In the preface to Folie et déraison, Michel Foucault unequivocally places madness at the limit of cultural identity: European man, since the beginning of the Middle Ages, he had a relationship with something that he calls, indiscriminately, Madness, Dementia, Madness. … [It is] a realm, without a doubt, where what is in question are the limits rather than the identity of a culture. (Foucault xi) By describing madness in this way, he demonstrates his understanding of madness as a cultural phenomenon, defined not by the analysis of a subject's symptoms, but rather the shared assumption that a subject is not "right", does not conform to the prevailing ideological norm. Written at the end of the 20th century, his work is a treatise on the broader cultural effects produced by a policy of confinement of social outsiders. Three centuries earlier, William Shakespeare completed and staged what is now considered the greatest and wickedest of all his tragedies, the tragedy of Macbeth. Themes of witchcraft, infanticide, suicide and death pervade the fabric of the play, which perhaps contributes to the theatrical superstition that surrounds its production to this day. However, it seems curious to me that the play is rarely discussed as a play about madness, when it deals with two of the craziest and most depraved characters in all of Shakespeare. , Dementia, Madness”, and there are many studies on how this discussion of madness should be interpreted1, but less with particular reference to Macbeth. Even more curious is that Shakespeare's Renaissance understanding of madness, as demonstrated in his depiction of this madness, is... middle of paper... ephen, et al. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2008. Print.Somerville, Henry. Madness in Shakespearean tragedy. London: The Richards Press Ltd., 1929. Print.Styan, J.L. “The Drama: Reason in Madness.” Theater Journal 32 3 (1980): 371-85. Press.---. Perspectives on Shakespeare in performance. Studies in Shakespeare vol. 11. New York:P. Lang, 1999. Print.Weimann, Robert. Shakespeare and the popular tradition in the theatre: studies on the social dimension of dramatic form and function. Ed. Schwartz, Robert. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978. Print.iiWheelwright, Philip. "Threshold Philosophy". The Sewanee Review 61 1 (1953): 56-75.Print.Wilson Knight, G. The Wheel of Fire: Interpretations of Shakespearean Tragedy, with Three New Essays. University paperbacks, UP 12. [4th rev. and enl. and. London: Methuen, 1965.Print.iii