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Work #1015 · Mature

Macbeth

William Shakespeare
c. 1606 · English (Early Modern)
Tragic drama in five acts · Elizabethan-Jacobean English Renaissance drama

Ambition, regicide, and the destruction of conscience — Shakespeare's most concentrated tragic structure

Attribute Fingerprint

Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.

Attribute Macbeth (Mature)
Time · Extent Infinite
Time · Ontological Status Substantival
Time · Grain Continuous
Time · Freedom Non-Deterministic
Time · Traversability Linear
Time · Dimensionality One
Time · Direction Uni-directional
Space · Extent Infinite
Space · Ontological Status Substantival
Space · Curvature Flat
Space · Dimensionality Three
Space · Locality Local
Matter · Extent Infinite
Matter · Ontological Status Substantival
Matter · Conservation Conserved
Matter · Dimensionality Three
Matter · Locality Local
Observer · Time Instance Single
Observer · Space Instance Single
Observer · Knowledge Extent Partial
Observer · Knowledge Retainment Total
Observer · Physicality Embodied
Observer · Agency Both
Observer · Number Plural
Observer · Metaphysical Agency Cosmic-ordering
Observer · Moral Authority Experience
Observer · Theological Method
Energy · Extent Infinite
Energy · Ontological Status Substantival
Energy · Conservation Conserved
Energy · Dispersibility Irreversible
Information · Ontological Status Substantival
Information · Cosmic Conservation Conserved
Information · Personal Conservation Conserved
Information · Granularity Continuous

Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence

What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.

Time

Macbeth

Compressed tragic time of Macbeth's ambition through destruction.

Space

Macbeth

Scotland as political-historical setting; the heath as supernatural space.

Matter

Macbeth

Embodied bodies — Macbeth's "blood-bolter'd" hands, Duncan's royal body, Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking.

Observer

Macbeth

Macbeth as disintegrating conscience-observer; Lady Macbeth as active-then-broken partner.

Energy

Macbeth

Ambition, guilt, supernatural prophecy.

Information

Macbeth

Witches' prophecies as famous Shakespearean equivocation; conscience as inner information that cannot be silenced.

Internal Tensions

Where each work's argument pulls against itself.

Macbeth

Witches' role variously read — objective supernatural agents, projections of Macbeth's ambition, embodiments of his political-historical situation. The play's relation to King James I (Scottish royal descent) was politically loaded in 1606.