Essay: "On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth." Thomas DeQuincey.

Essay: “On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth.” Thomas DeQuincey.

One-minute review: The author wonders at the meaning of the knocking at the gate after Duncan’s murder by Macbeth and his wife. He decides that there are no incidents without purpose in Shakespeare. He decides that the awfulness of the scene of the murder stops life, becomes isolated from life, and the knocking at the gate causes life to resume after the suspended scene of the murder. There are no extraneous incidents in the plays of Shakespeare.

Great Essays. Ed. Houston Peterson. New York: Washington Square Press, Inc. 1960.

What is an essay? “They are all prefaces. A preface is nothing but a talk with the reader; and they [essays] do nothing else.” Charles Lamb.