The Interweaving Of Christianity And Paganism

The tragedy of Macbeth is neither a simple tragedy of character nor a simple tragedy of fate,but the result of the interaction of complex human nature and social and historical factors.The root of Macbeth's tragedy is that he did not conform to the law of development of the times and failed to grasp the balance between reason and desire.There are two factors in Macbeth: Christianity and paganism.The pagan spirit dominates Macbeth's action,which is manifested in his endless pursuit of desire and his personal heroism based on strong force.Although religion itself had no advantages or disadvantages,pagan spirit lacked stability and cohesion compared with the Theocracy of monarchy advocated by Christianity under the historical conditions at that time.But in Macbeth,Shakespeare also shows the inherent law of historical development and the strong spiritual power of human nature,which makes Macbeth still have the strong glory of heroism despite his failure.Just as the pagan tradition closely associated with him was not eliminated,but absorbed into the cultural core of Christianity.This paper tries to get rid of the simple dualism of good and evil and make a dialectical and comprehensive study of Macbeth's tragedy.The research in this paper will be carried out in three chapters:Chapter One restores the historical and textual scenes of Macbeth,extracts the Christian and pagan factors in Macbeth,compares the real events of Macbeth in history with those of Macbeth in the play,and explores the reasons for Shakespeare's transformation.Chapter two analyses Macbeth's complex spiritual world from the perspectives of Christianity and paganism,restores the consciousness from Christianity and Paganism in Macbeth's spiritual world with text details,and analyses Macbeth's composition as a pagan hero and his high humanity reflected in this fierce conflict.Chapter three probes deeply into Shakespeare's conception of the ideal society embodied in Macbeth.Shakespeare's idea is divided into two parts: one is the idea of stabilizing social order.That is to say,Christianity absorbs pagan elements for its own use,transforms pagan prophecies and miracles into the divine monarchy entrusted by Christianity,and ensures the smooth transition of power.Second,the idea of ideal humanists.Although Macbeth also has some characteristics of humanists,his body more reflects the dark side of humanists,that is,the excessive indulgence of desire.Therefore,Shakespeare portrayed Malcolm as an ideal humanist image with both Christian virtues and pagan heroes.