On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth
Author | London Magazine) |
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Text | On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth at Wikisource |
"On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth" is an essay in Shakespearean criticism by the English author Thomas De Quincey, first published in the October 1823 edition of The London Magazine. Though brief, less than 2,000 words in length,[1] it has been called "De Quincey's finest single critical piece"[2] and "one of the most penetrating critical footnotes in our literature".[3] Commentators who are dismissive of De Quincey's literary criticism in general make an exception for his essay on Macbeth.[4]
The essay concerns Act II, scene three in
De Quincey's biographer Horace Ainsworth Eaton called the essay "penetrating and philosophic", adding that De Quincey in this essay "produced conclusions as significant as anything in Coleridge or Hazlitt".[5]
De Quincey also views his responses to the play in reference to another of his classic essays, "On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts".
References
- ^ Philip Van Doren Stern, ed., Selected Writings of Thomas De Quincey, New York, Modern Library/Random House, 1949; pp. 1090-95.
- ^ Judson S. Lyon, Thomas De Quincey, New York, Twayne, 1969; p. 131.
- ^ F. E. Halliday, A Shakespeare Companion 1564–1964, Baltimore, Penguin, 1964; p. 132.
- ^ Lyon, p. 118.
- ^ Horace Ainsworth Eaton, Thomas De Quincey: A Biography, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1936; New York, Octagon Press, 1972; p. 275.