‘Our poison’d chalice to our own lips’: toxic masculinity and tyranny in Macbeth

Paying close attention to Shakespeare's adaptation of his sources, this article traces the relationship between poisoning, tyranny and infanticide in Macbeth, contending that the play's chilling violence – both metaphorical and literal – towards children is rooted in Macbeth's desire to be invulnerable. In fact, the tragedy itself offers a meditation on what it means to be vulnerable, implying that our shared physical frailty, along with our basic emotional need for others, should form the ethical basis for social and political action. Remarkable both because its narrative is centred on the turmoil of a student production of Macbeth and its use of the seriocomic mode, this article concludes with a brief excursus on the 2018 HBO series Barry, and suggests that it is language itself that undoes tyrants, toxic leaders, and hardmen.