by WilliamShakespeare (Author), NicholasBrooke (Editor)
Dark and violent, Macbeth is also the most theatrically spectacular of Shakespeare's tragedies. Indeed, for 250 years - until early this century - it was performed with grand operatic additions set to baroque music. In his introduction Nicholas Brooke relates the play's chaning fortunes to changes within society and the theatre and investigates the sources of its enduring appeal. He examines its many layers of illusion and interprets its linguistic turns and echoes, arguing that the earliest surviving text is an adaptation, perhaps carried out by Shakespeare himself in collaboration with Thomas Middleton. This fully annotated edition reconsiders textual and staging problems, appraises past and present critical views, and represents a major contribution to our understanding of Macbeth.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 272
Edition: New
Publisher: Oxford Paperbacks
Published: 02 Apr 1998
ISBN 10: 0192834177
ISBN 13: 9780192834171
Excellent! Covers an enormous amount with scholarship and imagination in the introduction. A brilliant antidote for anyone who has suffered Macbeth in high school--excites further inquiry and a burning desire to see it performed again. --Nell Altizer, University of Hawaii
Invaluable, both as an introductory text and as an authoritative edition for serious scholarship. Students find the notes at the bottom of the page (as oposed to at the end of the text) handy and useful. --Sarah Liu, University of California, Berkeley