On The Knocking At The Gate In Macbeth Summary

Romantic Critical Essays

A Comprehensive Summary and Analysis of The Tragedy of Macbeth

The play opens with a scene of eerie foreboding as three witches gather amidst thunder and lightning. Their cryptic pronouncements, “Fair is foul, and foul is fair,” set a tone of moral ambiguity, suggesting a world where appearances are deceptive and values are inverted. This atmosphere of unnatural darkness and the witches’ pronouncements create a sense of impending doom that hangs over the entire play.

Thomas De Quincey and the Cognitive Unconscious

This book examines Thomas De Quincey's notion of the unconscious in the light of modern cognitive science and nineteenth-century science. It challenges Freudian theories as the default methodology in order to understand De Quincey's oeuvre and the unconscious in literature more generally.