Macbeth, Murder, and Dante’s Traitors…

Letters From Hell 1 Minute

Hello.

I’m pleased to share with you my poem, ‘Good Friday, Revisiting Glamis’ has been published by the Society of Classical Poets. This is a poem meditating on Macbeth and the nature of evil, which of course is a theme that brings us firmly back to Dante!

In Dante’s Inferno, treachery is depicted as the deepest and most profound crime, with three of the most infamous traitors of all time: Judas Iscariot, Brutus, and Cassius, being chewed in the very mouth of Satan.

Macbeth, of course, betrays his host, king, and friend Duncan, and therefore is guilty of the same treachery that is, in Dante’s cosmology, worthy of the greatest contrapasso. However, how does Macbeth’s crime truly rank with those of Dante’s hellish sinners? Is Shakespeare’s take on evil fundamentally different to Dante’s? And do modern crimes, such as the Dunblane massacre, cause us to revise our ideas about evil? This poem seeks to explore possible answers to these questions.

Here is an extract for you:

“Not in the legions
Of horrid Hell can come a devil more damn’d
In evils, to top Macbeth”

Shakespeare

The Dunblane massacre took place at Dunblane Primary School in Dunblane, near Stirling, Scotland, on 13 March 1996, when Thomas Hamilton shot dead 16 pupils and one teacher, and injured 15 others, before killing himself. It remains the deadliest mass shooting in British history.

Poor Shakespeare: how naive, and didn’t know his Dante either—
Compared with back-stabbing Judas, Macbeth’s light as a gull’s feather;
Treachery’s the thing.

Point is: we understand Macbeth—of course he had to
Sack castles and his king, kill friends, their wives and kids and go
The whole black magic thing.

…

You can read the full poem over at the Society of Classical Poets here.

Published by james66dante

James Sale has been a writer for over 50 years, and has had over 40 books published, including 10 collections of poetry, as well as books from Macmillan/Nelson (The Poetry Show volumes 1, 2, 3), Pearson (York Notes : Macbeth, Six Women Poets), and other major publishers (Hodder & Stoughton, Longmans, Folens, Stanley Thornes) on how to teach the writing of poetry. Most recently his poems have appeared in the UK in many magazines. James was a co-founder and director of the KQBX Press, which published dozens of poets before it closed in the late 90s. Finally, the Bournemouth Yellow Buses company selected James as one of their top six poets as part of their marketing campaign around the town in 2016. He was given a free bus pass as part of the deal – nice! He won 2nd Prize in The Society of Classical Poets (New York) 2014 Annual Poetry Competition and First prize in their 2017 competition and was invited to join their Advisory Board. He was nominated for a Pushcart Poetry Prize by The Hong Kong Review in 2022. He has had over 500 blogs published, many on literary themes and reviews, online as well as in magazines; he is an accredited ‘Diamond Author’ – their highest level – with ezine.com, the world’s largest online article provider. James is also a commissioned feature writer on culture and poetry for New York's Epoch Times and recently has become a writer on culture for New Jersey’s The Politeia.

Published

Leave a comment