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Summary: Deception and Treachery
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was a dramatist whose genius is universally acknowledged, with a reputation as an actor, playwright and poet. He lived in an age of vast and significant changes characterised by the rise of the middle class and of a centralised government and the disappearance of medieval religious beliefs. England was transforming into a modern state. This was a time when self-realisation, self-respect and boldness of thought and action was idealised. Shakespeare's drama merely reflected the dramatic times of the age.
Shakespeare's genius can be reflected by the variety of his productions, where out of the 36 plays he has left, no two are alike and he managed to articulate the diverse subjects with exceptional expertise, handling both tragedies and comedies with ease.
Macbeth is a tragedy, intended to teach us a lesson about the human condition. The play is a tragedy about a wealthy Scottish noble called Macbeth who kills his king to gain the throne. During Shakespeare's time, this was a terrible thing to do, and from then on, Macbeth was doomed to die a tragic death.
The play starts with three witches confronting the great Scottish general Macbeth on his victorious return from a war between Scotland and Norway. The witches predict that he will one day become king. They also predict that another General called Banquo will be the father of kings, although he will not ascend the throne himself. The Scottish king, Duncan, decides that he will confer the title of the traitorous Cawdor on the heroic Macbeth. Macbeth, with the urging of his evil and ambitious wife murder King Duncan and ascends to the throne of Scotland.
Macbeth and his evil wife begin to do strange things, partly because of what they have done and also because they never get a whole night's sleep. Macbeth thinks he has to kill two of his former friends because he believes that they threaten his new throne. His efforts fail and he is eventually killed.
Summary: Yale's may be the best edition of Macbeth
Virtually all editions of Macbeth will have at least some annotations. Rummaging through five different editions, I preferred the Yale University Press version, edited by Burton Raffel, as having the most comprehensive and comprehensible notes, as well as an excellent introduction to Shakespeare's play. Raffel not only explains the meanings of obscure words, but also gives brief notes pertaining to relevant history, geography, stage directions, etc, that are rarely addressed as fully by other editors. In addition, Raffel frequently gives the proper way to stress the syllables in a line when reading it aloud, which can be extremely helpful. (However, in most places these stresses need to be very subtle, so that you don't sound like "taDUM taDUM taDUM".) And Yale's page layout is among the clearest that I've seen.
(To find this edition: at Avanced Search, enter ISBN 0300106548; or, enter Macbeth as title, and either Raffel as author or Yale as publisher.)
As a bonus, this edition includes at the back a long essay on the play by Harold Bloom. This is not an uninteresting commentary, but Bloom desperately needs a good editor. His essay is not only at least three times longer than it should be, but is startlingly repetitious. Yale would have been wise to have asked Bloom for a rewrite.
Summary: Shakespeare's Darkest Play
In a sense, Shakespeare treaded on Gothic elements in his play Macbeth, which premiered after Queen Elizabeth had died and King James, who had heritage in Scotland, became the new King of England. James knew about his infamous ancestor Macbeth and commissioned the Bard to write a thrilling work of theatre which recounted the historic tale of Macbeth. There really was a Macbeth, but much of the story is fictional, save for the names of people and places. Macbeth is Shakespeare's darkest tragedy. On the New Folgers Library Edition, we are treated to the very best of scholarly information regarding the creation of the play, and the political and theatrical world of Shakespeare's day. This is the best printed version of Macbeth you will find today. And for this reader, it is a play perfect for this Halloween season. The plot, without giving much of it away in a summary, is quite simple but powerful in its impact. In Medieval England, the minor nobleman Macbeth and his wife Lady Macbeth plot to murder the current king of Scotland. Their ambitions are spurred when three mysterious witches foretell their success. However, as Macbeth maintains power, he becomes fearful of losing it. He orders the deaths of allies and friends out of insecurity. Eventually his own ambition becomes his downfall and a new king arises. Since its premiere, Macbeth has been rumored to be "cursed". Throughout the years, including the twentieth century, reports of accidents and even deaths have circulated involving certain productions of Macbeth. The elements in the play are dark and quintessentially Gothic- flying daggers, constant darkness and fog, ghosts, witches, apparitions including dead kings and bloody children. In the 19th century this would encompass the material of Gothic literature but in Shakespeare's time it was part of thrilling drama. Supernatural beings like ghosts were featured in other Shakespeare tragedies -Hamlet and Julius Caesar for instance. The belief in witches was prevalent in Puritan/Protestant/Catholic England, after all this was still the time of the Inquisition. So the featured Three Witches would have actually been regarded as a true part of history even. This play has many fine moments. All of Macbeth's quotes are memorable but especially his "Out, Out Brief Candle! Life is but a walking shadow..." The role of Lady Macbeth, if played well, can be the signature role of many actresses. She is Shakespeare's most evil creations. She drives Macbeth to murder because she is perhaps even more ambitious than him. Her being a female is her only setback. But she is an empowered and vile woman, even regarded as something of a witch herself. The play inspired several film versions including director Roman Polanski's version in 1971 and in the 19th century an opera by Verdi.
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