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Essay: Explore the Negative Implications of Imagination in Shakespeare’s Macbeth

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  • Published: 23 March 2023*
  • Last Modified: 22 July 2024
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  • Tags: Macbeth essays

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According to Joachim Ritter and Karlfried Gründer, the earnings for the most detailed and profound analysis1 of imagination and its correlate, the imaginary, belong to Jean-Paul Sartre.
It is marked by the phenomenological duplication of intentional act and undogmatic awareness of oneself. In this duplication the “imaging consciousness” experiences itself as a creative spontaneity. The image is set as absent or inexistent, or rather as a nothingness. Though at the same time this signifies the nihilation (néantisation) of the world regarding the image. The imaginary is quite autonomous towards the world of sensual perceptions and its categories of time and space. Its setting is determined as an act of freedom, implemented by a certain way of being-in-the world, by a certain ‚situation‘ (Ritter, p.220, Imagination / see Sartre, p.185, l.27ff.).
If one now compares the views of two great epochs, the Renaissance and Romanticism, regarding imagination, it becomes clear, as already mentioned, that especially the Elizabethans perceived it rather negatively since, according to the Elizabethan understanding, it was regarded as the ‘enemy’ of reason and therefore simply had to be avoided due to possible fatal impacts on state and society which imagination necessarily entailed.
In contrast, the Romanticism’s perspective concerning imagination was quite positive since, as an absolute mental strength, it seemed virtually indispensable for the Romantic poets. Nevertheless there was agreement on the fact that imagination had a significant position among the abilities of the mind and spirit. This will be further discussed with the example of Macbeth.
Literary theory, which uses the terms ‘imagination’ and ‘fantasy’ almost synonymously, also distinguishes between passive, namely a comprehending (for instance with children and primitive people in the reception of literature), and active, or creative imagination as one of the poet’s ultimate requirements which is only regulated through reason, taste and display possibilities (see Wilpert, p.606, Phantasie).
In this context Shakespeare’s imagination has often been equated with his poetry and his capability of individual characterization. Nevertheless, this equation is not applicable to Macbeth’s imagination, since it is only his imagination that creates images, foreshadowings of future scenarios, visions and even hallucinations in his mind. It is a human’s highest and most dangerous mental power and constitutes a highest development of the self and inner world (see Lüthi (1971), p.146, l.28-31; p.155, l.24-25).
Macbeth can appositely even be understood as a tragedy of imagination since only on the basis of the witches’ predictions and their arbitrary imaginative interpretation through Macbeth, the plot, and therefore his doom, runs its course. Though the play was often, and appositely, labelled as a tragedy of power, ambition or fear2, it primarily constitutes a drama of imagination since that is what stands in the center of the plot and without it there would be no, or at least an entirely different storyline coming about.
Shakespeare uses imagination in Macbeth merely as a welcome means of characterization and detailed introspection of his tragic hero in order to present deeper insights into his thoughts, feelings and actions in detail. In doing so he takes up a pioneering role in his era since, in such an early period, one can only talk of a merely experimental character of imagination.
Shakespeare’s dramas were often praised as an imaginative expression of nature by posterity – especially by Johnson and Dryden – since he did not depict isolated aspects of (human) nature, but captured nature true to itself. Thus his figures carry nothing incidental or partial in themselves; rather, they are “the genuine progeny of common humanity” (see Oberkogler, p.13, ll.15-30). But this stands in another context, which will not be further discussed since it is not part of this paper.

6. The Negative Aspects of Imagination and Human Wishes as per Dr. Samuel Johnson With Regard to Macbeth

Samuel Johnson, the great moralist and universal scholar, takes up a particular significance as a Shakespeare-critic at this point. His views concerning imagination as well as the general desires and wishes of humans, which also play a significant role in Macbeth, shall form a shift between the ‘theory’ of the broadly diversified background information and the ‘practice’ of the analysis of the work as well as the imagination of the protagonist depicted therein.
Johnson’s psychology excludes an individualized concept of humankind and can therefore, in a sense, be seen as a final, last testimony for the preservation of a non-individualized concept of man propagated by the church. Thus, with Johnson, one can talk of an anachronistic way of thinking in this context, since he still opposes the general individual-friendly mindset of his time with his Middle-Age-based conservative idea of man.

“Johnson defined imagination as “Fancy; the power of forming ideal pictures; the power of representing things absent to one’s self or others.” He defined fancy as “Imagination; the power by which the mind forms to itself images and representations of things, persons, or scenes of being.” He defined fantasy as “Fancy; imagination; the power of imagining.”.” (Hagstrum, p.89, ll.7-12).

Hence, according to him the three terms ‘imagination’, ‘fancy’ and ‘fantasy’ are closely linked so that he uses them almost synonymously.
Johnson has a very negative conception of imagination, which is why one should try to avoid it as far as possible. This becomes especially evident in the headline of chapter 44 of his moral-didactic short novel The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759) which is titled “The Dangerous Prevalence of Imagination” (Johnson, p.405). The work, which merely serves as a medium for a consistently bleak and melancholic, but not pessimistic message about humankind and life (Fabian (Vol.2), p.227, l.25-27), thoroughly constitutes, according to Ewald Standop and Edgar Mertner, the nullity of the human search for happiness (Standop, p.367, l.20-21).
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