The warrior and the murderer. Three points of view on William Shakespeare’s Macbeth

Abstract

Macbeth, one of the great works of Western literature, can be read in multiple ways. I present here three moments of a single all encompassing vision, one that echoes the ultimate convictions of Shakespeare’s work. It is not, in fact, a matter of literary considerations: the work of this remarkable author is itself an inquiry into the questions that sustain our existence. The text is structured around three topics that guide the investigation: What is a man, what makes a hero, and why is murder forbidden? The essay explores these fundamental questions in order to claim that the power and dignity of life anchors its strength in an ethical substratum that constitutes the unyielding background of our meanings.