Focus on Macbeth

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.

Introduction; Part 1 Themes and structure; Chapter 1 Images of death: ambition in Macbeth, R. A. Foakes; Chapter 2 The kingdom, the power and the glory in Macbeth, Brian Morris; Chapter 3 ‘A new Gorgon’: visual effects in Macbeth, D.J. Palmer; Part 2 The play in the theatre; Chapter 4 Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Marvin Rosenberg; Chapter 5 Macbeth: 1946–80 at Stratford-upon-Avon, Gareth Lloyd Evans; Part 3 Enacting the text; Chapter 6 ‘Multiplying villainies of nature’, Robin Grove; Chapter 7 Language and action in Macbeth, Michael Goldman; Part 4 Special studies; Chapter 8 History, politics and Macbeth, Michael Hawkins; Chapter 9 Macbeth and witchcraft, Peter Stallybrass; Chapter 10 Hurt minds, Derek Russell Davis; Part 5 A director's view of the play; Chapter 11 Directing Macbeth, Peter Hall, John Russell Brown; afterwOrd Afterword, John Russell Brown;

John Russell Brown