Semantic codes in Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”

UDC 821.111-2
DOI 10.20339/PhS.4-26.055

Sapelkin Andrey A.,

Candidate of History, Associate Professor of the General

Humanitarian Disciplines Department

Far Eastern State Institute of Arts

e-mail: andral.59@mail.ru

The article deals with Shakespeare’s play Macbeth. It considers the so-called semantic codes of the play, which are understood as the ways the author expresses his ideas. The latter reveal the authors’ worldview set in the work he creates. They constitute the conceptual basis of the work but they are not components of its compositional structure and storyline. Besides, they represent a system of definite links between the author creating his work and the reader or viewer who seeks to understand the author’s meaning. However, the semantic codes that Shakespeare set in his tragedy and that were understandable to the contemporaries of the great playwright escape the understanding of today’s readership and viewership. The goal of the work is to disclose those semantic codes in order to reveal the ideological component of the play and explain what made Shakespeare take up the work. The article shows that Macbeth is a somewhat official play, whose aim was to glorify the House of Stuart, which had started its reign in England not long before Shakespeare wrote the play, and pay homage to the first representative of the dynasty, King James I, who had ascended the English throne. It also has been shown how skilfully and tactfully did Shakespeare achieve the aim without being pompous and avoiding direct praises and overt flattery addressed to the monarch.

Keywords: Shakespeare, Shakespearian sphere, sematic code, Macbeth, the Stuarts, James I, England, Scotland


 

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