SOURCE: Craig, Leon Harold. “Living in a Hard Time: Politics and Philosophy in Macbeth.” In Of Philosophers and Kings: Political Philosophy in Shakespeare's Macbeth and King Lear, pp. 25-111. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001.

In the following excerpt, Craig claims that Macbeth is Shakespeare's most metaphysical work, and probes the play's concern with such philosophical issues as the nature of reality, appearance, time, contingency, and being.

The Metaphysics of Macbeth

Macbeth is the only work in the canon in which the word ‘metaphysical’ occurs. Once one begins to discern some of the play's larger themes, its singular occurrence there cannot be regarded as incidental; neither can the context in which it is introduced and the ideas that are immediately associated with it. Lady Macbeth is musing to herself in response to her lord's report of his strange encounter with those Weyward Sisters, who (he assures her) have “more...