SOURCE: Biggins, Dennis. “Sexuality, Witchcraft, and Violence in Macbeth.” Shakespeare Studies 8 (1976): 255-77.

In the following essay, Biggins studies the links between sex and violence in Macbeth, as well as the association of both with the Weird Sisters.

The consensus of critical opinion appears to be that sexuality has little structural or thematic importance in Macbeth. Thus, for example, a recent critic can refer to the play as “the purest of Shakespeare's tragedies,” in which the Porter's remarks about drink and sex might easily seem incongruous.¹ Some later writers, however, have drawn attention to a sexual element in the exchanges between Macbeth and his wife. Jan Kott remarks that Lady Macbeth “demands murder from Macbeth as a confirmation of his manhood, almost as an act of love,” and that the “two are sexually obsessed with each other.” Ian Robinson sees a perverse passion as the source of Lady Macbeth's...