Witchcraft in "The Ballad of Three Witches" and Shakespeare's Macbeth | ||
| Journal of University of Babylon | ||
| Article 1, Volume 20, Issue 4, October 2012, Pages 975-987 | ||
| Author | ||
| Mithal Madlool Chelab | ||
| Abstract | ||
| No topic in folklore, part from culture has caused more argument than witchcraft. And fear of it permeates folklore of all periods. Actually, many studies are carried out by folklorists and anthropologists on this topic and even many people in western and central Africa and in some of eastern countries state that witchcraft existed physically as a substance in the bodies of witches whose changing shapes were possible. So witchcraft is, in some ways, conceived of as a form of power which runs between the body of the witch and her victim. Interestingly, exploring the nature of the witch and her effect on her victim does not capture the attention of the anthropologists only; rather it occupies the minds of the artists of various cultures and has become a recurrent theme in their works across the literary ages. Actually, this study has the same goal; it is devoted to explore the nature and the role of witchcraft in "The Ballad of Three Witches"(450A.D.), anonymous genuine piece of Arabic folk poetry that is related to pre-Islamic poetry and Macbeth (1606), the shortest tragedy that was written by the prominent English playwright William Shakespeare. In fact, in both texts, the recipient is invited to have a journey with the hero who meets on his way three witches prophesize his future. In this journey, the recipient will experience the wonderful sense of heroism that mixes reality with supernaturalism whether with the national Arabian hero, the Himyarite king Tubba' As'ad Kamil who was the first to clothe Al-kea'ba or with Macbeth, who has a unique position among all other Shakespeare's tragic heroes. In short, this intertextual study aims at following up the analogies between "The Ballad of Three Witches" and Shakespeare's Macbeth in the employment of witchcraft and its major tool the witch. In other words, it is meant to be a detailed study of both texts by drawing a comparison between their witchcrafts to see whether "The Ballad of Three Witches" can be regarded as one of the possible sources of Shakespeare's Macbeth. Eventually, the study ends with the conclusion that sums up the major findings. | ||
|
Statistics Article View: 110 PDF Download: 17 |
||