Macbeth, witches and sleep

Visualising a large text makes it possible to see structures that would otherwise be difficult to detect because of the size of the text. The example opposite shows the location of two keywords within Macbeth, which is over 18,000 words long. Both words have long been recognised by Shakespeare scholars as significant; this visualisation shows structured distribution of them across the text.

The first keyword is witch. This theme was probably used by Shakespeare to appeal to James VI and I, who had a strong interest in witchcraft, and had written a book on the topic. The second keyword is sleep.

This visualisation shows interesting juxtapositions in the two themes. The first horizontal band of mentions of witch contains one mention of sleep. The next horizontal band of keywords is the inverse of the first band, and consists of repeated mentions of sleep with one mention of witch. In the second half of the play, there is a band with more mentions of witch interspersed with several mentions of sleep. These two themes conclude with a short band of mentions of sleep, contrasting with the bigger band of mentions of witch at the start.

How much of this structure was deliberate is an interesting question. It may have been done semi-tacitly, via a feeling of balance; on the other hand, it might have been a deliberate, considered use of a literary device.