Providing for Duncan : Representing Hospitality and National Identity in Shakespeare's Macbeth
Abstract
Felicity Heal has suggested that the early modem English perceived hospitality as a ritual
in decline. Interestingly, the circulation of the idea of decaying hospitality coincided with
an attempt to define what exactly it meant to be "English," particularly in comparison to
what it meant to be "Scottish" with the ascension of a Scottish king on the English throne.
This discursive intersection of declining hospitality and national identity is distinctly
visible in Shakespeare's Macbeth. In this master's paper, I will argue that Macbeth's
Scottish entanglement in the English discourse of declining hospitality casts the play's
eponymous hero as doubly deviant: As a play portraying the repercussions of a breach in
hospitality, Macbeth echoes and develops the rules and roles of hosts and guests found in
early modern English travel literature, but as a depiction of a specifically Scottish host who
stands in contrast to the English Edward and, by association, James I, Macbeth also
participates in the discourse surrounding national identity. Therefore, when Macbeth and
his wife murder their guests or welcome other murderers into their home, they affirm
England's negative perception of Scotland and position themselves in direct contrast to
English hosts of great renown. I will argue here that the play knowingly attacks an ideal
that the English hold close to their hearts, perhaps precisely because they see it slipping
away.