which complicates source and subject. Ultimately, much of the play operates like the witches' show, according to Goldberg's argument. He explains that "There is no source, not even a sovereign author, outside of representation, no end of beginning to these speculations" (Goldberg 50).