Sunday, August 5, 2012

How is the belief in the supernatural (such as the witches in Macbeth) different today from that of Elizabethan times?

In the Elizabethan Age, fear of the unknown led to a
belief that an unrelated object, action, or circumstance could influence the outcome of
events.  This fear of the unknown, then, led to many superstitions, many of which arose
as a fear of witchcraft.  In fact, during the Elizabethan Age, there were nearly 300
witchcraft trials as witches were thought to be responsible for such things as the
Bubonic Plague, unexplained fires, bad harvests, inexplicable deaths of animals and
children.  Thus, the fear of supernatural forces was subsumed in the lives of
Elizabethans whereas for people of the modern age the phantasmorphic bears little
relevance in their lives.


For the Elizabethans, the
manifestations of elements of the supernatural in plays such as
Macbeth and Richard III are not merely
dramatic devices, but genuine phenomena that lend objective reality to the plays. 
Macbeth's and Richard's characters are comprehensible as men who were profoundly
influenced by evil.  So, by investing his historical drams with supernatural elements,
Shakespeare appealed to his audiences' moral conceptions.  This contrasts greatly to an
audience's perception today whenever a ghost or supernatural forces are part of a
drama. 

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