ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the impact of the supernatural on Shakespeare’s tragic heroes and how it functions as a premonitory device and an instrument of poetic justice. Supernatural figures such as ghosts, witches, dreams, or augury seem to dictate the pace of action in Shakespeare’s dramaturgy and orient his protagonists’ behavior. For instance: Is Macbeth’s vaulting ambition innate or the making of the witches? Why does Hamlet procrastinate before killing Claudius? At times, events in the plays and the actions of some characters can be predicted by some of the characters from certain unnatural occurrences. For example, Macbeth’s accession to the Scottish throne and Caesar’s assassination are good examples of prolepsis through the supernatural. Shakespeare is also preoccupied with exploring questions about how we attempt to control our fate using his culture’s popular mythologies. He embeds supernatural devices like ghosts, witches, augury, portents, and signs in his tragedies, not simply as gratuitous concessions to the popular demand for the sensational but fundamentally, as metaphorical representations of the states of mind of his tragic heroes. They are often activated by ambition, arrogance, fear, and wrath.
