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 15
... becomes a free agent acting on its own; her words evade the deed, as if she cannot bear to see the weapon, or the wound it makes, or the actual shape of the man to be murdered. Macbeth, by contrast, sees the weapon and the deed clearly ...
... becomes a free agent acting on its own; her words evade the deed, as if she cannot bear to see the weapon, or the wound it makes, or the actual shape of the man to be murdered. Macbeth, by contrast, sees the weapon and the deed clearly ...
Page 16
... become a man, Who dares do more is none. (I.vii.46–7) What does it 'become' a man to do? In one sense this suggests actions that grace a man, as in the penitent death of Cawdor, Nothing in his life Became him like the leaving it. (I.iv ...
... become a man, Who dares do more is none. (I.vii.46–7) What does it 'become' a man to do? In one sense this suggests actions that grace a man, as in the penitent death of Cawdor, Nothing in his life Became him like the leaving it. (I.iv ...
Page 17
... becomes an emblem of the deed achieved, and as the vision fades, Macbeth's soliloquy ends with a series of images willing his identification with the powers of darkness, even as they register the 'present horror' of the moment. The ...
... becomes an emblem of the deed achieved, and as the vision fades, Macbeth's soliloquy ends with a series of images willing his identification with the powers of darkness, even as they register the 'present horror' of the moment. The ...
Page 24
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Contents
1 | |
5 | |
The Play in The Theatre
| 71 |
Enacting The Text
| 111 |
Special Studies
| 153 |
A Directors View of The Play
| 229 |
Afterword | 249 |
Index | 255 |
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Common terms and phrases
A.C. Bradley action actor ambiguity ambition audience Banquo becomes blood Cawdor character critics crown dagger deed dramatic effect Elizabethan England evil fear feel feudal Fleance gives Glamis guilt Hamlet hand Hecate Holinshed Holinshed's honour horror husband imagery images of death imagination Jacobean James JRB PH JRB Keith Michell killing Duncan kind king kingship Lady Macbeth Lady Macduff look Malcolm mind monarchy moral murder Duncan murder of Duncan nature Nicol Williamson Olivier Olivier's performance perhaps Peter Hall PH JRB PH play play's political present production prophecies reality recognises rhythm Richard III role royal Scotland seems sense Shake Shakespeare Shakespearean Tragedy Siddons significant sleep sleep-walking scene soliloquy speak speech stage Stratford-upon-Avon suggestion supernatural tanistry Thane Thane of Cawdor theatre thee theme thing thou thought tragedy virtues vision visual Weird Sisters Weyard wife Wilson Knight witchcraft witches woman women words