Customer Reviews

Macbeth (New Folger Library Shakespeare)

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Virtually all editions of Macbeth will have at least some annotations. Rummaging through five different editions, I preferred the Yale University Press version, edited by Burton Raffel, as having the most comprehensive and comprehensible notes, as well as an excellent introduction to Shakespeare's play. Raffel not only explains the meanings of obscure words, but also gives brief notes pertaining to relevant history, geography, stage directions, etc, that are rarely addressed as fully by other editors. In addition, Raffel frequently gives the proper way to stress the syllables in a line when reading it aloud, which can be extremely helpful. (However, in most places these stresses need to be very subtle, so that you don't sound like "taDUM taDUM taDUM".) And Yale's page layout is among the clearest that I've seen.

(To find this edition: at Avanced Search, enter ISBN 0300106548; or, enter Macbeth as title, and either Raffel as author or Yale as publisher.)

As a bonus, this edition includes at the back a long essay on the play by Harold Bloom. This is not an uninteresting commentary, but Bloom desperately needs a good editor. His essay is not only at least three times longer than it should be, but is startlingly repetitious. Yale would have been wise to have asked Bloom for a rewrite.

A handy little paperback pocket edition of the great play you've read and seen many times. The 1994 Penguin Popular Classic edition is interesting because it includes twenty-two pages of introductory material about Shakespeare, his times, and the play itself, all written by an unnamed editor who uses the first-person and discusses editorial choices made in this version. The editor emphasizes the fact that there are weaknesses and holes in the text, caused by Shakespeare's writing on a short deadline in 1606 and by the fact that later editors and actors and compilers probably cut-and-pasted large sections. The result, counsels the editor, is that some scenes (including Hecat's speech in III-v, and the witches' appearance in IV-i) is "probably not by Shakespeare".

This is rather a large leap. It may be true, but we have no way to know for sure. Other credible scholars (Levi, Bloom) note that these sections are unique, but do not aver that they are not by Shakespeare. In any event, it is rather interesting that this editor devotes so much space to this notion, and misses the opportunity to discuss other --more important-- elements of the play, such as the subtle poetry of Macbeth's speeches, the "post-Christian" religious significance, the blood-darkness-water themes, the parallels to Lear, or the political connections between Scottish Thanes and British Earls.

Another quibble is with the notes: all the text notes and vocabulary are at the end of the book, so an interested reader is constantly riffling back and forth. Penguin should have followed Folger's admirable lead and put the text notes on the same pages as the text itself.

"Macbeth" comes out as one of William Shakespeare's darkest and murkiest plays, most likely as a result of being written during one of Shakespeare's darkest times in his own life. This play strays away from the more common Shakespearean formula that contains a hero and his demise resulting from a specific tragic flaw. In "MacBeth", the title character is not a hero, but rather a villian. MacBeth murders the king of Scotland to bring truth to a prophecy given to him by three witches (the famous "toil and trouble" sisters). After assuming the throne, MacBeth returns to the witches and requests to hear the circumstances of his own death. The witches tell MacBeth he cannot be killed by any "man of woman born." Under a false assumption of near immortality, MacBeth relaxes his gaurd and perhaps displays his own tragic flaw of over confidence.
Focusing on the power corrupt and merciless villain MacBeth and his dastardly and influential wife Lady MacBeth, this play works as a twisted look into a mind poisioned with greed and hate. Though pessimistic and disturbing, this play must not be dismissed. It contains some of the most poetic language and beautiful lines ever to be written. It is no mystery that MacBeth stands as one of the most quoted works in literature. It is however a mystery that Shakespeare could create something so magnificient in a period when he saw life as "...a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

William Shakespeare's tragedy "Macbeth" was performed at the Globe Theater in 1605-06. The "Scottish" play was a calculated to be pleasing to James I, who took the throne of England after the death of Elizabeth Tudor in 1603. It was not simply that the play was set in the homeland of the Stuarts, but also that when Banquo's royal descendants are envisioned the last of them is the new King. (Note: Shakespeare does a similar sort of tribute to Queen Elizabeth when in the final act of "Henry VIII" the the Archbishop prophesizes great things for the infant Elizabeth. However, not only is there doubt that Shakespeare was the sole author of that particular history, it was not produced until 1612-13, ten years after Elizabeth's death.)

The play chronicles Macbeth's seizing the Scottish throne and his subsequent downfall, both aspects the result of blind ambition. However, one of the interesting aspects of "Macbeth" for me has always been its take on prophecy, which is decidedly different from the classical tradition. In the Greek myths there is no escaping your fate; in fact, one of the points of the story of Oedipus as told by Sophocles is that trying to resist your fate only makes things worse (the original prophecy was that Oedipus would slay his father; it was only after Jocasta sought to have her son killed to save her husband that the prophecy given Oedipus was that he would slay his father and marry his mother). In the Norse tradition prophecy is simply fate and manhood demands you simply resign yourself to what must happen.

But in "Macbeth" there is a different notion of prophecy that is compatible with what is found in the Bible: specifically, the idea that human beings simply cannot understand God's predictions. This is the case both with those who failed to understand the prophecies that foretold the birth of the Christ but also the book of Revelations, where the fate of the world is detailed in complex and essentially uncomprehensible symbolism. When Macbeth is presented with the first set of prophecies by the three witches, he is understandably dubious: he will become thane of Cawdor and then King, while Banquo will beget kings. However, when the first prophecy comes true, Macbeth begins to believe that the rest of the prophecy may come true. His fatal error, at least in the Greek tradition, is that he does not allow fate to bring him the crown, he takes active steps by slaying King Duncan. He compounds this error by projecting his ambitions onto Banquo; although Macbeth has Banquo killed, his son escapes to keep the prophecy intact.

Now the witches's prophecies are deceptively clear: no man born of woman may harm him and he is secure until trees start walking. Macbeth, who now believes in the inevitability of prophecy, fails to understand the fatal concept of loopholes. Thus, the nature of prophecy becomes an integral part of the play's dynamic.

I have always loved the story of Macbeth. Yes, it is bleak, but there is still hope expressed throughout. The comic breaks within the play are memorable. Who can forget the drunken porter? What about the three witches stirring their cauldron? Shakespeare's little gems throughout his tragedies are the soliloquies, and Macbeth has a number of memorable ones. The play explores the nature of ambition and the complexities of moral responsibility. It is a story of a nobleman driven to murder at the bequest of his power-hungry wife. Then we follow these two as each of them slips deeper and deeper into madness. Shakespeare sets the scenes so well in this play - the cold, draughty castle, the lonely moors. Because this play is so short, the action moves along quite quickly. And this also has the effect of showing Macbeth's descent into madness very quickly too, which makes it seem so much more horrible. Wonderful!

"Macbeth" is Shakespeare's most compact and perfectly structured play. It's wordplay, emphasis on 'equivocation,' and on 'murdered sleep' are interwoven into a rich tapestry of architectonic poetry and psychological insight dazzling even for its author. The dramatic work it most closely resembles in this regard is Sophocles' "Oedipus Tyrannus," which the poet undoubtedly studied closely in Latin translation. Sigmund Freud thought that the central motif of Shakespeare's "Macbeth" was "the curse of childlessness." Unable to have children, Macbeth murders them. Lady Macbeth tells us that she has "given suck, and know how tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me." Yet when MacDuff is confronted with the loss of his wife and children his only explanation for the enormity of the crime is to say of Macbeth, "He has no children." We must thus assume that Lady Macbeth's child was from a previous marriage (this accords with Shakespeare's historical sources) and that the witches' prophecy about Banquo's succession has confirmed for him that Fate has indeed placed into his hand "a barren scepter." The hitherto strong-willed Lady Macbeth collapses with guilt while the weak-willed Macbeth, through his attempts to reclaim his masculinity through the achievement of power, becomes so bloodthirsty that he thoroughly familiarizes himself with the dark powers that consume his unprepared wife.

Macbeth's soliloquies rival Othello's as the most powerful poetry Shakespeare has ever placed into the mouth of one of his characters. The entire work is a stunning poem. Among my favorite lines are Macbeth's haughty salutation of the witches, "How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags!" and the Sophoclean

"Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red."

"Macbeth" greatly rewards many re-readings and stands alongside "Oedipus Tyrannus," "King Lear," "Prometheus Bound" and "Othello" as one of the half-dozen great plays. The New Folger Library edition is strongly recommended.

I'll admit, it's hard for me to get into Shakespeare (so go stone me in the streets, you drama geeks). Yet, this play is a killer.....literally. I mean, they need to make this into a movie nowadays-all the battle scenes, all the drama, all the Scottish accents. This play is the epitome of action-packed. You get the real beauty of this play sitting in your AP Literature class, reading it out loud as a class, and getting the class clown to tackle the part of Lady MacBeth. It's Mac-Awesome.

It would be ridiculous for someone to come on here and give Bill a bad review. When a person writes a review on a Shakespeare play, Shakespeare is not on trial, the reviewer is. So, I have no comments on the play, just the series. This is the second Shakespeare work I have read out of the Folger Library series. The running commentary and essay at the end of the play are well done and beneficial. If you enjoy reading Shakespeare, but find the archaic language hard to grasp at times, this is a good series for you.

Shakespeare is undoubtedly a master with language, and Folger Library does another excellent job of explaining the nuances of Macbeth to the normal person. Macbeth is an intense play, and Folger's edition captures all of the darkness and mysterious violence that shrouds the title character and his wife. I had no trouble at all understanding what Shakespeare meant through the page by page annotations.

There's also a well-written intro on Shakespeare's life and his language in Macbeth, which is indispensible for a thorough understanding of the context surrounding the play. The concluding section, "A Modern Perspective," also clarifies a lot of the internal conflict within the play as well as presents a great analysis of the opposing forces and people.

A minor irritant, though, is that the page number in this edition is on the inside of the page, near the binding. It's a little bit more difficult to see with a new book. Everything else, though, is perfect. And something that I particularly like--the cover art is nice to look at. Overall, Folger Library has again successfully annotated and published another Shakespeare play.

This Folger edition of MacBeth is a perfect teaching edition. I have used it before and continue to find it exceptional for promoting understanding. The order and delivery was easy, efficient, and timely. I am extremely satisfied with this purchase.