I don't understand why the psychological, the poetic, and the thematic make Macbeth great theatre.

Macbeth is the confluence of man's
worst fears, spoken with his most beautiful language, and arranged as a spectacle that
is "bloody, bold, and resolute."  It's a perfect recipe for
tragedy.

Language and
spectacle make the play great: words and
images.  What else is there?

Here are the
high points of
each:

• Language: He
  who controls language controls others, their fears, their
  fates...

•Language (argument) is used to attain
and maintain position and maintain power; Macbeth is won over by the words of women: the
equivocal language of the witches and the brute force simplicity of Lady
Macbeth

•Macbeth: thoughtful, poetic iambic
pentameter (elevates him above rest)

•Lady Macbeth: plain,
unimaginative iambic pentameter •Bleeding Captain: strong, harsh, war-like iambic
pentameter

Poetry (Rhyming Couplets): Witches: short,
choppy iambic tetrameter

Prose: •Porter (servant): dark,
bawdy common language, humor

• In terms of
  spectacle: Macbeth is visceral.  It's his bloodiest play.
   Blood imagery is key.

The witches are
psychological forces while on stage.  The audiences back then believed in their power to
control.

The swordfighting scenes are great; heads are cut
off; a soldier is gutted from belly to neck; horses eat each other; spells are cast;
people go crazy.  The blood flows early and often. It's a
horrorshow.

The dichotomy of beautiful words
and graphic imagery make for Shakespeare's most "wholly tragic"
play.