The Insufficiency of Virtue: Macbeth and the Natural Order

A scene-by-scene philosophical study of Shakespeare play, Macbeth , this book demonstrates why Shakespeare’s poetic writings still arouse and sustain serious inquiry and reflection. Using a combination of philosophical rigour, political insight, and textual thoroughness, Jan H. Blits delineates the competing forms of virtue within Macbeth - the courageous public virtue of warriors like Macbeth and the internal Christian virtue evoked by Duncan. He describes the trust that leading characters in the play place in the power of virtue to rule the world and he explores the fundamental tension within the natural order between virtue and life. This new interpretation of Macbeth explains crucial paradoxes overlooked by previous scholars and it should serve as a model for future scholarship in the field.