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. |
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... entire play within a political frame , a surrounding and informing context dictated by the throned Jacobean . The context is there . How much it dictates or dominates content is a question to be asked . It seems to me that Shakespeare ...
... entire battles . Sylvan Barnet argues that " modern - dress pro- ductions make the play too local , too bound to the present , and rob the play— any play - of its archetypal dimension " ( 1987 , 263 ) . In Barry Jackson's mod- ern ...
... entire chorus - led by a male Hecate , who set the play in motion at the end of the scene with " Peace ! The charm's wound up . " The main setting then appeared for Lady Macbeth's letter so- liloquy ( 1.5 ) , eliminating Duncan's ...
Contents
Critical Approaches | 117 |
The Play in Performance | 139 |
Selected Bibliography | 199 |
Copyright | |
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References to this book
Shakespeare's Visual Theatre: Staging the Personified Characters Frederick Kiefer Limited preview - 2003 |