Other editions of book The Tragedy of Macbeth

The Tragedy of Macbeth dramatizes the consequences of the naked lust for power and political position. It is also about the devious workings of the mind: its willingness to believe and fulfill a prophecy, to see what it wants to see and overlook what it needs to overlook, and how the power of guilt and fear of retribution can lead to paranoia and desperate actions to remedy a consumptive insecurity. We see Macbeth first as a hero, a general who has defeated an uprising by traitors and is rewarded by a grateful king with the title and property of one of the conspirators. The reward had been mysteriously forecast by The Three Witches he and colleague Banquo encountered, along with the prediction of his eventual kingship. He shares the prophecy with Lady Macbeth, who convinces him to fulfill the destiny immediately by scheming to kill King Duncan in his sleep and pin it on his chamberlains. They proceed and guilt, remorse, paranoia take over. Macbeth becomes a vicious tyrant, ruthlessly eliminating threats from rivals real and imagined. Lady Macbeth, wracked with guilt, sleepwalks, washing her hands and babbling her regrets before taking her own life. Macbeth seeks comfort in the further prophecies of the Three Witches but misinterprets their meanings and inevitably falls victim to the campaign of his avenging enemies Malcolm and Macduff. Double, double, toil and trouble, indeed.

The Tragedy of Macbeth (commonly called Macbeth) is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607. Shakespeare's sources for the tragedy are the accounts of King Macbeth of Scotland, Macduff, and Duncan in Holinshed's Chronicles (1587), a history of England, Scotland and Ireland familiar to Shakespeare and his contemporaries. However, the story of Macbeth as told by Shakespeare bears no relation to real events in Scottish history as Macbeth was an admired and able monarch.

Excerpt from The Tragedy of MacbethIn the warwick shakespeare an attempt is made to present the greater plays of the dramatist in their literary aspect, and not merely as material for the study of philology or grammar. Criticism purely verbal and textual has only been included to such an extent as may serve to help the student in his appreciation of the essential poetry. Questions of date and literary history have been fully dealt with in the Introductions, but the larger space has been devoted to the interpretative rather than the matter-of-fact order of scholar ship. Aesthetic judgments are never final, but the Editors have attempted to suggest points of view from which the analysis of dramatic motive and dramatic character may be profitably undertaken. In the Notes likewise, while it is hoped that all unfamiliar expressions and allusions have been adequately explained, yet it has been thought even more important to consider the dramatic value of each scene, and the part which it plays in relation to the whole. These general principles are common to the whole series; in detail each Editor is alone responsible for the plays intrusted to him.Every volume of the series has been provided with a Glossary, an Essay upon Metre, and an Index; and Appen dices have been added upon points of special interest, which could not conveniently be treated in the Introduction or the Notes. The text is based by the several Editors on that of the Globe edition: the only omissions made are those that are unavoidable in an edition likely to be used by young students.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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The Tragedy of Macbeth tells the story of a brave Scottish general named Macbeth who receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes the throne for himself. He is then wracked with guilt and paranoia, and he soon becomes a tyrannical ruler as he is forced to commit more and more murders to protect himself from enmity and suspicion. The bloodbath and consequent civil war swiftly take Macbeth and Lady Macbeth into the realms of arrogance, madness, and death. Over the course of many centuries, the play has attracted some of the most renowned actors to the roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth and has been adapted to film, television, opera, novels, comic books, and other media.