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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... fact that what we see is merely one of the ' horrible imaginings ' which are constantly torturing Macbeth , and which he cannot distinguish from reality " ( 1931 , 194 ) . We are in Macbeth's position here , knowing as we do about the ...
... fact that the " evildoers " are either foreign invaders or treasonous allies of those invaders . The basic fact is that , right or wrong , battle involves killing , and that is never done daintily . R. A. Foakes asks whether the image ...
... facts are is ambiguous , or in plays where history- " the event❞ — is arbiter of a " truth " that is itself the murkiest of constructs . The facts in Macbeth are a single fact — unless we argue , as we can argue in the case of Richard ...
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 |