SOURCE: “The Politics of Aloofness in Macbeth,” in English Literary Renaissance, Vol. 26, No. 3, Autumn, 1996, pp. 531-60.
In the following essay, Baldo contrasts the styles of rule of Queen Elizabeth and King James and studies the way in which James's aloofness is reflected in Macbeth. Baldo explains that whereas Shakespeare's Elizabethan plays reflect Elizabeth's theatricality and interrupted succession, Macbeth is a reflection of James's aloof style of rule and of his emphasis on lineal succession.