English Literature KS3 / GCSE: Shakespeare and the supernatural

Narrator: In Shakespeare’s time, lots of questions about the world had yet to be answered. When storms tore roofs off houses or the sun disappeared, in what we know to be a solar eclipse, many blamed the supernatural.

The theme pops up throughout Shakespeare’s plays, helping to tell magical stories like the Tempest, providing omens as in Julius Caesar and even some dark magic.

Narrator:
Macbeth begins with Lord Macbeth meeting three witches.

These witches symbolise dark, evil magic and having them at the start of the play makes it clear, things won’t end well.

First Witch:
When shall we three meet again?
In thunder, lightening, or in rain

Narrator:
Having a storm brewing is known as a ‘pathetic fallacy’ where the weather reflects human emotion or activity and it’s another indication of trouble rolling in for Macbeth.

First witch: ‘Double, double toil and trouble,
fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
in the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
wool of bat and tongue of dog,

Narrator:
These famous lines show that dark magic is on the boil.Any ingredients this terrible are bound to be bad news and that the fact the witches plant the idea of Macbeth murdering the King, adds even more doom.

Shakespeare is right to warn us. It all goes very wrong.

The Romans were particularly keen on omens and portents and in Julius Caesar, it’s a soothsayer’s prophecy which gives the first indication something nasty is on its way.

Soothsayer:
‘Beware the Ides of March’.

Narrator:
It’s a street prophet, warning Caesar about the 15th of March but Caesar scoffs, calling him a ‘dreamer’.

On the morning of the 15th Caesar bumps into the same man again and is rather smug about how he’s still alive, despite the date. The prophet gives one telling line…

Caesar:
Soothsayer
‘The Ides of March have come,

Ay Caesar; but not gone.’

Narrator:
He means that the day isn’t finished yet and he’s dead right. Caesar is killed that afternoon, but the Soothsayer isn’t the only one who gives a warning.

On the night of the 14th of March Caesar’s wife, Calpurnia, dreams that Romans will take his life.

Caesar:
‘She dreamt tonight she saw my statue,
which, like a fountain with an hundred spouts,
did run pure blood; and many lusty Romans
came smiling, and did bathe their hands in it.’

Narrator:
Rather than listen to a lowly woman though, he believes his friend Decius who translates the dream as symbolic – with Romans bathing in Caesar’s power. Together they head off to the Senate and Caesar loses his life.

So, Prophets 2, Caesar 0.|

In the Tempest, the supernatural is used for the good - to settle old scores.

Prospero, the former Duke of Milan, is an undercover wizard. Cast adrift on a raft to die with his young daughter Miranda they ended up on an island.

15 years on, he uses his knowledge of spells and magic to engineer a shipwreck of the men who tried to kill him.

Prospero:
‘By accident most strange, bountiful fortune,
now my dear lady, hath mine enemies
brought to this shore;’

Narrator:
Prospero goes onto create a chain of events where his daughter falls in love with a prince, his enemies are punished and he gets his Dukedom back. He even has a helper – Ariel, a spirit, who Prospero freed from imprisonment in a tree.

Ariel:
‘All hail, great master! Grave sir, hail! I come
to answer thy best pleasure; be’t to fly,
to swim, to dive into the fire, to ride
on the curl’d clouds, to thy strong bidding task
Ariel and all his quality.’

Narrator:
By using the supernatural, which was so believed and feared in his society, Shakespeare has a powerful dramatic tool. An invisible force, working through nature and his characters. It provides the dark magic that leads Macbeth to his doom. It restores natural justice with storms and spells in the Tempest and it speaks through prophets in Julius Ceaser. Perfect!