In the following essay, Lowenthal examines the mysteries in Macbeth—including character reversals and questions of fact and motivation—and concludes that the play “mixes pessimism with a more fundamental optimism.”
In the following essay, Kranz examines the structural and thematic implications of Shakespeare's use of repetitive poetry in Macbeth, particularly emphasizing how the witches' words are echoed in the linguistic patterns of the other characters in the play.
In the following essay, Cantor identifies a fundamental tension between the heroic pagan ethic and the Christian values associated with conscience and meekness in Macbeth. The critic maintains that Macbeth's attempt to synthesize these antithetical values causes him to conceive of a debased form of absolutism that negates both ethics systems and corrupts his perspective of the natural order.
In the following essay, originally presented in 1985, Adelman suggests that Macbeth represents a powerful fantasy of escape from an absolute and destructive maternal power.
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.
In the following excerpt, Sadowski asserts that the “masculine principle” is a crucial agent in Macbeth's progression from “statism,” wherein he is concerned with honor and conscience, to a state of “endodynamism,” wherein he becomes preoccupied with remorseless ambition and the consolidation of power.
In the following excerpt, Craig claims that Macbeth is Shakespeare's most metaphysical work, and probes the play's concern with such philosophical issues as the nature of reality, appearance, time, contingency, and being.
In the following excerpt, Ferrucci focuses on Act V, scenes i and ii—which involve Macduff, his family, and Malcolm—as they illustrate key elements essential to the thematic structure of Macbeth. The critic argues that in this drama of violent contradiction, Macduff shows himself to be a dissimulator rather than a benevolent foil to Macbeth's evil.
In the following essay, Lemon discusses the historicism of didactic “scaffold speeches” made by condemned traitors and examines examples of this kind of rhetoric in the language of various characters in Macbeth.
In the following essay, Foster contends that Macbeth is a slave of time, a man who questions whether his fate is predetermined yet whose boundless will to power leads him to seize the future on his own terms and create himself king. However, the critic proposes, Macbeth's failure to transcend the inexorable progress of time, his most pernicious enemy, ultimately leads him to a nihilistic conviction that his life—indeed all life—is meaningless.
In the following essay, Zamir considers the thematic contrast between Macbeth's nihilistic preoccupation with the absence of value and temporality and Macduff's emotional and highly temporal existentialism. For the critic, Macbeth serves as an example of the significant role that literary texts can play in the didactic representation of fundamental philosophical concerns.
In the following essay, Lesser argues that Macbeth is to a great degree written in "the language of the unconscious, " and interprets the play as a dramatization of "its protagonist's dreams, fantasies, and thoughts. "
In the following essay, Ide observes the seemingly divided structure of Macbeth as both the psychological tragedy of Macbeth and a symbolic/cosmological tragicomedy of good and evil—two perspectives that intersect in Duncan's murder and are integrated in Act V of the drama.
In the following essay, Breuer analyzes Macbeth's ‘Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow” monologue (Act V, scene v) with reference to the twentieth-century experience of despair and isolation. He proposes that the collapse of time as a symbol of stability and the ensuing disorientation expressed in this soliloquy are paralleled in the works of Samuel Beckett, and that they also reflect Macbeth's attempt to mediate medieval and modern notions of man and his place in the universe....
In the following essay, Fawkner maintains that absence is the central structural theme of Macbeth and analyzes the protagonist as a character who remains distanced from his actions.
In the following essay, States examines Macbeth's ‘pity’ soliloquy (Act I, scene vii) in order to discover an apocalyptic reading of the drama—rather than one based upon the theme of ambition.
In the following essay, Ure follows the development of Macbeth's character throughout the play, suggesting that he is a tragic and sympathetic, rather than evil, figure.
In the following essay, Orgel comments on the dynamic theatrical processes and ideological concerns that might have influenced revisions of Macbeth prior to the publication of the 1623 Folio. The critic focuses on the dramatic treatment of the witches in particular as a reflection of the changing mores and cultural attitudes of each new generation that reinterprets the tragedy.
In the following essay, Long evaluates Macbeth as an archetypal man of action and analyzes his crimes in relation to other literary depictions of primal destruction and Christian redemption.
In the following essay, Sinfield contends that Macbeth is a political play that centers on the distinction between violence that the state considers legitimate and violence that it considers evil.
In the following essay, originally delivered in 1991, Reid contends that the three murders committed by Macbeth are representative of the three distinctive stages of evil that evolve in his psyche.
In the following essay, Turner studies the figure of Duncan in Macbeth, focusing particular attention on this character's status as a signifier of feudal ideology and on performance interpretations made by directors Trevor Nunn and Roman Polanski in their productions of the drama.
In the following essay, Bernad offers a thematic survey of Macbeth, emphasizing five distinct aspects of tragedy—physical, psychological, moral, social, and theological—within the play.
Lisa Hopkins, Sheffield Hallam University In her epic novel on the life of Macbeth, King Hereafter, Dorothy Dunnett suggests that one of the primary reasons for the eventual failure of her hero's kingship is his inability to be perceived as sufficiently charismatic: 'a diverse people in time of hardship need a priest-king. The English know that. Edward is anointed with holy oil: he has the power of healing, they say'.1 Although Dunnett's Macbeth-figure—an Orkney...
In the following essay, Markels reads Macbeth as a tragedy of personal degeneration, concentrating on Macbeth as a tragic figure according to the classical, Aristotelian definition and examining his potential to elicit sympathy and find redemption.
In the following review, Makaryk describes avant-garde Ukrainian director Les' Kurbas's 1924 modernistic, anti-bourgeois production of Macbeth, citing its ironic and expressionistic methods and stylized form.
In the following essay, Omberg contends that Macbeth's failure to produce an heir provides central thematic, structural, and psychological components to the tragedy of Macbeth.
In the following essay, Wills explains obscure passages and words in Macbeth—such as the specific placement of stage directions, textual cues for clothing and props, and alternative emendations for proscribed editorial revisions—and examines the ways in which the play might have been more clearly perceived by a Jacobean audience than by a modern one.
In the following essay, originally delivered as a lecture in 1987, Bryant takes issue with critics who maintain that Macbeth is more of a melodrama or morality play than a tragedy.
In the following essay, Riebling analyzes Macbeth as a discourse in civic humanism, contrasting the principles of Machiavellian governance to those of Christianity.
In the following excerpt, Wills considers Lady Macbeth as the “fourth witch” in Macbeth and emphasizes the distinctive qualities of this image in theatrical performances of the play.
In the following essay, Wintle and Weis examine the relationship between James I's legitimacy issues and Macbeth's concern with succession and legitimacy as revealed through the play's emphasis on children and babies.
In the following essay, originally published in 1981, Mack examines many of the central thematic concerns of Macbeth, including usurpation, witchcraft, pride, crime, the blurring of the real and unreal, the collapse of community, and final judgment.
In the following essay, Low contends that Macbeth is sympathetic to audiences in his remorsefulness, and that he guides the drama toward a possible path of redemption.
In the following essay, Cheung suggests that Macbeth suffers from Kierkegaardian “dread”—a fear of the indefinite that excites anxiety and a desire for the forbidden.
In the following excerpt, Gerwig interprets Lady Macbeth as a psychological “study in ambition,” albeit a self-sacrificing form of ambition that risks everything for another.
In the following essay, Moorthy identifies fear as the thematic core of Macbeth, pervading the atmosphere and guiding the actions of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.
In the following essay, Lindley considers Orson Welles's film version of Macbeth as a powerful influence on later filmic representations of the European Middle Ages.
In the following essay, Zitner comments on Shakespeare's ability to present the numerous evil acts perpetrated by Macbeth without letting his tragedy degrade to the level of melodrama.
In the following essay, Hale discusses Macbeth's final act in various televised and cinematic versions of the play, many of which suggest a less positive conclusion than Shakespeare's original text provides.
In the following essay, Liston examines gender issues and sex roles in Macbeth, and theorizes that when men and women step out of their defined roles they lose their humanity.
In the following review, Brantley commends Gregory Doran's Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) production of Macbeth as insightful and assured, particularly citing the intense performances of Antony Sher and Harriet Walter as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.
In the following review of director Henryk Baranowski's Croatian-language production of Macbeth in 1997, Baker highlights the provocative setting and its eerie, preternatural mood.
In the following review of director Yukio Ninagawa's 2002 Japanese-language production of Macbeth, Weber praises the dazzling and elegant qualities of the cast, set, and choreography, but questions the overall depth of Ninagawa's interpretation.
In the following excerpted review of the 2001 Globe season, Potter returns a mixed evaluation of director Tim Carroll's Macbeth, approving of its unconventional setting as a contemporary formal event and its individual performances, while disparaging some of Carroll's directorial additions.
In the following review of a 1995 adaptation of Macbeth performed at the Zen Zen Zo theater in Kyoto, Brady discusses the expressionistic power of this bilingual English/Japanese performance and identifies several of the production's stylistic flaws.
In the following review of Terry Hands's Macbeth, Isherwood asserts that Kelsey Grammer gave an inadequate performance of the title role in an undistinguished production.
In the following review, Duncan-Jones calls Gregory Doran's Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) production of Macbeth an interesting interpretation of the play as contemporary psychodrama.
In the following review, Taylor maintains that Terry Hands's minimalist staging of Macbeth lacked passion and energy. The critic further avers that Kelsey Grammer's portrayal of Macbeth was not the disaster that some critics called it, but merely pedestrian.
In the following review of a 2001 production of Macbeth directed by Tim Carroll, Hornby maintains that nearly every aspect of the performance—including choreography, set, characterization, and costumes—was an unmitigated disaster.
In the following review, Isherwood praises Gregory Doran's Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) staging of Macbeth, singling out the portrayals of Antony Sher and Harriet Walter.
[In the restored version] Welles's Macbeth is now a bold, exciting, innovative film. It is not Shakespeare's Macbeth. I'm not going to reopen the old critical hassle of whether or not there is an ideal Macbeth …; I simply tell again the beads of my Shakespeare-on-film rosary: no film of a Shakespeare play can be that play….
In the following excerpted review of Trevor Nunn's 1979 production of Macbeth recorded on video, Rothwell praises the haunting performances of Ian McKellen as Macbeth and Judi Dench as Lady Macbeth, as well as Nunn's skilled direction.
In the following review, Rosenberg maintains that Yukio Ninagawa's production of Macbeth was a gripping and intelligently crafted interpretation of Shakespeare's play.
