428. Weird Sisters: Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Witchcraft

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How Macbeth reflects the anxieties and explanations surrounding witchcraft and witch-hunting in early modern Europe.

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Further Reading

• P.C. Almond, England’s First Demonologist: Reginald Scot and ‘The Discoverie of Witchcraft’ (London: 2011).

• S. Clark, Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (Oxford: 1999).

• P. Elmer, Witchcraft, Witch-Hunting, and Politics in Early Modern England (Oxford: 2016).

• B.P. Levack, The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America (Oxford: 2013).

• A. Macfarlane, Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England (London: 1970).

• C.-R. Millar, Witchcraft, the Devil, and Emotions in Early Modern England (London: 2017).

• J. Sharpe, Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in England 1550–1750 (London: 1996).

• K. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century England (London: 1971).

• L. Roper, Oedipus and the Devil: Witchcraft, Sexuality and Religon in Early Modern Europe (London: 1994).

• G. Wills, Witches and Jesuits: Shakespeare’s Macbeth (New York: 1995).

Comments

Paschal Scotti on 17 September 2023

Episode

It was an excellent episode and a good bibliography. Euan Cameron's book "Enchanted Europe: Superstition, Reason, and Religion, 1250-1750" (Oxford, 2010) is also very interesting and might supplement what you have done. His is still the best book on the European Reformation.  

dukeofethereal on 18 September 2023

Which philosopher will next recieve a mini series

Wonderful Professor, these 5 last episodes on Shakespeare were excellent, which philosopher do you plan on devoting 3+ episodes next, I presume Franicsco Suarez of the School of Salamanca ?

 

Once we reach 1600-1800 we'll start covering major figures in multiple episodes, like how you covered Ockham, Scotus, Aquinas extensively, I expect the same for Descartes (who might himself reach 10+ like how you covered Augustine, Plato and Aristotle).

 

 

In reply to by dukeofethereal

Peter Adamson on 18 September 2023

Miniseries

Yes I think that's right - maybe not a series on just one person, but there will be a tightly grouped series on the Iberian scholastics. Coming up sooner we have a kind of mini-series on Renaissance British science, with Dee, Harriot, Gilbert etc in focus. I am increasingly finding that having thematically grouped episodes like this is helpful for me (and hopefully the audience) to tackle one biggish topic at a time. 

Acarya dasa on 18 September 2023

Weird sisters

"But I fear that no weapon wrought along by man's hand would have any effect on him. I dared not wait to see him return, for I feared to see those weird sisters."

"Dracula" chapter 4

Alexander Johnson on 19 September 2023

Scotland

I was a bit surprised Scotland didn't come up very much (at all?) in this episode.  You've covered it for other parts of this series.  As I understand it, while the vast majority of witch hunts happened in the HRE, the vast majority of those that occurred outside the HRE happened in Scotland or Denmark.  

Am i mistaken on this?  Was it just too unrelated to Shakespeare or to the other theorists covered?

In reply to by Alexander Johnson

Peter Adamson on 21 September 2023

Witches in Scotland

No you're right, I actually have some notes on that but they were purely historical and I didn't really find a way to shoehorn it in (though perhaps I could have done that when contrasting England to the Continent - I will actually do that for the book, thanks). Apparently there were about 4000 trials with five waves of panic, the first starting in 1590. There is also a book on the topic which at least made it into a note for the book version: 

J. Goodare, L. Martin and J. Miller (eds), Witchcraft and Belief in Early Modern Scotland (Houndsmills: 2008). 

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