Mr. Dover Wilson’s arguments, in his edition of the play (1947), for an early revision by Shakespeare himself, designed to shorten it for a Court performance, seem to me valuable but untrue. Valuable, that is, because they draw attention to points you do not easily notice otherwise, and untrue because these points add to the dramatic effect when noticed; it is therefore unnecessary to suppose they are confusions due to revision.
All this is separate from the generally accepted opinion, not questioned either by Mr. Dover Wilson or myself, that the scenes and passages involving Hecate were added later by Middleton, and that one or two short passages were added by Shakespeare especially to please James I. Admittedly, if that is so, it makes an unusually short play even shorter; and many critics have used that as an argument for believing in substantial cuts. I don’t mean to deny the possibility, but don’t feel that much can be built on it. In any case, the play gives great opportunities for trick staging with the witches (they always had a resinous white smoke, says Mr. Dover Wilson, but didn’t start flying on wires till after Ariel had done it in The Tempest; a year or two later, on his dating, than Middleton’s first vulgarization of Macbeth in 1610); it was probably altered a little whenever it was done with new machinery. It doesn’t seem likely that the audience would complain of being given short measure, and surely that would be the only practical objection to a short text.
Already have an account? Log in
Join KR for even more to read.
