Professor Michael Petersen
One of the greatest discrepancies between the work of Shakespeare and Samuel Johnson’s criticism of that work concerns the idea of “nature” and its operation in relation to that which is “moral” and “rational.” As Johnson notes, Shakespeare is “the poet of nature,” the writer who, more than other writers, creates “just representations of general nature.” Yet Johnson, in what he calls Shakespeare’s “first defect” (PP 22), must qualify his praise due to Shakespeare’s tendency to sometimes indifferently show both the moral and immoral, and to demonstrate that rational thinking is sometimes used to evil ends.
Typically in Shakespeare’s various plays, the good is rewarded, the bad punished and some kind of order is restored. However, in some tragedies, such as Othello and King Lear, the evil is too profound for order to be naturally and morally restored. It is well known, for example, that Johnson found the deaths of Desdemona and Cordelia to be unendurable, their punishments outside comprehensible moral order. In Macbeth, another tragedy of profound evil, we find a case study of behavior that for Johnson is unnatural but that is simultaneously immoral and rational.
This paper will attempt to show that, within Johnson’s analysis of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, found in his notes to the play, and in other sources, we can see that the function of literature, like any worthwhile endeavor, is to morally instruct. Specifically, we can find evidence of Johnson’s complementary attitudes toward the importance of natural and rational moral behavior, and the need for virtuous and moral social interaction in community. Furthermore, the failure of the former must inevitably lead to the latter: unnatural, immoral actions, even those that are rational, result in alienation from oneself and in isolation and exclusion from society.
Johnson’s views on the disparate topics of morality, nature and rationality in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and Johnson’s regard for the importance of the human community’s social construct have been given some attention. Bertrand Bronson, in his introductions to both Arthur Sherbo’s editions of Johnson on Shakespeare (VII and VIII) and in his and Jean M. O’Mera’s Selections from Johnson on Shakespeare, stresses the importance for Johnson of moral and ethical values in literature, and human nature’s capacity for ratiocination and our need for community. Herbert R. Coursen, Jr., in “In Deepest Consequence: Macbeth,” connects Macbeth’s original fall from a state of grace in Western mythology, showing the connection between Macbeth’s ostracism and those of Lucifer and Adam and the moral questions that follow about community and humanity. In Johnson’s Shakespeare, G. F. Parker uses Johnson’s comments in his notes on Macbeth, specifically the idea “the course of the action necessarily determines the conduct of the agents,” to show the degree of culpability Macbeth deserves as master of his own fate. The article also discusses the intersection of destiny, free will, and the natural and unnatural responses to the action in Macbeth. Finally, in Samuel Johnson on Shakespeare: The Discipline of Criticism, Edward Tomarken, in applying various modern theories to Johnson’s critical responses to Shakespeare’s plays, integrates this same quote, “the course of the action necessarily determines the conduct of the agents,” in his discussion of Aesthetic Empathy in Macbeth. In the process, he examines Johnson’s responses to Macbeth in terms of moral conscience and free will, as well as reason’s relationship to morality. However, not much attention has been given to the conjunction of these ideas, how morality, nature and rationality in Macbeth, and Johnson’s concern for social construct come together in our understanding of Johnson’s uneasiness with Shakespeare’s tragic heroes, especially Macbeth.
In Johnson’s Preface to his edition of Shakespeare, he compliments the universal and timeless quality of the plays. However, he insists “it is always a writer’s duty to make the world better, and justice is a virtue independent of time or place” (PP 22). Because “Johnson’s deepest convictions are moral rather than aesthetic,” Johnson complains that Shakespeare “seems to write without any moral purpose”:
From his writings indeed a system of social duty may be selected, for he that thinks reasonably must think morally; but . . . he makes no just distribution of good or evil, nor is he always careful to shew in the virtuous a disapprobation of the wicked; he carries his persons indifferently through right and wrong, and at the close dismisses them without further care, and leaves their examples to operate by chance.
(PP 22)
For Shakespeare, the “natural” and “rational” apparently include the evil, the wicked, and the wrong. For Johnson, the “natural” and “rational” are confined to the good, the virtuous, and the right. “The end of writing is to instruct” (PP 19), Johnson tells us, and the mind will learn morally if we allow it; to be given immoral or indifferent lessons, Johnson seems to say, is to confuse us, or at least to waste our time because nothing is worth reading unless it has this ability to edify and instruct. In the case of Macbeth, it seems that Johnson comes to understand the instruction to be one given in the negative: “he that thinks rationally must think morally,” yet Macbeth is rational, completely aware of the practical and spiritual repercussions of his actions, and he chooses the immoral. For Johnson, it is this volatile coexistence of the rational and immoral that dooms Macbeth to communal isolation, alienation from his own humanity, and spiritual damnation.
In his various writings, Johnson frequently discusses the need for responsible social interaction and the importance of community in human life. For example, Rasselas says “All skill ought to be exerted for universal good; every man has owed much to others, and ought to repay the kindness that he has received.” In the Rambler #79, Johnson notes, “Whoever commits a fraud is guilty not only of the particular injury to him who he deceives, but of the diminution of that confidence which constitutes not only the ease but the existence of society” (PP). Johnson even puts the service of society over self-involved religious devotion. As Boswell records Johnson in Life of Johnson, “It is our first duty to serve society, and, after we have done that, we may attend wholly to the salvation of our own souls. A youthful passion for abstracted devotion should not be encouraged” (PP).
However, the opposite is true when one objects to immoral behavior. Cooperation and community are not as important as behaving morally. In the Adventurer #131, Johnson first chastises those who willfully flout society’s social requirements: (4th and 5th paragraphs before end of essay)
All violation of established practice implies in its own nature a rejection of the common opinion, a defiance of common censure, and an appeal from general laws to private judgment: he, therefore, who differs from others without apparent advantage, ought not to be angry if his arrogance is punished with ridicule; if those whose example he superciliously overlooks, point him out to derision, and hoot him back again into the common road. (PP)
The only exception is when an individual acts according to what he believes in morally right, even if this defies social rules:
There are occasions on which it is noble to dare to stand alone. To be pious among infidels, to be disinterested in a time of general venality, to lead a life of virtue and reason in the midst of sensualists, is a proof of a mind intent on nobler things than the praise or blame of men, of a soul fixed in the contemplation of the highest good, and superiour to the tyranny of custom and example. (PP)
To be morally independent in the face of immorality is praiseworthy. Macbeth, however, is immorally independent, and through this immorality, he has violated social and religious principles. In light of Johnson’s attitudes, it seems reasonable to conclude that nothing could be worse for Johnson than to act as Macbeth does, wherein he has deliberately cut himself off from humanity.
In examining Johnson’s notes to the play, it is evident that it is especially important to Johnson that we see Macbeth’s immoral actions as deliberate. Not merely a victim of fate or destiny, he decides through his own free will. For example, there has been much discussion about the relationship of the witches to fate. They refer to themselves as “weyward12 sisters”13 (Plays 379; 1.3.33)14 , and Lewis Theobald (in 1733) seems to be the first critic to make the possible connection between “weyward” and “weird”. Johnson himself makes this connection more assertively in his edition. Also, in explaining how Shakespeare used many different popular superstitions regarding witches, he describes these “ingredients” as “gathered from every thing shocking in the natural world; as here, from every thing adjurd in the moral” (Plays 381). However, while Johnson notes that the witches are “intent upon death and mischief,” we see that they have to power to influence, but not compel. They can cut the mariner’s sail into a sieve, but “his bark cannot be lost” (379;1.3.25). Macbeth, too, will be influenced by the witches and their proxy, Lady Macbeth, but he cannot be compelled: Macbeth will “[disdain] fortune” (319; 1.2.17) and make his own choices.
That Johnson believes Macbeth chooses for himself is made clear in the notes. For example, he interprets these lines, “Come Fate into the list, / And champion me to th’ utterance!” (Plays 425; 3.1.73-74), as, “Let Fate, that has fore-doom’d the exaltation of the sons of Banquo, enter the lists against me, with the utmost animosity, in defense of its own decrees, which I will endeavor to invalidate, whatever be the danger.” Parker notes that Johnson’s reading “does what it can to lighten that sense of predestination . . . in his general observation on the play.”15 Parker says that Johnson seems to baulk at “the belittling of the responsibility and dignity of human agency that goes with Shakespeare’s presentation of Macbeth as, essentially, dancing to the witches’ tune.” Johnson applauds both Macbeth’s strength and Shakespeare’s skill when quoting Macbeth’s defense against Lady In accordance with the Folio, Johnson prints “weyward.” Most modern editors, including Macbeth’s attack of his manhood: “I dare do all that may become a man, / Who dares do more, is none” (Plays 400; 1.7.46-47). (Johnson says of these lines: “they ought to bestow immortality on the author, though all his other productions had been lost.”) Parker further notes that Lady Macbeth’s response to this line, however, underscores the true nature of Macbeth’s “black and deep desires”: “What beast was’t then, / That made you break this enterprise to me? / When you durst do it, then you were a man” (Plays 400; 1.7.47–49). The “enterprise” is what Macbeth desires, and his objection about the nature of manhood, while accurate, will not be enough to keep him from moving beyond the moral confines of what a “man” should and should not do.
While Macbeth is not a victim of fate, neither is he completely in charge of his fate. Macbeth makes choices, but Johnson’s comments suggest that the events seem to control him, too. One of the more compelling lines in Johnson’s notes is the following:
This play is deservedly celebrated for the propriety of its fictions, and solemnity, grandeur, and variety of its action; but it has no nice discriminations of character, the events are too great to admit the influence of particular dispositions, and the course of the action necessarily determines the conduct of the agents. (Plays 484)
These lines may be in reference to the influence of the witches and Lady Macbeth, but it is important to note that Macbeth is both a victim of influence and actively in charge of his own decisions. When his wife is emotionally coercing him to proceed with the murder, Macbeth could have had the strength to withstand her pressure. Johnson’s comment, that “the course of the action necessarily determines the conduct of the agents” suggests that Macbeth chooses to proceed because of his desire to be king, despite the consequences.
Macbeth’s awareness of these consequences is another aspect of Johnson’s interest in the character. Coursen has suggested that the language of the opening scenes “[intermingle] the possibilities of good and of evil” as if these were “the terms of Macbeth’s decision”16 (379). His ambition, his “black and deep desire,” is what allows him to act, even as he is aware of good and evil. Coursen further states, “Ironically, as he comes closer to killing Duncan, his awareness of the heinousness of the crime becomes clearer.” I would argue that this awareness intensifies throughout the play, so that as he commits other, less reasonably justifiable crimes, Macbeth remains acutely aware of his actions and their spiritual consequences. After Macbeth learns that he has been named Thane of Cawdor, the “horrid image” (Plays 386; 1.3.138) of murdering Duncan occurs to him, and his heart knocks “against the use of nature” (Plays 386; 1.3.140). “Present fears / Are less than horrible imaginings” (Plays 386; 1.3.140–141), Macbeth realizes, suggesting that the “deed itself will exceed his worst expectations. The tragic protagonist, Johnson implies, realizes that the horror of the criminal deed is beyond imagination and that, as he approaches it, the horror will increase.”17 To say Macbeth is mad by the end of the play, or that he is nothing but a beast, is to obscure this apparent awareness.
Johnson’s Macbeth is also convinced of the immorality of his own actions. In the soliloquy spoken as he proceeds to Duncan’s room to murder him, he is “overwhelmed by his guilt” (Plays 406). Johnson says that this speech gives “a very just and strong picture of a man about to commit a deliberate murder under the strongest conviction of the wickedness of his design.” Tomarken adds, “This conviction almost seems to provide the means, as it were, for the murders. The manner in which Macbeth’s virtue serves him in his evil purpose is a topic of continual interest to Johnson.”
Furthermore, Johnson seems to understand, Macbeth also knows that the grand scheme is bound to fail, even though he continues to hope, with increasing doubt, that the witches’ prophecy will come true: “For Johnson, it is important to understand that Macbeth’s passionate desire for the kingship never blinds him to the self-defeating nature of his own desire.”
Menteith’s observation in Act 5 reinforces the disconnect between what Macbeth desires and what he knows to be right:
Who then shall blame
His pester’d senses to recoil, and start, When all that is within him does condemn
Itself, for being there?
(471; 5.2.22–25)
Johnson’s interpretation of this line demonstrates Johnson’s acknowledgment of the division within Macbeth: “That is, when all the faculties of the mind are employed in self-condemnation” (471). Parker puts this another way:
It is more than just the plan of the play that obliges Shakespeare to ‘make Macbeth yield,’ for with part of himself Macbeth does dare do more than may become a man, even though all the sources of natural feeling within him recoil in horror at such resolution. (196)
Johnson reinforces the idea that Macbeth’s actions are unnatural to himself, as they must be, for they are natural, human responses. Tomarken notes an instructive contrast between the natural response of Lady Macbeth and the unnatural act of Macbeth (163–164). He shows how Johnson’s reproduction of William Warburton’s note to the lines “Had he not resembled / My father as he slept, I had don’t” (Plays 407–408; 2.2.12–
13) indicates Johnson’s belief that Lady Macbeth’s natural and human instincts intervened, preventing her from the unnatural act of murder. I would expand this observation to include this crucial difference between the husband and wife: Macbeth knows that he is behaving immorally and he continues to rationally recognize it throughout the play; for Johnson, this gives him a sort of perverse courage. Lady Macbeth, in contrast, attempts to irrationally ignore her moral responsibility to humanity. Although she does not commit the murder, she is complicit. Her unrealistic comments, such as, “A little water clears us of this deed” (Plays 410; 2.2.70) and “Infirm of purpose! . . . The sleeping and dead / are as but pictures” (Plays 409; 2.2.55–57) indicate an unrealistic view of the crime, something that Macbeth never has. Her inability to confront the reality of their actions results in her insanity and suicide. She is never courageous; she is instead reduced to a pitiable figure. Johnson’s attitude in this regard is echoed in his endnote to the play: “The passions are directed to their true end. Lady Macbeth is merely detested; and though the courage of Macbeth preserves some esteem, yet every reader rejoices at his fall” (Plays 484). Here we can clearly see how, for Johnson, the rational necessarily leads us to the moral, as well as the contrasting effects of irrational, unnatural, and immoral behavior: the volatile coexistence of the rational and immoral are manifest in the awful yet sane Macbeth, who must necessarily self-destruct; the coexistence of the irrational (the inability to face the reality of the murder) and of the moral are manifest in detestable, pitiable and insane Lady Macbeth.
Finally, we can see how Macbeth’s immoral behavior will ultimately alienate him from his true human nature, and how it isolates him from the community of humanity. There is no question, for Johnson or any reader, that Macbeth must be killed by the end of the play. From the moment he kills Duncan, the reader, and perhaps Macbeth himself, can sense this inevitability. His inhuman actions have irrevocably isolated him from common humanity. As Parker notes,
Macbeth . . . transgresses the bounds of action which can be referred to the general feeling of mankind . . . his resolve, as he himself best knows and feels, is an awful, fearful thing, a thing to be wondered at. Such resolution puts nature on the rack, and cannot be sustained without the extinction of Macbeth’s humanity. (Johnson’s Shakespeare 196–197)
Yet, ironically, it is Macbeth’s humanity, his capacity for self-awareness, for morality and reason, that allows us to empathize with him, despite his horrible actions. It is a humanity that Johnson understands, although such connections troubled him: “Macbeth is able to remain human and thereby to merit the esteem of the audience, in spite of his appalling crimes, because, according to Johnson, his conscience is ‘fair’ while nonetheless serving as a means of sustaining him in evil.” For Johnson, “he that thinks reasonably must think morally,” and Macbeth’s admixture of rationality and immorality must taint his humanity, ultimately requiring his death and damnation.
In his introduction to the Yale volume, Johnson on Shakespeare, Bronson says that for Johnson, “The highest instruction . . . does not stop short with showing what men are; . . . it shows in addition what men ought to be. By the expressed or implied judgments upon human character and conduct in the action of a play, the poet teaches morality.” For Johnson, Shakespeare teaches morality in showing us the tragedy of Macbeth: it is, to use Helen Gardner’s term, the “tragedy of exclusion”; it is being disconnected from his community and his own self through his immoral actions. And this is something Johnson could neither condone nor endure.
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