『マクベス』とスコットランド : ブリテン帝国への歩み

The aim of this essay is to put Macbeth in historical context, seek the relationship between Scotland and England under the reign of James I, and examine how Shakespeare represented James I in his tragedies. First, I examined the names of the places in Macbeth. The places set and referred to in Macbeth can be categorized into six: (1) Forres and the witches' moor nearby, (2) Inverness where regicide happens, (3)Fife, fief of Macduff, (4) England near the court of Edward the Confessor, (5) the Hebrides and Norway, (6) Iona and Scone. How are these places described and how are they different from real history? By manipulating and obscuring the historical meanings of the places, Shakespeare succeeded in symbolizing good and evil and dramatizing the inner conflicts as a tragedy. Forres and Inverness lie in the center of the Highlands which represent darkness and evil. On the other hand, Fife, the center of the Lowlands, and England represent light and good. In the same way, the main characters were manipulated and categorized into good Lowlanders and evil Highlanders by partly distorting the historical reality. For example, historical Macbeth murdered Duncan because Macbeth had the right to be King according to Tanistry, the traditional Gaelic system of succession. He was said to have been a merry king with a strong sense of justice. On the contrary, Malcolm was a cruel and wild man who murdered two kings, Macbeth and his son. Why were they distorted? This manipulation was one of the James' strategies to unite Scotland with England as the first king of the Union. To realize this union, the most important and urgent task was to Anglicize the Highlanders after the already Anglicized Lowlanders. For James, the Highland meant the den of wild Catholic witches who spoke ambiguous Gaelic which was contrary to the plain and clear English that James recommended his prince to use in Basilicon Doron. But as it was the Personal Union, James' personality influenced this Union. James' personality was torn in two selves between the self as a son of Mary Stuart, a Catholic and a so-called witch, and the self as a pupil of Renaissance enlightened protestant masters. Shakespeare secretly depicted this conflict and undermined the surface message of the tragedy. King James could be interpreted as both Malcolm and Macbeth. This suppression of other self became an archetype of the British Empire which began to take steps toward colonizing the natives mainly through civilizing their religion and language.