A Castle as “Hell” and “Heaven” Spaces and Their ‘Equivocal’ Meanings in Shakespeare’s Macbeth 1 Werner Wolf In memoriam Hugo Keiper One of the most graphic ways in which the world-modelling function of literary texts comes to the fore is the use of spaces, owing to the various meanings which are attributed to them in the process of ‘semanticization’. Although Jurij Lotman’s theory concerning literary space, which is arguably one of most illuminating discussions in the field, was developed mainly with reference to fiction, drama and the theatre are no less important in this respect, including, of course, Shakespeare’s plays. In the past few years, Macbeth in particular has come under scrutiny in this context, albeit space in this tragedy has mostly been analysed in an unsystematic and partial way (with special emphasis on the castles). The present essay, while drawing on previous research, purports to complement it by systematizing the spaces and their forms of semanticization in Macbeth, extending the spaces under discussion so that imagery and ‘transcendental’ spaces (heaven and hell) are also included; above all, it 1 My special thanks go to my late colleague and friend Hugo Keiper, whose paper on “‘The pit of Acheron’: Zur Dramaturgie der Hölle in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth” (‘[…] On the Dramaturgy of Hell […]’) as part of an interdisciplinary workshop on the use of borders in classical and modern theatre (Graz, June 8, 2017) was the inspiration for the present essay and whose pertinent and well-informed comments helped me considerably in developing and sharpening my ideas. I therefore dedicate this paper to him; he left us and the world of early modern literature studies all too suddenly and much too soon without being able to complete a planned essay on Macbeth and hell. I am also grateful to Jutta Klobasek-Ladler and Cecilia Servatius for their editorial help and thought-provoking remarks. AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Band 44 (2019) · Heft 2 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen DOI 10.2357/ AAA-2019-0005 Werner Wolf 86 highlights the remarkably ambiguous, ‘equivocal’ and unstable use of spaces in this play as indicative of a profoundly ambivalent worldview. 1. Introduction: The Use of Space as Part of the Modelling Function of Literary Texts Literary texts not only create ‘worlds’, as Nelson Goodman’s influential study has shown (1978, cf. also Nünning/ Nünning/ Neumann, eds. 2016), but they also form world models by means of these worlds and other devices. Jurij Lotman, in The Structure of the Artistic Text (1970/ 1977), already insisted on literature’s function to use its linguistic material (the primary modelling system) to create “secondary modelling system[s]” (ibid.: 21). Like all models, literary models use complexity reduction in order to make us see something in the (real) world; yet they themselves are nonetheless more or less complex systems involving several layers of signification. On the highest level of abstraction of a given literary work are the implied worldview and the implied norms, which can respond to cultural contexts in various ways (e.g. by addressing issues excluded by the dominant systems of meaning of a given epoch, cf. Iser 1975). On a lower level of abstraction, one of the most graphic ways in which the world-modelling function of literary texts comes to the fore is the use of semanticized spaces. Long before the ‘spatial turn’ in the humanities (cf. Frank 2009) as part of the many current ‘turns’ (cf. Bachmann-Medick 2006/ 2009), it was again Lotman who developed arguably one of the most illuminating theories when it comes to the use of space in literature. According to him, the relationship between characters and space - an important general means by which literary texts create world models - allows us to differentiate between eventful and eventless texts (cf. 1970/ 1977: 231-239). This world-modelling use of space and the differentiation between text types is applicable wherever literature represents worlds in which characters are allocated to individual, e.g., morally loaded sub-spaces (the realm of evil vs. the realm of goodness). These subspaces are separated by an in principle impermeable border, the crossing of which is forbidden, and which is frequently manifested physically (such as a door or a wall). In eventful texts, the border between adjunct spaces is transgressed by a ‘hero-character’, a move which constitutes an event; in eventless texts, the border remains inviolate. However, in this description of literary uses of space, Lotman mostly concentrated on fiction (and, to some extent, poetry). Of course, drama and the theatre, including Shakespeare’s plays, are no less important in this context; this not only with reference to the contribution of space to plot and event structure but also - in the present context predominantly - as a contribution to the world-modelling function of literary texts. Indeed, drama (no less than poetry) is a neglected field in the current ‘spatial turn’, which con- Spaces and Their ‘Equivocal’ Meanings in Shakespeare’s Macbeth 87 tinues to focus on fiction 2 . The present essay aims to contribute to filling parts of the lacunae left by current research in this respect. It is partial to the extent that it focuses on space and its meaning as a product of dramatic text in the recipients’ minds rather than as a concrete theatrical space as viewed by spectators of the Elizabethan/ Jacobean period 3 . Reading as one general way of receiving dramatic art and the particular focus on English early modern theatre - and Shakespeare’s Macbeth in particular - may justify this restriction: although typical drama, is, of course, meant to create multi-modally performed worlds on stage, drama text (like the text of fiction and poetry) also elicits ‘worlds in the mind’ (which are regularly the most important basis for producers). The relatively bare stage of Shakespeare’s public theatres gives the verbal dimension of ‘space building’ (including ‘word scenery’) and thus this ‘theatre in the mind’ a certain predominance over the concrete visual dimension. In the past few years, Macbeth in particular has come under scrutiny with reference to space, although interpretations have largely remained unsystematic and partial (with special emphasis on the story-level locales, above all the castles 4 or the opposition Scotland vs. England 5 ). In the present essay, while drawing on previous research and being aware of the methodological difficulties of ascertaining settings in Shakespeare’s plays, I purport to complement existing investigations by systematizing the spaces in Macbeth as well as their forms of semanticization, extending the spaces under discussion to include imagery and ‘transcendental’ spaces (heaven and hell). In addition, I will attempt to explain how the use of space in this play is remarkable in the sense that it is permeated by an extraordinary tendency to give spaces ambiguous, ‘equivocal’ and unstable meanings (cf. de Sousa 2010, Kallay 2013/ 2017 and Markidou 2016). 2 Cf., to mention but a few publications, Bieger/ Maruo-Schröder 2016 (and the special issue of ZAA to which this essay is an introduction), Ryan 2009, Hallett/ Neumann, eds. 2009, and Tally, ed. 2017. 3 Cf., to name but a few authors among the many studies in this field, Beckerman 1962, Dessen 1984, Kiernan 1999, Weimann 2002, Ichikawa 2013, and Fitzpatrick 2016. 4 Cf. Markidou 2016, who discusses space and the castles in particular as “venues that challenge set values, orders, and codes” (63), but refrains from linking his perhaps altogether too deconstructive reading (in which even the partial restitution of order at the end is questioned) to cultural-historical contexts; cf. also Kallay 2013/ 2017 (an essay which links the representation of space to the use of time in a world where distinctions are blurred); de Sousa (2010), who focusses on the precarious boundaries between castles and surrounding open spaces, and Wiles (1993), who concentrates on the relationship between spaces and the representation of evil. None of these authors attempts a systematic inventory of spaces including ‘transcendental’ ones (hell and heaven in particular) and the devices used for giving them meaning. 5 Cf. the introduction to the new, third (2015) Arden Macbeth edition by Clark and Mason (2015: 28-35, 121-124), which does not otherwise consider space. Werner Wolf 88 This tendency is, among other examples, manifest in the fact that the perhaps most salient location of the play next to the heath and the castle at Dunsinane, namely Macbeth’s castle at Inverness (where the play’s central crime, regicide, is committed), is qualified with noteworthy ambivalence: it is called, on the one hand, a “mansionry” smelling of “heaven’s breath” (1.6.5 6 ) by Banquo, confirming with this positive evaluation King Duncan’s praise of the castle as having a “pleasant seat” (1.6.1); on the other hand, one of its gates also appears to be “Hell Gate” (2.3.2) in the drunk porter’s ravings, and thus (in one reading, focussing on the castle rather than on the world beyond the gate) the building itself becomes hell. Even if the evocation of hell may seem to be nearer the goal as a designation of a world full of “equivocation” (5.5.42, cf. also 2.3.8) and contrasts between deceptive appearance and unstable being, the fact that one and the same castle is likened to both hell and heaven is significant for a profound ambiguity informing the tragedy as a whole. As will be seen, spaces and their ambiguity are indicators of a particular worldview. 2. Typology of Space Construction and Modes of Spatial Semanticization in Macbeth As Alan C. Dessen points out, place is a problematic phenomenon in Shakespeare’s plays and generally in early modern drama; since the focus of early modern drama was on characters and action rather than on space, which often remained indeterminate on a stage that could be “neutral as to place until indicated otherwise” (1984: 86). As we will see, there are in fact a number of such unclear localizations in Macbeth. However, if one disregards the question of how settings were or were not physically realized or realizable on stage and concentrates on the aforementioned ‘theatre of the mind’, the play contains sufficient indications for the recipients’ imagination to create a rich spatial structure. Its exploration, as undertaken in this essay, is not merely a consequence of a modern “obsession with place” (ibid. 185) in the wake of the spatial turn, but a legitimate enterprise, which illuminates an important facet of the play’s implied worldview. A closer look at the spaces in Macbeth reveals that they are constructed in ways so various that their typological description must go beyond existing differentiations. Notably, neither Beckerman’s distinction - and simultaneous doubt about its applicability - between ‘localized’, ‘generally localized’ (i.e. referring to an ascertainable microor at least macro- 6 Quotations from Macbeth here and in the following are taken from the new (2015) Arden Edition, Third Series; all other Shakespearean quotations are from the Norton Shakespeare unless otherwise marked. Spaces and Their ‘Equivocal’ Meanings in Shakespeare’s Macbeth 89 setting) and ‘unlocalized’ spaces (where this is not possible) (1962: 64- 67) 7 nor Weimann’s (2002) differentiation between locus and platea (i.e. “the imaginary space in dramatic representations” vs. “the material site of these representations” [ibid.: 204]) suffice to fully describe the use of space in Macbeth. In what follows, while trying to integrate established categories as much as possible, I propose a typology which pays special attention to the modes of semanticization according to representational levels. Inverness, for example, is part of the play’s manifold clearly ‘localized’ settings on the story-level (in Weimann’s terminology a locus) and, as such, an example of the most important spatial category, namely (1) the concrete, ‘innerworldly’ spaces (theoretically) represented on stage (and, for the reader, to be imagined as part of the story-world). This category (story-level settings, ‘ss-spaces’) is complemented by (2) concrete ‘innerworldly’ story-level spaces only referred to (‘sr-spaces’), as in the play’s last word, the mention of Scone (5.9.41), where Malcolm is to be crowned. There are also (3) transcendental spaces such as heaven and hell, or “the pit of Acheron” (3.5.15) where Hecate commands the witches to meet, which are also only referred to but which, at least for Shakespeare’s contemporaries, may be said to also be part of the topological structure of the represented storyworld (‘st-spaces’). As opposed to these three types of story-level space there are the various forms of spatial references on, and as part of, the discourse level. These come in two subcategories: (4) heteroreferential imagery referring to ‘innerworldly’ or transcendental spaces, and spatial metareferences, which in turn may appear as (5) mere theatrical imagery or (6) actual (direct or indirect, implicit or explicit) references to the theatrical space. As for heteroreferential imagery (notably metaphors) on the discourse level 8 (‘dh-spaces’), this category can be exemplified with the Porter’s reflection “if a man were porter of Hell Gate” (2.3.2.), as a merely imaginary, hypothetical evocation of a transcendental space. As opposed to all space types enumerated so far, which in the performance practice of Shakespeare’s public theatres are exclusively imagined spaces even for the audience (except, e.g., when the trapdoor ‘hell’ or upper spaces in the gallery become in addition partial realizations of imaginary ‘ss-spaces’ 9 ), the only fully concrete and perceptible space in a contemporary public 7 In Macbeth, a number of settings are in fact not clearly localized, see the list of (assumed) settings below, in section 4, and Fitzpatrick 1995: 215, 218-230. 8 Since drama is a form of narrative, as recent transmedial and transgeneric narratology has reminded us (cf., e.g. Fludernik 2008), it makes sense to apply the narratological categories ‘story vs. discourse’, although they originally were developed with fiction in mind. 9 In non-historical, notably illusionist productions of Shakespearean plays, the setting may, of course, be at least partially perceptible, if concretized by wings and other visual devices. Werner Wolf 90 performance is the theatre building itself with its stage, pit, and galleries. In a theatrical discourse, mentions of this space are metareferences. In Macbeth, the few explicit references to this kind of space, as we will see, are not direct metadramatic (potentially illusion-breaking) references to the given stage and theatre but rather indirect, metaphorical evocations of matters generally theatrical. As discursive metareferences in the indirect mode (‘dmi-spaces’), they thus still appeal, at least to a large extent, to the audience’s imagination. This is not true of the last form to be introduced here: direct (explicit or implicit) references, e.g., to the “the two-hours’ traffic of our stage”, that is, to the real stage at hand, which the audience - although, of course, not the reader of the drama text - can really perceive. An example of this type is the first prologue-like Chorus of Romeo and Juliet (v. 12) (i.e. discursive metareferences in the direct mode. ‘dmd-spaces’, in Weimann’s terminology: platea) 10 . Space construction in Macbeth story-level spaces discourse-level spaces setting ‘innerworldy’ spaces transcendental spaces hetero-referential metareferential referred to referred to imagery spaces (‘innerwordly’ & transcendental) (‘ss-spaces’) (‘sr-spaces’) (‘st-spaces’) (‘dh-spaces’) (1) (2) (3) (4) indirect direct metareference metareference (imagery) to performance location (‘dmi spaces’) (‘dmd spaces’) (5) (6) Figure 1: Typology of space construction in Macbeth based on representational levels (story vs. discourse) It should be noted that the categories just discussed allow for multiple classifications of individual phenomena and thus permit a ‘stacking’ of space constructs to which Weimann (2002), within his reduced typology, has also drawn attention. In addition, they form only one possible way of systematising spaces in Macbeth (see Figure 1). It is even debatable whether this categorization should be the only one in the present context 10 For a possibility of identifying an implicit direct metareference to the theatrical situation in Macbeth, see below, the comments on the porter scene. Spaces and Their ‘Equivocal’ Meanings in Shakespeare’s Macbeth 91 and if it ought to occupy top priority in a potential plurality of classifications. As adumbrated above, the problem with the aforementioned matrix is that - at least for the audience of performances that try to approach the condition of Shakespeare’s wingless stage - the theoretical distinction between these categories is not very obvious in practice, since almost all of them (including the metadramatic imagery) rely on language only (this is, of course, also the case for readers of the drama script 11 ). This is, why even ‘ss-spaces’ can only be said to be ‘theoretically’ represented on stage, since Shakespeare’s wingless theatre could hardly visualize individual settings in detail and therefore had to rely mostly on word scenery. It is therefore advisable, in the present context, to use the aforementioned classification based on representational levels only as a subclassification for another, more obvious classification according to more directly accessible, structural criteria which yield - on the surface - clear binary oppositions and are thus particularly useful for the description of the spatial structure underlying the tragedy as well as for the question of spatial meaning-attribution. In Macbeth, the following oppositions appear to be important: a) political ‘horizontal’ space: Scotland vs. England (mostly ‘ssspaces’); b) a second type of ‘horizontal space’ (also ‘ss-spaces’) in combination with the opposition nature vs. culture, which yields closed spaces (castles and their subspaces) vs. open spaces (the heath and battle fields); c) finally, a vertical opposition between above vs. below (which comprises various natural, concrete spaces, but also includes supernatural, transcendental spaces; both occurring as ‘st-’ or ‘dh-spaces’). This structure will inform the sequence of sections in the following. Yet before we can engage in a detailed discussion of these spaces, some reflections on modes of attributing meaning to spaces are requisite. The most obvious mode is explicit (verbal) semanticization, as in King Duncan’s praising the “pleasant seat” (1.6.1) of Inverness castle. This is clearly a positive qualification, which may be said, in this case, to harmonize with a first form of implicit semanticization, connotations derived from world knowledge and cultural history which characterize castles not only as defensive military architecture 12 but also (and in scene 1.6 predominantly) as spaces of security and hospitality. A second implicit mode of attributing meaning to spaces is the imagery as used by the Porter, when he reflects on a hypothetical man being the porter of “Hell Gate” (2.3.2), a discursive image which clearly reflects on the concrete location: Macbeth’s castle, in which King Duncan has just been murdered. A third 11 For rare exceptions with reference to the characterization of spaces see below, the section on implicit non-verbal modes of semanticization. 12 There is, however, also a negative connotation of castles as oppressive, dominating structures in a power-related semiosphere; this, of course, (except for prisoners in castle dungeons) mainly refers to the inhabitants of the space surrounding the castles. Werner Wolf 92 implicit mode can also be seen to operate in the qualification of this castle, namely the dramatic irony which the audience cannot help but feel when King Duncan praises a locale in which we have just seen a murder plot forged by (mostly) evil characters. This association of spaces with semanticized characters is part of Lotman’s aforementioned theory of spatial semantics in literature and therefore, together with the link between spaces and action elements (a fourth implicit mode, which becomes relevant after the murder), merits special attention. While the modes presented so far are all based on (literary) language (and are therefore important for literature as verbal art and for Shakespeare’s theatre in particular), when it comes to drama as a text intended for theatrical performance, non-verbal modes of semanticization should at least be mentioned for the sake of completeness of the typology, even though they are of reduced importance in Macbeth owing to the aforementioned theatrical performance conventions of the day. Yet the link of the heath with thunder and lightning (1.1, stage directions) is both a visual and acoustic qualification which in contemporary theatre was usually associated with “supernatural events” (Jones 2013: 39). Thanks to the creation of this soundscape and the visual effect heralding the appearance of witches (including, possibly, their strange costumes and, as mentioned by Banquo, a disturbing blurring of gender markers in the combination of general female appearance and male beards [cf. 1.3.45- 46]) the heath acquires an implicit, decidedly uncanny, negative qualification (in addition to the negative cultural connotations of wild nature in pre-Romantic times 13 ). Modes of semanticizing space in Macbeth verbal non-verbal (implicit) explicit implicit cultural imagery link to link to connocations attributed semanticized semanticized characters action elements Figure 2: Typology of modes of attributing meaning to space in drama 13 For the evaluation of (green) nature as “defective” if not “integrated into […] human civilization” cf. Knights 1956: 210-211; for “the dangerous natural world” outside civilization in Macbeth see also Rasmussen/ DeJong 2016 online. Spaces and Their ‘Equivocal’ Meanings in Shakespeare’s Macbeth 93 A last theoretical remark must be made: inherently, all of the meaning attributions adduced in the above typology (figure 2) - like other forms of semanticization (in the theatre, this applies above all to the characterization of characters 14 ) - are open to the problem of unreliability. This is a theoretical potential, which Shakespeare makes ample use of in Macbeth - with specific world-modelling functions or consequences, as we shall presently see. 3. Political Spaces and their Meaning Attribution: Scotland vs. England Most of the play’s micro-locations are in Scotland, which therefore shall be discussed first. Scotland as a macro-location appears from the outset as a political space. This is in harmony with the tragedy conventions of Shakespeare’s day, in which the central characters (aristocratic or at least upper-class heroes) tend to deal, among other things, with political matters more readily than is the case, e.g., in comedies such as The Taming of the Shrew or in comedies of humour such as Ben Jonson’s Volpone. As a political space, Scotland is characterized in Macbeth (mostly implicitly through semanticized characters and action elements) by a pervading instability, an ‘uncivilized’ aspect corroborated by the wild connotations given to this country through the frequent heath settings (in an implicit non-verbal mode), which will be discussed in the next section. However, in the beginning of the play, Scotland appears as the realm of, as Macduff says, the “most sainted king” (4.3.109) Duncan, and this king himself, in the few scenes in which we see him, corroborates this positive evaluation by his justice (1.2 and 1.4) and his jovial behaviour towards his hosts (1.6). Yet, from the outset, this country is also beset by internal and external foes: on the one hand rebels (Macdonald and the old Thane of Cawdor) and, on the other, soldiers from “the Western Isles”, including Irish “kerns” (1.2.12-13) and the Norwegian King Sweno, who has invaded Scotland at Fife (1.2.49). Scotland thus appears in a state of international and civil war (the latter being one of the traumas of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras). After these political and military threats to the security and integrity of the territory are overcome, Scotland still does not find peace and prosperity but instead falls prey to yet another rebel, a regicide who turns into a cruel tyrant, the “[d]evilish Macbeth” (4.3.117), as Malcolm explicitly characterizes him. Owing to Macbeth, Scotland becomes a ‘fallen’ space under the sway of evil and terror and is thus opposed to - as is made clear in the mode of explicit verbal semanticization - “gracious England” (4.3.43). In this 14 For the various forms of characterising dramatic characters see Pfister 1977: ch. 5.4.2.7. Werner Wolf 94 country, a “holy king” reigns (3.6.30), namely the “pious Edward” (the Confessor, 3.6.27) who is put into stark contrast with devilish Macbeth. As a reliable index of Edward’s “sanctity” (“Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand […]”) (144), this monarch, as a Doctor (arguably of the medical profession) emphasises in 4.3.140-145 15 , is able to heal the [King’s] “Evil” (146) in “strangely-visited people, / All swol’n and ulcerous” (4.3.146-151) by “solicit[ing] heaven” (149). England, in this opposition with unstable Scotland, appears in a highly positive light as an almost utopian country of stability and security, where Christian holiness reigns 16 and where exiles from Scotland (Macduff and Malcolm) find both asylum and military help. And it is from this positive, helpful England that the invasions of Scotland and the battle against evil Macbeth are launched. This invasion goes along with a typical eventful (sensu Lotman) crossing of a political border and, at the end, brings about the restitution of dynastic order by helping Malcolm, the designated heir to King Duncan, to the throne. The simple opposition, at least during Macbeth’s tyranny, of evil Scotland vs. good England is, however, somewhat complicated in the course of the play. As for England, it is a space where Malcolm still does not feel entirely secure and therefore, when meeting Macduff, characterizes himself as a wanton and greedy ruler-to-be, who lacks all “king-becoming graces” (4.3.91). While it eventually becomes clear that this is roleplaying in order to test Macduff’s loyalty (role-playing which, however, leaves a strange after-taste with its evocation of the possibility of yet another evil ruler over “Scotland […] nation miserable” [Macduff, 4.3.100, 103]), it has been remarked that Macduff, the other important Scottish refugee in England and Malcolm’s interlocutor in the scene under discussion, is a less clearly positive character. True, he is the one who eventually defeats and kills Macbeth and thus appears to be on the side of the forces of good, but beforehand it is known that he has abandoned his wife and children to Macbeth’s murderous intents (and is confronted with the moral questionability of this opportunistic [? ] act by Malcolm’s reproach: “Why in that rawness left you wife and child […] Without leavetaking? ” 4.3.26,28). In addition, while tested by Malcolm, he reveals himself a remarkably “Macchiavellian” (Markidou 2016: 63) excuser of the future king’s (alleged) vices. If space, then, is semanticized in the opposition Scotland vs. England under discussion here, by the characters and acts linked with it, it is remarkable that good Edward never appears 15 The explicit semanticization of space through this character appears to be trustworthy, all the more so as he is an episodic character whose main function is to inform the audience about England and King Edward; his brief appearance does not give the audience any occasion to doubt his veracity. 16 For England being “contrasted [to Scotland] in terms of a country strengthened and civilized by Christianity” see Clark/ Mason 2015: 32. Spaces and Their ‘Equivocal’ Meanings in Shakespeare’s Macbeth 95 on stage (we only hear about his deeds 17 ), that England appears to harbour ambivalent characters such as Macduff, while one must not forget that Scotland is also the realm of good King Duncan 18 and thus not entirely negative. If England is therefore not entirely positive, Scotland, even while a ‘fallen’ “space that’s in the tyrant’s grasp” (4.3.36), cannot wholeheartedly be classified as the ‘devil’s space’ either (something which would have been problematic in a play staged during the reign of James I, formerly James VI of Scotland). Rather, Scotland also appears (in reliable, explicit verbal semanticization) as an object of profound pity. Ross, a Thane of Scotland, for instance, sighs “Alas, poor country” and bemoans that Scotland cannot “[be] called our mother, but our grave” (4.3.164, 166). As a country in which “new sorrows / Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds / As if it felt with Scotland” (Macduff, 4.3. 5-7) it is also apt to elicit the audience’s pity. This is arguably still true of today’s audiences and may have been true all the more so for the original audience of the first performances, given the dynastic affiliations of the reigning monarch James I. And it is a country which eventually, at least so it seems at the play’s ending, is restored to political order - to the relief of the audience. All in all, the political map in Macbeth shows noteworthy ambivalences in the semanticization of individual territories. This applies to some extent to the representation of England, but first and foremost to how Scotland appears to the audience, even if one does not subscribe to the hypothesis that this country will remain the territory of rebellion beyond the confines of the tragedy - with Macduff as the next rebel and Malcolm as the next victim (cf. Markidou 2016: 62-64, drawing on a remark by Ross 1997: 120 19 and intensifying implications from Berry 1989). These ambivalences come even more clearly to the fore when one considers Scotland not only from the perspective of a political territory that is opposed to England but as the space which is most important for the worldmodelling function of the play and comprises, as stated at the beginning of this section, most of the micro-locations of the play represented or referred to on the story-level. These micro-locations will be the concern of the following sections. 17 This dramaturgical device may, to some extent, be classified as an implicit, non verbal way of somewhat relativizing the overwhelmingly positive connotations of England. 18 Even Macbeth himself acknowledges Duncan’s merits in his soliloquy: “[…] this Duncan/ Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been/ So clear in his great office, that his virtues/ Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against/ The deep damnation of his taking-off” (1.7.16-20). 19 “If the play closes by raising the possibility that Macduff may become Malcolm’s Macbeth […]”; however, this possibility is not endorsed by Ross (1997), who rather considers the tragedy’s conclusion a restitution of order. Werner Wolf 96 4. Cultural vs. Natural Locations: Castles/ Closed Spaces and Natural Settings/ Open Spaces Among the story-level micro-spaces, the first few scenes introduce a clear opposition: open country as a natural space (e. g. 1.1 and 1.3.) vs. closed spaces, that is, in conformity with the warlike character of the tragedy: castles and their sub-spaces (mostly ‘ss-spaces’) 20 . From a culturalhistorical point of view, this is the age-old opposition of natural vs. cultural locations which, before Romanticism, tends to be evaluated in a traditional way that attributes tendentially positive connotations to cultural locations vs. (except for the locus amoenus) tendentially negative ones to natural locations, in particular when it comes to ‘wild’, uncultivated, and uncivilized nature. The first act with its sequence of open spaces (1.1, 1.2.,1.3) versus castles (Forres and Inverness) confirms the importance of this opposition. More in detail, spaces of nature appear throughout the tragedy predominantly as either heath (1.1, 1.3, 4.1) or as (unspecified) battlefields outside castles (as, e.g., mentioned in the bleeding captain’s report in 1.2, an ‘sr-space’), while cultural spaces as represented story-locations (‘ssspaces’) appear exclusively as castles (except for the uncertain location of the scene in England 4.3). As for the former, the heath(s) does (do) not get clear geographical specifications 21 , and the same is true of most battlefields (the last being, however, specified due to the vicinity of Macbeth’s castle at Dunsinane). As for the latter, they are King Duncan’s castle at Forres (cf. 1.3.39), then the same location as now Macbeth’s royal seat (3.1-4, 3.6), moreover Macbeth’s ancestral seat at Inverness (1.5., 1.6 arguably on the battlements, 1.7, 2.1 and 2.2 with 2.3. at the gate [‘Porter-scene’], 2.4 in or near the castle), Macduff’s “mansion” (4.2.7) in 4.2., and, finally, Dunsinane (5.1, 5.3, 5.5. 5.9? ). The last word in the play refers to “Scone” (5.9.41, an ‘sr-space’), which is a (fortified) city and thus not actually a castle but functionally analogous to one. The connotations of castles as military fortifications and aristocratic habitations are clear enough: they are spaces of dominance concerning the people living outside and, as already mentioned, with reference to those inside, they are places of (in principle) safe habitation and combine private functions (e.g. sleeping chambers, explicitly linked with the idea of safety by Malcolm 5.4.2) with public ones (representational rooms, banqueting halls, military rooms, etc.). 20 Cf. the “doubleness of closed and open types of space in Shakespeare’s theatre” (Weimann 2002: 209). 21 Owing to Banquo’s question, “How far is’t called to Forres? ” (1.3.39), one only knows that the location (namely the heath which was designated as the meeting place between Macbeth and the witches in 1.1.6) must be somewhere on Banquo’s and Macbeth’s way to Forres. Spaces and Their ‘Equivocal’ Meanings in Shakespeare’s Macbeth 97 An inventory of all story-level locations of Macbeth arguably results in the following list (with some uncertainties owing to lack of stage directions and word scenery, so that some locales can only be inferred from the respective scenes): Act 1 1. Open space: heath (like 1.3), linked to the witches (the stage direction “thunder and lightning” and the witches’ remark on their future meeting, which will arguably be similar to their present one, “In thunder, lightning, or in rain” [1.1.2], point to a space, where such weather can directly be experienced, namely an open space) 2. (? ) Open space: battle camp (cf. the New Variorum Edition [NVE 14], which, however also notes “The Palace at Foris”) 3. Open space: heath (cf. 1.1.6), linked to witches (as 1.1) 4. (? ) Closed space: Forres (cf. 1.3.39, Banquo’s enquiry concerning the distance to Forres; cf. NVE 58: “Foris. A Room in the Palace”, but also “A Camp near Forres”) 5. Closed space: Inverness (where Lady Macbeth receives her husband’s letter and where then Macbeth himself arrives) 6. Open space, if “Before the castle” is correct (1972 Arden Shakespeare, p. 33, cf. also NVE 86: “outside Macbeth’s castle”), or (semi-)closed space/ related to: on the battlements, or near a window, of Inverness (where one can assess the “pleasant seat” (1.6.1) and see the birds haunting the castle 7. Closed space: Inverness (cf. 1.4.42) Act 2 1. Closed space: Inverness (NVE 113: “Court within the Castle”) 2. Closed space: Inverness 3. Closed space: Inverness, “south entry” (cf. 2.2.67): ‘Porter scene’ Werner Wolf 98 4. (? ) Closed space in or near Inverness (NVE 167: “Outside of Macbeth’s Castle”) 22 Act 3 1. Closed space: Forres (Macbeth’s “court” 3.2.1) 2. Closed space: Forres 3. Open space: outside Forres (cf. the mention of the sky “The west yet glimmers [..]” 3.3.5 and “from here to the palace gate” 3.3.13) 23 4. Closed space: Forres, banquet hall 5. (? ) Open space: heath (the Folio stage direction “thunder” (p. 750) is unclear; it may be heard from inside a witches’ hovel, but also, and this seems more in line with the previous association of the witches with the outside world of wild ‘nature’, again on “the heath” (1972 Arden Shakespeare, p. 99) 6. (? ) Closed space: Forres (NVE 236 ”Foris. A Room in the Palace”) 24 Act 4 1. (? ) Closed space: witches’ hovel or, according to the NVE 243, a “cavern”, where a “cauldron” boils 4.1.4 25 2. Closed space: Macduff’s “mansion” (4.2.7) 3. (? ) particularly unclear classification: open space in England (near a royal castle? ); a “desolate shade” is mentioned at the beginning of the scene (4.3.1), and further down Malcolm asks whether the King “[c]omes […] forth” (4.3.140) and hears that “a crew of wretched souls” waits for him (141), which is more 22 Beckerman (1962: 65) considers this an ‘unlocalized’ scene serving a “choral function”. 23 Cf. Fitzpatrick 1995: 224: “In the woods” and NVE 200: “A Park: Gate leading to the Palace”. 24 As with 2.4., Beckerman (1962: 65) considers 3.6. an ‘unlocalized’ scene serving a “choral function”. 25 The 1972 Arden edition opts for a “house” located in “Forres” (p. 105), but the text does not clearly endorse this. Spaces and Their ‘Equivocal’ Meanings in Shakespeare’s Macbeth 99 probable for an open space in nature but could also take place in a city or a large castle hall 26 Act 5 1. Closed space: Dunsinane Castle 2. Open space: English camp near Dunsinane 3. Closed space: Dunsinane 4. Open space: English camp near Dunsinane 5. Closed space: Dunsinane 6. Open space: English camp near Dunsinane (NVE: 338 “Before Macbeth’s Castle”) 7. Open space: battle field near Dunsinane 8. Open space: battle field near Dunsinane 9. (En)Closed space: (courtyard at) Dunsinane (? ) 27 As can be seen in this list, some uncertainties as to the exact location of ss-spaces remain. Yet, when it comes to the semanticization of the opposition ‘open vs. closed’, to the extent as it can be ascertained, the wild open spaces (traditionally carrying mostly negative cultural connotations) appear at first to confirm the opposition between bad vs. good spaces. This is certainly the case right from the start in 1.1, where the locale, with its acoustic accompaniment (thunder) and its link with the “weïrd sisters” (1.3.32), is decidedly not only an uncivilized but also an uncanny open space (a link between bad weather and evil supernatural powers which has become conventional and extends to modern day horror films). The same negative connotation applies to all further open spaces in which the witches appear: spaces where the disorder produced by the weïrd sisters in the rational world (by their use of paradoxes), in the moral world (through their deceptive prophetic temptations) and the gender order (by their aforementioned blurring of femininity and masculinity in their outer appearance) harmonizes with the “blasted heath” (explicit semanticization in the form of word scenery by Macbeth, 1.3.77). The heath thus appears as an uncivilized, wild, and disordered stretch of uncultivated land. In this and in its exclusive link with Scotland, the connotation of this country as less civilized is confirmed, a connotation already apparent 26 Fitzpatrick (1995: 227) opts for a closed space “King is within”; the NVE (276) records divided interpretations of the setting: “A Wood in England” and “The King of England’s Palace”. 27 Cf. Fitzpatrick (1995: 230): “Macbeth’s castle”. NVE does not differentiate between 5.8. and 5.9., and the First Folio even combines 5.7. to 5.9. into one scene. Werner Wolf 100 in the representation of the political situation with its various rebellions, as discussed in the previous section 28 . However, the battlefields in Macbeth, the second big subclass of open spaces, somewhat reduce the one-sided negativity apparent in the heathlocations since, in spite of their link with bloodshed and death, they eventually become the stage of the victory of legitimate rulers. The first battlefield we are confronted with (1.2) is only a reported space (an ‘srspace’, referred to in the bloody captain’s account of the battle in which Macbeth excelled), but it is vividly described as the location where the rebels are defeated and where thus order is restored to the kingdom (a similar restoration takes place in the final battle spaces in act 5). Yet, at least in one battlefield the aforementioned link with bloodshed is not suppressed but foregrounded, and we thus reencounter the ambivalence which - according to the hypothesis underlying the present essay - is typical of most, if not all, of the spaces in this tragedy: while the outcome of the military event reported in 1.2 renders the battlefield a space where action in the service of royal legitimacy takes place and therefore, in contemporary mentality, where justice is done, the description of the battle also makes this space acquire negative connotations. It is a gruesome place of butchery, notably owing to Macbeth’s ruthless fighting, which seems to transform it into “another Golgotha” (1.2.40). The images used by the bleeding captain are also remarkable in that they again encapsulate noteworthy ambivalences. This applies, first, to the link between the space, the battle, and notoriously fickle “Fortune”, who acts “like a rebel’s whore”, (1.2.14-15), is then “[d]isdain[ed]” by Macbeth (17) and turns to his favour. An even more clearly ambivalent spatial image (a ‘dhspace’, semanticized implicitly through cultural connotations) is the reference to Golgatha for, in a Christian context, it is both the place where the innocent ‘Lamb of God’ is immolated and hence a space of utter injustice, from which cosmic turmoil starts (an earthquake [Mt 27.51], an eclipse of the sun [Lk 23.44]), but is at the same time the location where the salvation of the world through Jesus Christ is accomplished. Last, but not least, the open spaces, which seem to be entirely negative when one only focusses on the witch/ heath-scenes but lose some of their clear negativity when it comes to the battlefields under the aspect of the victory of the good characters, may even be said to occasionally receive some additional positive connotations which somewhat counterbalance the negativity of the heath. This would be the case if the scene in England (4.3) is to be imagined as set in an open space as well - for then the positive connotations derived from the link between territory (England) and an eminently good character ruling over it (holy King Edward) 28 Cf. Clark/ Mason 2015: 30, although the authors also emphasise that, in Macbeth, Shakespeare refrains from “any stereotyped anti-Scottish sentiments” (ibid.: 28). Spaces and Their ‘Equivocal’ Meanings in Shakespeare’s Macbeth 101 would prevail (although, as said above, there is some ambivalence here, too). As the nature and classification of the England scene is not clear in the text, this positive addition to the connotations of open spaces in Macbeth must remain a mere possibility. Be that as it may, what can be confirmed with some assurance concerning the semanticization of open spaces in Macbeth is the impression of ambivalence (with varying degrees, but generally tending towards the negative ‘pole’). This is also true of further open spaces only referred to (“sr-spaces’), as can be seen in the mention of the uncanny happenings in the night of Duncan’s death, in which it is reported that “chimneys” were “blown down” and the “obscure bird/ Clamoured the livelong night” (2.3. 55, 59-60) 29 . Ambivalence also informs the closed spaces, even if there are some cases of doubt as to the classification closed vs. open. Their traditional positivity (in opposition to open spaces and wild nature in particular) is arguably already impaired by the (unspecified) setting of 4.1 if it is some kind of house (the cauldron mentioned in verse 3 may be indicative of such a locale 30 ), since here the potentially closed space would be associated with the evil witches. The content of 1.4 allows one to identify the setting as a closed space with perhaps more certainty 31 . Here, in King Duncan’s royal castle at Forres, the traditional connotations of a castle as a space of safety and order (as opposed to the wild, chaotic nature of the heath) seem to be confirmed by what happens: Malcolm reports to his royal father that justice has been done (the execution of the rebel, the old Thane of Cawdor), the king then confers the title to Macbeth (thus confirming one of the witches’ prophecies), declares his eldest son Malcolm heir to his “estate” and gives him the title of “Prince of Cumberland” (1.4.37,39), thus indicating him as the next king. Yet the connotation of security - in particular for the owner of the castle - is marred by the dramaturgy, which gives Macbeth a tell-tale aside: in this, he thematises his “black and deep desires”, invoking at the same time the “[s]tars” to “hide” their “fires”, so that no “light” may illuminate these desires (1.4.50-51). The castle’s safety is thus revealed to be an at least partial 29 Cf. also the old man’s report in 2.4 about “unnatural” (2.4.10) happenings: a falcon killed by an owl and Duncan’s horses breaking out of their stables and eating each other. 30 4.1. may indeed be imagined as set in a (perhaps dilapidated) hovel (like 3.5), or in a cavern, both ‘porous’ locales with a partial openness to wild nature and thus extensions of uncivilized outer spaces (an additional spatial ambiguity), but th e cauldron could also boil on some sort of camp fire in open nature. Most editions, including the Norton Critical Edition (cf. p. 51), the Norton Shakespeare (cf. p. 2596) and the 2015 third-series Arden edition (cf. p. 234), do not give a spatial concretization but restrict setting indications to the Folio secondary text “Thunder” (p. 750). 31 The 1972 Arden edition indicates “[Forres. A room in the palace]” (p. 22); Fitzpatrick (1995: 220), however, locates the scene at “Duncan’s camp, as in I.ii”. Werner Wolf 102 illusion, while in reality it is already beset (and indeed inhabited) by the forces of evil 32 . The deceptive security of Forres for King Duncan is a momentous exposition of a typically Shakespearean theme running through the entire tragedy, namely the opposition between appearance and being, here in the negative version of “deceitful appearance” (Knights: 1947/ 1968: 191), in which positive appearances are shown to be as deceptive as the witches’ promises and prophecies. This theme creates an additional, even uncanny, ambivalence in the play and is foreshadowed in the ambivalence of the first battlefield mentioned in 1.2, in which Macbeth achieves the victory for good King Duncan: what seems - in the immediate outcome - to be a positive space of victory of the ‘good characters’ paves the way for the ascent of evil Macbeth and, what is more, is tinged by the blood (visible in the reporting captain’s wounds) and the colour red, which becomes a leitmotif of the play and here is indicative of Macbeth’s cruelty and ruthlessness. A further instance of the deceptiveness of positive spatial connotations is already adumbrated in the title of the present essay and was mentioned in the introduction as a particularly typical case of spatial ambivalence, but requires further discussion. It occurs in 1.6., the short scene (arguably set either outside Macbeth’s castle at or near Inverness, where the approaching King Duncan is ceremoniously met by his hostess, Lady Macbeth, or on its battlements or at some window, but definitely at the beginning of the night 33 in which he will be murdered). To unsuspecting Duncan, the castle “hath a pleasant seat”, and “the air” he breathes, “[n]imbly and sweetly recommends itself / Unto our gentle senses” (1.6.1-3). In addition, Banquo comments on auspicious birds in a way that gives Macbeth’s castle an almost religious aura: […] This guest of summer, The temple-haunting martlet, does approve, By his loved mansionry, that the heaven’s breath Smells wooingly here […] The air is delicate. (1.6.3-10) Due to the preceding scene, in which Macbeth, incited (and excited) by his wife, started to plan the murder of the king, all of this is tinged by tragic dramatic irony: the audience knows how erroneous the king’s feeling of secure hospitality in relation to Inverness castle and Banquo’s likening of the building to something heavenly are, and we will learn that even one of its innermost and most private rooms, namely the chamber in 32 If one opts for the camp-version as the setting of 1.4, the same ambivalence would apply to an open space. 33 See the stage directions “Hautboys and Torches” before 1.6. Spaces and Their ‘Equivocal’ Meanings in Shakespeare’s Macbeth 103 which the king sleeps, cannot be protected by guards. Rather, it is open to the penetration of regicidal Macbeth with his murderous dagger, thus violating the norms which Macbeth himself thematises in a soliloquy: […] He’s [i.e. Duncan] here in double trust: First, as I am his kinsman, and his subject, […] Then, as his host, Who should against his murderer shut the door, Not bear the knife myself. (1.7, 12-16) The double borders of the castle gate and the door of the royal chamber which, according to Lotman, should in principle be inviolate, are in fact transgressed in a highly eventful way 34 . The heinous nature of the regicide committed in this chamber belies the castle’s initially positive appearance as a “pleasant seat” and gives it the aspect of a hell-castle, as thematised by the drunk but nevertheless remarkably clear-sighted porter shortly afterwards (2.3.2) 35 . The other castles in the play are hardly less ambiguous. Forres, which becomes Macbeth’s royal seat after King Duncan’s murder, also turns out to be of treacherous security - now for Macbeth himself, since its walls are unable to keep out frightening intrusions from the supernatural sphere (Banquo’s ghost in 3.4). Nor is Macduff’s mansion (4.2) a safe place for its inhabitants, for the murderers in Macbeth’s service have no difficulties with intruding and killing Macduff’s wife and children. The same lack of security offered by a castle for its (principal) inhabitants is true of Dunsinane. It is not a trustworthy guard against unwanted intrusions for either Lady Macbeth or her husband: it cannot prevent the 34 On the discursive level of the imagery, this eventful transgression of a spatial border is continued by metaphors used by Macduff and Macbeth himself: as for Macduff, in his report of the king’s death he likens the king’s body to a desecrated building: “Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope/ The Lord’s anointed temple, and stole thence/ The life o’th’ building.” (2.3.67-69); as for Macbeth, he also refers to Duncan’s body as if it was a special space, in which the alleged murderers’ daggers made a “wasteful entrance” and thus created a “breach in nature” (2.3.114 - 115). Generally, doors are mentioned repeatedly in Macbeth in a quasi Lotmanian context, cf. also Lady Macbeth’s remark, referring to Duncan’s chamber “The doors are open” (2.2.5), or the knockings to which the porter reluctantly responds in 2.3 and which is eerily echoed by the “knocking at the gate” which sleepwalking Lady Macbeth mentions in the last speech we hear of her before her (likely) suicide (5.1.66). 35 In principle, the Porter’s gate could also be conceived of as opening to the outside world as ‘hell’ (as Weimann 2002 implies in a metadramatic reading of the scene; see below, section 6). While this could appear at first sight as a possible, if perhaps too bleak characterization of the story space and the implied worldview as a whole, both the immediate context (the preceding regicide) and the cultural connotation drawing on the hell-castle of medieval mystery plays render the association of the castle itself with hell more likely. Werner Wolf 104 emergence of haunting, sleep-walking thoughts in Lady Macbeth, nor does it offer efficient protection in spite of its military strength as perceived by Macbeth (“Our castle’s strength / Will laugh a siege to scorn” [5.5.2-3]). This lack of protection, for Macbeth, is mainly psychological, for when he learns about his wife’s death and, shortly afterwards, that the English are approaching under the guise of camouflage, which produces the effect that “Great Birnam Wood” moving up “to high Dunsinane Hill” (4.1.93), thus fulfilling one of the witches’ prophecies in an unanticipated way, he realizes “There is nor flying hence, nor tarrying here” (5.5.47) and becomes “aweary of the sun” (5.5.48). He leaves the fortress, not “inexplicably”, nor as a ”form of exorcism”, as has been claimed (Ross 1997: 118), but arguably because he has lost all hope in the future 36 . For a time, after he has left the castle, the fortress is as emptied of its owner as his soul is emptied of all hope 37 . The outcome of his leaving the castle and meeting the enemy in the field is his death, and the result of the English attack is the fall of the castle (which is “gently rendered” 5.7.25) and the entry of Malcolm and his men (cf. 5.7.25). Dunsinane is thus a last instance of the opposition between seeming positivity and real negativity (from Macbeth’s position 38 ) attached to the closed spaces in particular. The ambivalence permeating the play thus obtains a particularly ‘tragic’ tinge by a noteworthy tendency towards negativity: open spaces are tendentially negative in the first place (in spite of some indications to the contrary) and closed spaces, while seemingly protective, are constantly shown to be vulnerable to transgressions with negative consequences for those dwelling inside their walls. 5. ‘Vertical’ Spaces: Above vs. Below as Innerworldly and Transcendental Spaces Besides political spaces and open vs. closed spaces, which could be aligned on a horizontal axis, the vertical axis also plays an important role in Macbeth. It is the axis along which ‘earthly’ or ‘innerworldly’ spaces (level ground/ above/ below) can be arranged but also an axis which 36 An alternative or parallel motivation may be his feeling of security triggered by the belief in the witches’ prophecy that he will not be harmed by anyone “of woman born” (4.1.79), but his dawning awareness of “th’equivocation of the fiend” (5.5.42) which is apparent in the prophecy referring to Birnam Wood (cf. 4.1.89 - 93) makes this less likely. 37 For the metaphorical relationship between castle and soul (or psychic and moral state, as in The Castle of Perseverance) see Ross 1997: 188. 38 An additional ambivalence is created in the evaluation of Malcolm’s entering Dunsinane castle: while this is certainly negative from Macbeth’s point of view, the direction of audience sympathies and the entire plot structure tinges this border crossing with the positivity of the restitution of order (cf. also Ross 1997: 118, 128-129). Spaces and Their ‘Equivocal’ Meanings in Shakespeare’s Macbeth 105 opens the represented story-level space up to a transcendental sphere 39 comprising heaven and hell (and, as a third place, if one adopts a Catholic perspective, purgatory as the space where Banquo’s ghost comes from; however this space will not be discussed further, as - unlike in Hamlet 40 - there are no references to it in the play). The vertical axis has a timehallowed tradition of semanticization (perhaps linked with human body- ‘geography’ and a conception of man as homo erectus in whom reason and the head get a better evaluation than the ‘nether regions’ of the emotions and ‘animal’ urges). This semanticization has left countless traces in language with ‘low’ and ‘base’ etc. being negative vs. ‘high’, ‘lofty’ etc. being positive. The alleged location and evaluation of transcendental spaces follows suit with heaven being (also etymologically 41 ) linked with the positive uppermost sphere as opposed to hell, the ‘infernal’ space, a word in which again the etymology 42 , but also Elizabethan and Jacobean theatrical conventions (in designating the trapdoor set in the stage through which, e.g., ghosts appear, as ‘hell’) point to a lower sphere. That this traditional meaning attribution to the poles of the vertical axis is also present in Macbeth is unsurprising. The “powers above“ (4.3.241) or “God above” (4.3.120) are, for instance, referred to, e.g., by good Malcolm in a clearly positive context; and conversely the lower regions are repeatedly linked with negativity (even in a transcendental sense), when Macbeth, for instance, is conscious of the “deep damnation” of his planned regicide (1.7.20), or when Hecate summons the witches to “the pit of Acheron” (3.5.15) 43 ; possibly also when (or if) the witches are made to enter the stage from below via the aforementioned trapdoor. Outside transcendental spheres, the same semanticization can be tracked down, e.g., in the political sphere, when Malcolm bemoans that “our 39 As opposed to Egan’s (206: 82-91) attempt to reduce what he considers the seeming supernatural in Macbeth to actually natural causes, the existence of such a supernatural, transcendental sphere is never questioned in the play, not even by Macbeth himself, who speaks of “both the worlds” which suffer, when “the frame of things [becomes] disjoint” (3.2.17) and mentions heaven as frequently as positive characters. 40 The ghost explains himself to Hamlet in ways clearly referring to purgatory, although the term itself appears only as a verb (“purged”): “I am thy father’s spirit, / Doomed for a certain term to walk the night, / And for the day confined to fast in fires / Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature / Are burnt and purged away.” (Hamlet 1.5.9-13); for an in-depth discussion of this topic see Greenblatt 2001; cf. also, for the role ghosts play in Protestant England, Thomas 1971: 701 - 724. 41 According to Kluge 1963: 308 ‘heaven’, like the German Himmel, is derived from a Germanic root “*hemina”, ‘ceiling, vault’. 42 Cf. Latin infernus, inferus: ‘situated in a low position’, inferni/ inferna: the underworld. 43 A curious metaphor, which combines classical connotations (Acheron as one of the rivers of Hades) with the more modern, Christian idea of hell as a pit. Werner Wolf 106 country sinks beneath the yoke” of Macbeth and sees comfort in the fact that there are “hands uplifted in my right” (4.3.39, 42). What may come as surprise, however, is the fact that when taking a closer look at the evaluation of ‘above’ vs. ‘below’, the ambivalences which we have encountered elsewhere in the use of space reoccur, even with respect to an upper region as a transcendental sphere. For this region, in Macbeth, is not only the seat of God and heaven in a Christian sense and hence the location of the ‘highest’ goodness, it can also be affected by man’s “unnatural” (2.4.10) ill-doings as part of the Great Chain of Being when Ross tries to explain the prolongation of darkness in the night of Kind Duncan’s murder to an Old Man: “Thou seest the heavens […] troubled with man’s act” (2.4.5). The goodness of the upper regions and what they stand for in Christian folk-belief is questioned at least once in a covert reference to the theodicy problem, when Macduff, who has just heard that his wife and all of his children were murdered at Macbeth’s instigation, exclaims: “Did heaven look on, / And would not take their part? ” (4.3.226-227). What is even more disturbing is the circumstance that the transcendental, supernatural upper regions are not reserved to the Christian God and his ministers alone, but are also shown to be inhabited by evil forces (following an old ambivalence of celestial bodies with the sun as day-connoting and the moon as night-connoting element): Hecate, the “mistress” of the witches’ “charms” and “contriver of all harms” (3.5.6-7) is, after all, also a moon goddess (her relationship to the moon is explicitly mentioned in 3.5.23). And as for natural upper regions, the witches are repeatedly linked to air, where they themselves say they “[h]over” (1.1.10 44 ), into which they vanish in 1.3.80 and about which Macbeth exclaims, when they fail to give him the explanations he desires: “Infected be the air whereon they ride” (4.1.137) 45 . As far as the lower regions are concerned, they are certainly negative, where they are associated with hell. However, surprisingly, this association is not frequently made, although hell itself is repeatedly mentioned 46 ; rare examples of this spatial link are the aforementioned “pit of Acheron” and Malcolm’s feigned self-incrimination (4.3.97-98) “[…] had I power, I should/ Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell” (and thus into something beneath him). Yet ambivalence reoccurs once again, when it comes to (imaginary) lower spaces in general: while “high-placed Macbeth[’s]” (4.1.97) castles at Inverness (which is linked to hell in the ravings of the porter) and Dunsinane (the stage of the “fiend-like queen[‘s]” [5.9.35] 44 I am here opting for the, in my view, more obvious reading of “hover” as a verb, rather than, as mentioned as an alternative by Blake 2002: 11-12, as a noun. 45 Cf. also Hecate herself, who does not only visit “the pit of Acheron” but who also announces, in 3.5.: “I am for th’air” (v. 15, 20). 46 E.g. in 1.5.51, 2.1.64, 2.3.2, 2.3.16, 5.1.36. Spaces and Their ‘Equivocal’ Meanings in Shakespeare’s Macbeth 107 likely suicide) are to be imagined situated on a hill (and thus combine height with negativity), Scotland’s redemption comes from below, from the English forces, who move up the hill (which creates an affiliation between positivity and lower regions). The earth itself, the actual space of the action, is - in the contemporary worldview - located in between heaven and hell and thus is, in principle, open to influences from both sides. In Macbeth, it appears as a treacherous place, in which ambivalences, more often than not, incline towards the negative pole and, at any rate, are frequently implicated in the opposition ‘appearance vs. being’. The earth is, for instance, addressed by Lady Macbeth as “sure and firm-set” in her wish that it may not “[h]ear” her murderous “steps” (2.1.56-57), yet appears to her husband to have “bubbles” and to form an uncannily unstable surface, which seems to produce monstrous beings such as the witches (“The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, / And these are of them” [1.3.79-80], an indication that the witches in fact rise through the trapdoor). Later, after the regicide, the seemingly “sure and firm-set” (2.1.56) earth turns out to “shake” (2.3.61) in an earthquake, and, as repeatedly mentioned, Macbeth’s castle is likened to hell by the porter (implying that Macbeth - but also the other persons in the castle - are already in a place of damnation). As the play shows, there are no secure spaces (at least as long as Macbeth lives), and this tendential negativity of earthly matters is also mirrored in the frequent evocations of ‘falls’, unhappy to disastrous downward movements (mostly in the play’s hetero-referential imagery, that is, in ‘dh-spaces’). An early example is Macbeth’s almost prophetic reflection on his motivations: “Vaulting ambition, which o’er-leaps itself, / And falls on th’other” (1.7.27-28 47 ), and his later wilful evocation of chaos by referring to sundry falls or downward movements when conjuring the witches to answer his questions in 4.1: […] answer me; […] Though bladed corn be lodged and trees blown down, Though castles topple on their warders’ heads, Though palaces and pyramids do slope Their heads to their foundations, though the treasure Of Nature’s germen tumble altogether […]. (4.1.50, 54-58, my emphasis) 47 Cf. also, shortly before, Macbeth’s comment on Malcolm being named Prince of Cumberland: “that is a step / On which I must fall down, or else o’er leap, / For in my way it lies” (1.4.48-50); ironically, he will do both, fall down and overleap, only in an inverse sequence. For some further thematisations of ‘falls’, cf. 2.3.55 (“chimneys were blown down”), Scotland as “downfall birthdom” (4.3.4), a reference to the fall of the angels (4.3.22), the sinking of Scotland (4.3.39); Macduff’s reflection on “tyranny” as the reason for the “fall of many kings” (4.3.67, 69), and Macbeth’s awareness that his “life/ Is fallen into the sere” (5.3.22-23). Werner Wolf 108 All in all, the “earthly world” appears throughout the play as a fallen world in a state of confusion, which Macduff’s wife, shortly before the arrival of her and her children’s murderers, describes as being a place “where to do harm / Is often laudable, to do good sometime / Accounted dangerous folly” (4.2.77-79). The result is a general feeling of insecurity, as if walking on shifting quicksand, as is implied in Macbeth’s image “here, upon this bank and shoal of time” (1.7.6). The emblem of this insecurity are the witches with their treacherous lures and temptations; these evil, ambiguous beings defy binary categorizations not only in their outer appearance with reference to gender (or sex) but also with regard to space: by “look[ing] not like th’inhabitants o’th’earth, / And yet [being] on’t” (1.3.41-42). It is remarkable to what extent they predominate, when it comes to earthly intrusions of beings associated with supernatural (or preternatural) 48 spheres. The witches transgress the border between the natural and the supernatural world four times at length (in 1.1., 1.3, 3.5 and 4.1 49 ) and are represented - and perceived by several characters - as clearly liminal figures. They are strange beings who arguably rise from ‘hell’ like “bubbles”, are “on” the earth (1.3.42), but can dissolve in air. By transgressing the spatial boundaries between the nether world, the earth, and the upper world, they destabilize the ontological border between the natural and the supernatural just as they defy the human perception of time, which is limited by the border between present and future, through their prophetic faculties 50 . As opposed to the witches as ministers of temptation and evil, supernatural intrusions, which may - with some liberty - be subsumed under the rubric ‘warning in the service of goodness’, are less conspicuous, appear only twice, and are given a curiously subjective quality. There is, first, the dagger before the regicide. Its very meaning is ambivalent: it may be a warning, but Lady Macbeth later refers to it as a tempting, “airdrawn dagger which you said / Led you to Duncan” (3.4.59-60). In addition, its ontology is doubtful, for Macbeth himself is not sure whether it is a genuinely supernatural apparition or rather “a dagger of the mind” (2.1.38). And then there is Banquo’s ghost in 3.4., which only Macbeth appears to see while Lady Macbeth explicitly compares it to the “airdrawn dagger” and disqualifies it as an effect of “folly” (3.4.71). In a world which thus appears to be much more open to the “instruments of darkness” (1.3.126) than to good influences, it is small wonder that appearances deceive and ambivalences tend towards the negative. 48 In the following, the differentiation between ‘supernatural’ and ‘preternatural’ will not be made, as it is immaterial to the present argument. 49 I am bracketing off the question of the authenticity of the possibly interpolated scenes (3.5. and parts of 4.1., cf. Greenblatt 1997: 2560). 50 In contrast to this liminality Hecate appears to unambiguously belong to the supernatural sphere. Spaces and Their ‘Equivocal’ Meanings in Shakespeare’s Macbeth 109 6. The Theatrical Space The only real spaces which the audience of Macbeth - or of any other theatrical production - perceives is the theatre and the stage in particular. Similar to many of Shakespeare’s other plays, Macbeth not only creates and evaluates fictional spaces as part of heteroreferential worldmaking but also refers to the theatrical space, directly or indirectly, and thus opens up a metareferential dimension. Interestingly, the few metadramatic allusions to, or mentions of, these spaces and their connotations together with what one may assume to be an implicit evaluation of Shakespeare’s ‘workplace’ amount to the last, but not least, realization of the theme of ambivalence which permeates the fictional spaces in this play. There are two explicit references to the theatre in the form of metaphors (the theatre thus appears as a ‘dmi’ space), both with extremely negative connotations, at least at first sight. In addition, drawing on Weimann (2002), one may argue that Inverness castle, in 2.3., also acquires an implicitly metareferential quality, owing to the “anachronisms” (Weimann 2002: 210 51 ) in the Porter scene. According to Weimann, the two space types already discernible with reference to this castle (as a setting, a ‘ss-space’, and, through the porter’s imagery, also metaphorically as ‘hell’, a ‘dh-space’) would be complemented by a third dimension: an implicit direct metareference to the theatre in which the audience is located and in which the tiring house doors “open[…] towards the audience” (210) so that the stage becomes a place “waiting to engulf the sins of Jacobean London” (212) 52 . If one accepts this as a possibility, this could, however, hardly mean that - even in imagination - the stage here becomes a genuine place of punishment for the audience (Weimann is not explicit on the functions of what he perceives as metareference to the actual theatre space or platea) but rather one in which punishment is represented - an apt connotation for Macbeth, and one which adds a positive tinge of salubrious warning to the negativity of the hellish implication, thus creating ambivalence even in this detail. But let us come back to the aforementioned less questionable explicit metareferences to the theatre: the first is Ross’s equation between the earth and a “bloody stage”. It occurs after King Duncan’s murder in a 51 I.e. allusions to contemporary occurrences, e.g., in the mention of the “equivocator that could swear in both the scales against either scale” (2.3.8-9), referring to the “Gunpowder plotter” (Weimann 2002: 21). 52 Weimann sees in the doubling of heteroreferential setting and metareference to the theatre/ audience space a simultaneous “engagement between two types of poetics - one inspired by […] Renaissance […] poetics of verisimilitude”, the other” as a “memor[y] of the platea” of medieval drama (2002: 212, 214). Werner Wolf 110 comment on the “sore night”, which an old man says “trifle[s] his “former knowings” (2.4.3-4): Ha, good father, Thou seest the heavens, as troubled with man’s act, Threatens his bloody stage. (2.4. 4-6) The second reference is part of Macbeth’s ‘tomorrow-soliloquy’, which is triggered by his just having been told that “The Queen […] is dead” and contains, in its first part, not only the arguably cynical remark “She should have died hereafter” but also a devastatingly negative meditation on a hopeless future in which an eternal string of tomorrows are seen to lead only to “dusty death” (5.5.16, 22). The second, metadramatic part, continues in the same vein: Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury Signifying nothing. (5.5.23-27) While in the former speech, given to Ross, the world-stage is still implicated in a greater system of meaning in which there is a heaven and a Great Chain of Being, the latter example empties all meaning from the (altered) Baroque world-stage-metaphor and amounts to an almost nihilistic representation of both the world and the theatre. The theatre is here seen in a one-sided negative light as bad theatre and reduced to the acting space of a “poor player”. On this stage, theatrical discourse is mere babbling “full of sound and fury”, the player’s role a mere “walking shadow” of fictionality, the actor a pitiful “player”, who performs for a short time and then is “heard no more” and arguably forgotten. The same is implied about life as short, full of pointless commotion and angercreating suffering, ending in death, all of which “signif[ies] nothing”. The denial of meaning apparent here on the content (or story) level is enhanced and acquires an uncanny experiential quality on the formal (or discourse) level both by the alliterations (as an iconic illustration of the allegedly empty sound quality of theatrical discourse) and the “iconicity of absence” (cf. Wolf 2005) created in the last two missing feet of the catalectic blank verse (5.5.27). Yet another facet of theatrical negativity could be derived from an interpretation by Kallay (2013/ 2017: online), who sees a link between the space of the witches (arguably a circle) and the charms and illusions performed by them there, and the (public) theatre of Shakespeare’s day (a “wooden O” Henry V, prol. 13). If that were so, and if the other metadramatic references were interpreted at face value, all of this would indeed result in a very poor evaluation of the Spaces and Their ‘Equivocal’ Meanings in Shakespeare’s Macbeth 111 theatre at large (including the dramatic illusion produced by it): the theatre would appear as the deceptive devil’s work, as emblem of nihilism or of man’s murderous instincts. It is, however, unlikely that Shakespeare would cast such a negative light on his own art and workplace. The focus on bad theatre contained in Macbeth’s afore-quoted soliloquy implies the possibility of good theatre (as a successful actor of Macbeth’s role, in this very denigration of theatre, would palpably make clear in ironic opposition to the text), and the meaningless tales performed on what Macbeth considers “the” stage do not rule out good stories devised by different authors and performed by expert players on other stages 53 . Moreover, while witches’ charms and the role play performed by Macbeth (who plays the shocked host after Duncan’s murder), can indeed deceive and are shown to do so, there is also (relatively) ‘good’ role play in Macbeth: Malcolm’s assuming the role of a depraved future king is, dramaturgically speaking, after all a means of bringing truth to light, namely Macduff’s loyalty 54 . This use of roleplay is similar to the way the play within the play in Hamlet is performed with an eye to testing the truth about the murder of Hamlet’s father and his uncle’s guilt. While, in Hamlet, there is a residue of doubt as to whether this function of the play within the play is really achieved (the king, after all, could rise for various reasons), in Macbeth, Malcolm’s role play achieves its end without doubt. And it may be no coincidence that the last speech in the play contains a potentially metadramatic verb, when Malcolm announces that he will “perform” 55 “[w]hat’s more to do” at Scone (5.9.39, 30). The content of this ‘performance’ is no less than part of the restitution of order in Scotland (such as “calling home our exiled friends abroad” [5.9.32]), and the result is that henceforth private closed spaces will again be spaces of safety, as announced before the battle by Malcolm: “I hope the days are near at hand / That chambers will be safe” (5.4.1-2). As it appears, in spite of the negativity which the theatrical space may contain in the fictional world represented on stage, it is not necessarily altogether a negative space, let alone a space of evil magic when we access the highest level of meaning, the implied (aesthetic) norms. From this perspective, the negative evaluations of the theatrical space by Ross and Macbeth appear to be relativized through the characters’ subjectivity and concomitant distortions owing to the respective 53 My special thanks to lay-actress Cecilia Servatius for having insisted on this. 54 This positivity may be overshadowed by what has been said above, in section 3, about the readability of Malcolm’s problematic self-characterization as possibly foreshadowing a future with him as another evil ruler over Scotland, but, for the time being, the positive dramaturgical function of his role-playing may be assumed to be dominant. 55 This is strangely misread by Kallay (2013/ 2017, online) as Malcolm’s intention “to gain control over the theatre”; more accurately, “perform” likens the performative quality of royal decisions to the performativity of theatrical representations. Werner Wolf 112 speech situation: in the former case, the situation (the regicide just discovered) justifies drastic metaphors, in the latter case, the nihilism uttered by Macbeth may be seen as part of the punishment of his sins: losing all confidence in the meaning of life is a sign of his (self-)damnation. And as for the equation ‘stage equals witches’ circle’, this is a mere possibility, which is not supported by any explicit metadramatic utterances in the play, nor is it anywhere implied or shown that all characters are in the grip of the witches’ power. So, while the theatrical space, as we have seen, takes part in the ambivalent evaluations of space in Macbeth, the ambivalence here seems to incline towards a view of the theatre as a space of, albeit unstable, signification, rather than of the lack thereof (“signifying nothing”). Whether this view of the theatre as a location of meaning production is positive, depends on the kind of meaning attributable to the play, in particular to the meaning the world represented appears to have and the nature of the worldview implied in it. 7. The ‘Equivocal’ Destabilization of Spatial Meaningattribution and its Modelling Function: The World as a “Bloody Stage” between Heaven and Hell And “there’s the rub” (Hamlet 3.1.67). Macbeth, perhaps even more so than Shakespeare’s other notoriously ambivalent or even polyvalent plays 56 , presents major difficulties for anyone trying to decide whether the world represented here is only temporarily ‘out of joint’ (owing to an evil tyrant who yields to diabolic temptations, judges himself through his nihilistic despair (in a spiritual variation of his wife’s self-condemning sleepnessness and possible suicide) and meets his well-deserved punishment in the fight with Macduff, after which the rightful king and order are restored to Scotland), or whether Scotland (with its descent into tyranny and atrocious crimes) is to be understood as a model of a world of disorder in which only a meaningless, absurd, and nightmarish ‘great mechanism’ (Kott 1965/ 1970: 92, 105) prevails. Indeed, there are indications for both views: on the one hand, the play ends with the restitution of political order, on the other hand, the indications which critics have seen for a possible continuation of troubles in Scotland (a historical reality, corroborated, according to Clark/ Mason 2015: 34, by Holinshed’s Chronicles 57 , although whether it is permissible to thus go beyond the confines of a represented fictional world is debatable). What is certain is the fact that Macbeth focusses on the dire, negative aspects of existence. This may partly be due to generic conventions of 56 Cf. Jan Kott 1965/ 1970: 96: “Shakespeare ist niemals eindeutig” (‘Shakespeare is never unambiguous’). 57 Cf. also Kallay (2013/ 2017), as discussed above. Spaces and Their ‘Equivocal’ Meanings in Shakespeare’s Macbeth 113 tragedy, but the depiction of the main character as a “tragic villain” (Booth: 1951/ 1968: 180) and criminal (an intrepid and brave one, who admittedly dies “like a man” [5.9.9] but is still no less a criminal) characteristically exceeds the balanced representation of other Shakespearean’ tragic heroes, such as King Lear or Othello, and makes the balance tip decidedly to the negative side. Quasi as an extension of the negativity of the tragic hero, the world in which he is shown to live is one in which evil (natural and supernatural) forces beset reality and elicit “breach[es] in nature” (2.3.114) and “unnatural […] deed[s]” (2.4.10-11). It is a world where female witches have beards and a woman asks dark “spirits” to “unsex” her, thus blurring gender differences (1.5.40-41), in which appearances and prophecies turn out to be deceptive 58 , where “equivocator[s]” (2.3.8) such as the witches are influential and where “illusion” rhymes with “confusion” in Hecate’s plan to lead Macbeth astray (3.5.28- 29) 59 . In short, it is a fallen world, deplorably open to the influence of hell and its ministers. Macbeth is, moreover, in Greenblatt’s memorable (but perhaps too radical) formulation, a “tragedy of […] category confusions” (1997: 2560). As research in the wake of deconstruction in particular has emphasised 60 , it represents a world in which, at least to some extent, seemingly clear borders between oppositions threaten to become blurred: the border between the natural and the supernatural, between appearance and being, between the sexes (most notably in the witches, but to some extent also in Lady Macbeth), between good and evil (if one thinks of the partly problematic characterization of Macduff and Malcolm in the testing scene as well as of what Schülting [2009: 557] has called the circularity of the play, in which the final scenes echo the opening scenes 61 ), and last, but not least, between spaces with positive and spaces 58 Paradoxes and double meanings belong to this deceptiveness; interestingly, even Macduff uses such a double meaning, when he exclaims in his fight with Macbeth: “let the angel whom thou still hast served / Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother’s womb / Untimely ripped” (5.8. 14-16): what here appears, on the verbal surface (a possibly ironic one, if the reference is not to Lucifer in the first place), as an “angel” is in reality a reference to the witches, the devil’s servants. 59 While “illusion”, from the perspective of later aesthetic terminology, may here already have a latent ring of ‘aesthetic illusion’ (which, in the form of dramatic illusion, is in fact applicable to Shakespeare’s plays, cf. Wolf 1993b) and thus may be adduced for a potential likening of the witches’ circle with the theatre, what is in the foreground here is still the old, medieval-Christian idea of the illusiones diaboli, of deception as a way for Satan to lead man into temptation (cf. for the history of the term ‘illusion’ Wolf [1993a: ch. 1.1.2]). 60 Cf. Fawkner (1990), Greenblatt (1997), Schülting (2009). 61 According to Schülting (2009: 557), the rebel Macdonald’s beheading at the outset of the play mirrors Macbeth’s beheading at its closure; in the opening scenes, the victor Macbeth is given a title by King Duncan (the dignity of a Thane) in a similar way in which King Malcolm confers titles on those who have fought with him at the end, which, in a way, acknowledges the fact that the rule of both kings is based not on their own deeds but rather on those of their thanes. All of this, for Schült- Werner Wolf 114 with negative connotations. And it is a world in which the temporal counterpart to the spatial setting favours night, the dominant temporal setting in Macbeth, which gives this tragedy a particularly brooding atmosphere, as already noticed by A. C. Bradley (1904/ 1974: 279). What is more, this darkness is not totally lifted at the end, since the evil witches are not subject to poetic justice and may be supposed to live on, continuing with their temptations and equivocations (cf. Greenblatt 1997: 2561). Yet, one cannot stop on this sombre note. For Macbeth constructs a world model in which admittedly the world may (temporarily) be a “bloody stage”, but one which is also open towards heaven and positive influences. After all, the represented world does not only consist of Scotland under Macbeth’s rule, but there is Scotland before and after Macbeth (in which chambers are again safe [cf. 5.4.2.]) and, above all, there is “gracious England” (4.3.43) with her saintly king. Furthermore, the devil’s illusions are finally revealed as such, even to their victim Macbeth, and some kind of “restoration of order and justice” is not even denied by Greenblatt (1997: 2561), which also relativizes his description of the play as a tragedy of “category confusions”. Indeed, some categories remain unconfused, in particular the idea of the natural: the very unnaturalness of Macbeth’s and his wife’s crimes, already in the term used, point to a naturalness, an order of nature and the world in which they are the exception rather than the rule, and this positive background is what gives them tragic narrative ‘tellability’. Moreover, the blurring of oppositions, so stressed by some scholars, is by far not absolute: there is no doubt about the goodness of the English King Edward, nor about the “fiendlike” evilness of Lady Macbeth (5.9.35) and devilish Macbeth (with concomitant direction of audience sympathies against these characters), nor can it be denied that some sort of political order is restored at the end of the play, nor argued that all language in the play is deceptive like the witches’ prophecies. And, finally, the worldview implied in Macbeth may be bleak but is certainly not as nihilistic as Macbeth’s own in his ‘tomorrow soliloquy’ 62 , nor is it void of the suggestion of the existence of a transcendental, metaphysical sphere (in which the existence of God is taken for granted even by the evil characters), and consequently it is far-fetched to suggest that “Shakespeare situates himself close to the twentiethcentury world[view]” by “obscurely anticipat[ing] the perfect emptiness ing, renders the seeming stability of Malcolm’s rule at the end more than questionable (“[…] wird die scheinbare Stabilität der Herrschaft Malcolms mehr als fragwürdig”). 62 Schülting herself here strangely blurs the border between a character’s explicit worldview (always open to unreliable perspectival distortions ) and the implied worldview of the play at large when she formulates “[…] in V.v […] enthüllt sich Macbeth die Sinn- und Ziellosigkeit menschlichen Strebens” (2009: 560; ‘in 5.5, the meaningand purposelessness of human endeavour is revealed to Macbeth’). Spaces and Their ‘Equivocal’ Meanings in Shakespeare’s Macbeth 115 of [...] metaphysical presence”, as Fawkner (1990: 45-46), in his programmatic but largely unhistorically deconstructive reading, claims. Yet, in spite of some ‘signposts’ of certainty, what is also undeniable is the impression of a represented world between heaven and hell in which an unsettling amount of irreducible ambivalence and border-blurring remains, an ambivalence and questioning of oppositions which not only permeates the implied worldview but also the semanticization of spaces as part of the concrete model-building and realization of this worldview. If one wants to describe this ambivalence in metaphorical terms it is not so much a ‘palimpsestic’ plurality of superimposed meanings, as Markidou (2016) has it, but rather a disturbing opalescence, a strange changing and uncertainty of (some) visual tonalities. This ambivalence may be indebted to the Christian idea of a fallen and yet God-created and redeemed world, in the same way as Shakespeare makes Friar Laurence, in Romeo and Juliet, 2.2, meditate on the ambivalent virtues of herbs 63 , but it may also be the consequence of Renaissance doubt with reference to the medieval view of a stable, ordered cosmos. In any case, this ambivalence is certainly linked to the ‘equivocal’ destabilization of spatial meaning-attribution which we have observed in the foregoing discussion, a destabilization which is a tell-tale expression and facet of the modelling function which the use of space has in literature at large and Macbeth in particular. What is, however, rather less certain is the tendency of this ambivalence with reference to the implied worldview. As pointed out above, one may say with some confidence that the destabilization of oppositions discernible in the multiple ambivalences does not amount to a totally deconstructive nihilism in which all order and structure of the world is denied or appears as mere fiction. Yet this still leaves ample room for ‘fine-tuned’ interpretation. I therefore would like to refrain from a final decision in this respect, thus continuing the ambivalence which operates in the play as a whole also to a certain extent in its interpretation. Indeed, whether this ambivalence is one in which the power of negativity is only temporary and must eventually yield to the forces of order and goodness, or whether it favours the impression of “night’s predominance” (2.4.8), an impression which I have repeatedly mentioned in the foregoing interpretation, or whether the ambivalence amounts to an equal distribution of light and darkness as adumbrated in Lady Macbeth’s evocation of “one half-world” in which “Nature seems dead” (2.1.49-50, i.e. where it is night), must perhaps ultimately remain open to individual realizations of the play both on the theatrical stage and on the inner stage of each reader. Without any doubt, the representation of space (with at- 63 There is, however, also the view that tragedy in general, including Shakespeare’s, is “incompatible with the Christian faith” (Leech 1950/ 1968: 297). 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