ACBETH is a play that has lent itself to frequent and full l analysis,' and several writers have commented in passing on * w MqM the high incidence of dramatic irony in it. There may seem little purpose in isolating this aspect of the play for a treat* ment which earlier critics have thought fit to leave unmade, presumably because they considered it implicit in their wider studies. The question this paper proposes to raise, however, is whether the definition of dramatic irony that they assumed were not too narrow and whether something at once new and comprehensive might not come into view if a more generous interpretation were given the term. Perhaps this extension of meaning would amount to no more than a continuation of a process some time ago noticed and incisively commented upon by the late Dr. G. G. Sedgewick in his study Of Irony2-a process whereby the word "irony" came no longer to be applied exclusively to the rhetorical trope but more frequently and with increasing critical seriousness to a type of dramatic situation found in Sophoclean and other tragedy, and this "dramatic irony" came to be asserted as of the essence of drama. For if dramatic irony is defined as "the sense of contradiction felt by the spectators at the sight of a character acting in ignorance of his true condition", then all dramatic action is ironic so long as there remains on the stage anyone who knows less than the audience, anyone who still awaits "reversal of situation" and the consequent "recognition" of the truth. Generously compensating for any limitation implied in a "willing suspension of disbelief", is the distinctive pleasure of the theatre, the expansive sense of superior wisdom that accompanies the contemplation of dramatic action. This "general dramatic irony" comes to focus normally in specific situations: obviously, when a character intentionally makes a remark that we recognize as not fully understood by others on the stage-as in Macbeth's speech at the discovery of the murder of Duncan; less obviously, when the character says something that has closer application to his own circumstances than he knows-as in the same speech: