Visions of evil operating in this world serve as the subject mater for the dramatist, especially in an era when good and evil were seen more clearly as battling for the human soul directly, often personified as angel and devil. In the Elizabethan era, William Shakespeare in Macbeth and Christopher Marlowe in Doctor Faustus in England explored these issues in different ways, though each saw evil as manifest and physical as well as sometimes supernatural. In Spain, Calder=n de la Barca a few years later similarly expressed the palpable nature of evil in human life in his El mßgico prodigioso. The Marlowe and Calder=n works are both based on the Faust legend, while Shakespeare's play is based on a historical individual reported in Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles, though Shakespeare took many liberties with history as Holinshed presented it. The historical Macbeth reigned from 1040 to 1057, a period which Shakespeare reduces to a few hours of real time and an indeterminate, though brief, period of stage time.
There are elements running through all three of these plays simply because they are classified as tragedies. The tragic hero derives from the Greek drama, as elucidated by the criticism of Aristotle in particular. Tragedy in this conception is struggling against something over which we really have no control, and the tragedy develops from a recognition of the futility of the struggle, leading to the resignation of the tragic hero to his or her fate and indeed even to their embracing that fate. The hero takes responsibility for his or her failure--this is the lesson learned and imparted to the audience and only reinforces the power of the gods and the need for the human spirit to obey. Underlying the actions of the tragic hero is a fatal flaw in his character, and it is because of this flaw that he is not able to escape his fate. The flaw is usually a form of pride, but it need not be. The flaw and its consequences can ...