Macbeth: A Guide to the PlayThough written nearly 400 years ago, Shakespeare's Macbeth continues to capture the interest of modern audiences. Laden with political intrigue, supernatural elements, and complex psychological issues, Macbeth is a play of contemporary relevance, despite its tale of witches and ancient Scottish kings. While the play reflects seventeenth-century theological and political concerns, it also explores enduring themes, such as fate and free will, appearance and reality, order and disorder, ambition and obedience, and madness and sanity. Macbeth has been staged countless times, and it has also been produced for film and television. Numerous editions of the play exist, it is one of the most widely taught dramatic works, and scholars have written an enormous amount of criticism about it. This reference book is a comprehensive guide to the play. |
From inside the book
Results 1-3 of 47
... Weird Sisters indeed represent different aspects of time — past , present , and future — a fact that makes their prophecies powerful because they simulate process . Once the Macbeths begin to play the " future " game , they are both ...
... Weird Sisters " have managed to put themselves forward as the chorus ; at first they do represent what is normal in the play , and so are terrible . For if the witches are what is normal in the world , the world is hell , nor are we out ...
... Weird Sisters , of course , operate with " a certaine doublenesse . " According to an anonymous late Jacobean , " The devils , we know , did equivocate in their oracles , but only by a verbal equivocation , con- sisting of words of ...
Contents
Critical Approaches | 117 |
The Play in Performance | 139 |
Selected Bibliography | 199 |
Copyright | |
1 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
References to this book
Shakespeare's Visual Theatre: Staging the Personified Characters Frederick Kiefer Limited preview - 2003 |