Macbeth and the presence of Daemonolgie by King James

There wasn’t necessarily a date that was mentioned in class for my topic, however, there was a term given, and it was Daemonolgie by King James 1st. His book was about witchcraft and how it can corrupt power and about what the consequences are for following/using witchcraft are. Shakespeare plays with the idea of witchcraft interfering with mankind in one of his tragedy plays, Macbeth. In the play Macbeth is approached by three witches and is told his fate. Because of this encounter Macbeth takes a turn that he otherwise would not have taken. The acts that Macbeth commits changes who he is and what he would have become. Once Macbeth attains the throne he begins to believe that he has mythical/mystical qualities and that he belongs to the supernatural world. It is because of these thoughts that causes Macbeths downfall. He believes himself to be mightier than all and that no one can bring him down. He is specifically referring to one of the statements made by the witches, the statement implying that he shall not be killed by anyone born by women. It is because of this statement that Macbeth doesn’t worry about anything, and I guess you could say doesn’t try to fix any of the problem going on in the kingdom. Close to the end of the play is when Macbeth comes to the realization that he had misunderstood the words spoken to him, that he didn’t think about it thoroughly. It is later found out that MacDonald was not born of women but was ripped from a woman. This made Macbeth realize that he had thought too much of himself and didn’t take care in seeing what was going on around him. Macbeth was to have been written between 1603 and 1606, after Daemonolgie was published in 1597. So, Shakespeare used may have used what King James 1st wrote in order to show how following witchcraft leads to nothing but evil, that witchcraft will only lead to your downfall, like it did for Macbeth. The only thing that can be relied upon is fate and yourself.

Spencer Sohler; Aaron Sec. 1F