Focus on MacbethJohn Russell Brown First published in 1982. Macbeth exercises a strange influence over readers and theatre audiences: the words of the text offer no easy clue to meaning or significance and in dramatic structure the play is very different from other Shakespearean tragedies. Many kinds of study are needed in order to understand the tragedy of Macbeth and this book provides a wide range of studies that respect the individuality of the text and examine it from different viewpoints. Contents include: Themes and Structure; Characterization and Narrative, Visual Effects, Performance in the Eighteenth, Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries; Historical and Political Background; Role of Witchcraft; Game Theory. Contributors include: John Russell Brown, Derek Russell Davis, Gareth Lloyd Evans, R A Foakes, Michael Goldman, Robin Grove, Peter Hall, Michael Hawkins, Brian Morris, D J Palmer, Marvin Rosenberg and Peter Stallybrass. |
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Page 3
... further and different relationships . The last section of this book contains Peter Hall's assess- ment of the play's power in the theatre and its hold over his own imagination . In an interview he answers questions about his two ...
... further and different relationships . The last section of this book contains Peter Hall's assess- ment of the play's power in the theatre and its hold over his own imagination . In an interview he answers questions about his two ...
Page 7
... further conquests , and endowed with a mind aspiring to beauty and poetry as well as to power and an earthly crown . The Henry VI plays are full of aspiring princes , and culminate in the rise of Gloucester , whose ruthless ambition is ...
... further conquests , and endowed with a mind aspiring to beauty and poetry as well as to power and an earthly crown . The Henry VI plays are full of aspiring princes , and culminate in the rise of Gloucester , whose ruthless ambition is ...
Page 8
... further variant is developed in Brutus , whose confidence in his own rectitude , the name of ' honour ' for which his line has always been noted , blinds him to the true nature of the murder of Caesar . Then , in Hamlet , Shakespeare ...
... further variant is developed in Brutus , whose confidence in his own rectitude , the name of ' honour ' for which his line has always been noted , blinds him to the true nature of the murder of Caesar . Then , in Hamlet , Shakespeare ...
Page 9
... further than this in a striking comment provoked by the actor G.F.Cooke's playing of Richard III as a ' very wicked man ' who kills for pleasure : 1 The truth is , the Characters of Shakespeare are so much the objects of meditation ...
... further than this in a striking comment provoked by the actor G.F.Cooke's playing of Richard III as a ' very wicked man ' who kills for pleasure : 1 The truth is , the Characters of Shakespeare are so much the objects of meditation ...
Page 10
... further tempted , sees the approach of retribution , falls into despair , and is brought by retribution to his death . This way of regarding Macbeth as an exemplary play dis- playing the degeneration of a great criminal who has ' no ...
... further tempted , sees the approach of retribution , falls into despair , and is brought by retribution to his death . This way of regarding Macbeth as an exemplary play dis- playing the degeneration of a great criminal who has ' no ...
Contents
7 | |
The kingdom the power and the glory | 30 |
visual effects in Macbeth | 54 |
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in the eighteenth | 73 |
194680 at StratforduponAvon | 87 |
Multiplying villainies of nature | 113 |
History politics and Macbeth | 155 |
Macbeth and witchcraft | 189 |
Hurt minds | 210 |
Directing Macbeth | 231 |
Afterword | 249 |
Index | 255 |
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Common terms and phrases
action actor ambiguity ambition appearance attempt audience Banquo becomes begins beliefs blood bring called Cawdor character comes course critics crown dagger death deed doubt drama Duncan effect Elizabethan England English evil experience expression face fact fear feel final further ghost given gives going hand head Holinshed horror human husband ideas imagination important interest issue James killing kind king Lady Macbeth later less lines living look Macduff Malcolm means mind moral movement murder nature never opening particular performance perhaps play political present production question reality relation role royal scene seems seen sense Shake Shakespeare significant society soliloquy speak speech stage success suggestion Thane theatre thing thou thought tragedy turn visual wife witchcraft witches woman women