I am in the process of reading Macbeth. This play is dark (perhaps darker even than Hamlet).
Shakespeare had a knack for exploring the awful depths to which people are capable of sinking. Macbeth murders the innocent, seemingly with little foresight (this is a major contrast to Hamlet, who broods at length before taking each step).
He is driven by ambition, in particular the desire to rule Scotland. He is willing to kill Duncan (the reigning king), then Banquo, Fleance and Macduff's family (potential threats) in order to keep and maintain power.
631. In addition to President Trump, who are the most nakedly ambitious current politicians and leaders?
632. The numerous authoritarians and dictators are clearly ambitious, and are clearly so in a negative rather than a positive way (I am thinking of Putin, Xi, Erdogan, Bolsonaro). Is there more rampant ambition now than there was, for example, in the 1980s and 1990s? Or is there simply more opportunity to turn ambition towards negative ends?
633. Why was Shakespeare so interested in ambition? I gather that he read tons of history, but how much did he know about the current political affairs of England, Scotland, etc.? Did he view a play like Macbeth as cautionary (in other words, did he want people to read it and think about ways that they could corral ambition?), or was he simply interested in exploring the psychology of leadership?
Here's a sampling of Macbeth thinking about his ambition, in Act 1, Scene 3:
This supernatural soliciting
Cannot be ill, cannot be good. If ill,
Why hath it given me earnest of success,
Commencing in a truth? I am thane of Cawdor.
If good, why do I yield to that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the use of nature? Present fears
Are less than horrid imaginings.
