Customer Reviews

Macbeth (Penguin Shakespeare)

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Virtually all editions of Macbeth will have at least some annotations. Rummaging through five different editions, I preferred this 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.

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.

I won't even attempt to critique Shakespeare's work, as some have done here. I'm not reviewing MacBeth, but this particular version of it. As a homeschooling Mom with three highschool students, the only way we could get through Shakespeare's works is by having a copy of Shakespeare Made Easy on hand. As it is, we completed 5 plays this year - all done orally, with each of us taking several parts. While I think it's important that my kids read Shakespeare in it's original format (and they did), I had the Shakespeare Made Easy translation handy so that I could give simple, concise explanations whenever they just didn't "get it". I recommend these books for that purpose - not for the watered down versions of these classics, but to make them understandable to the average student who might otherwise find Shakespeare's works boring and a waste of time (as many students do).

This book is a nice translation from Shakespeare's language in Macbeth to the modern easy to read language of today. As a student myself, I recommend this book to other students studying Macbeth, if they feel they do not understand exact phrases from the play. If you are already good at 'translating' the lines from the play i do not recommend this book as strongly...... but still........ it helped me a great deal with my assignments.

Macbeth has always been one of Shakespeare's most popular plays. It is vivid, has blood & murder, magic, visions, treachery, and just deserts. I mean, what is not to love? The play moves along quickly and isn't one of the longer plays. For all these reasons and more, audiences love it.

But there is a lot more to the play than the plot outline might suggest. Shakespeare brilliantly works out the subtleties of character through the action, interactions, and self-discussions in the play. It isn't a simple "action" play, it is also a masterwork of revealing the character of the characters even when they are themselves unaware of the trap they are leaping into.

I am partial to the Arden editions because I trust the text, love the extensive notes, and the introductory and additional material that helps give the play context and talks about sources Shakespeare almost certainly used. In this case Holinshed's "Chronicles of Scotland". Throughout this edition there are also discussions of the textural problems of this play: where some things seem to be missing, what might be interpolations, and so forth.

This is a very useful edition of a great play.

This is a fantastic book for someone who has difficulty understanding Shakespeare's language. I was impressed with the way the book is set up--original Shakespeare on the left and a modern translation on the right.

It is especially useful to teachers or homeschoolers because of the study questions included in the back of the book.

I give it an A+!

The subtitle is "A facing-pages translation into contemporary English" and it is not a line by line translation, it simply has short scene summaries, a disappointment given this description. Also it would be more accurate to call this a pamphlet rather than a book since it is 30 pages of text and 10 pages of bibliography and appendices. I bought it to supplement classroom material and ironically found out that appearances are not reality!

My World Literature professor suggested the "Shakespeare Made Easy" series after I told her that I would have difficulty understanding the Bard. I not only (finally!) understood what was happening but, in the future, will buy the other books in the series to do some serious catching up on Shakespeare.

The translation was in Modern English but what will surprise the reader is that many things haven't changed from Olde English. As you're reading the Modern English version, take the few seconds to look at the corresponding Olde English (on the left) and see how much you can understand.

In any case, the price is just right for this book and you'll come away with a deeper knowledge and much appreciation for Shakespeare after you're done. - Donna Di Giacomo

Shakespeare Made Easy is a delightful and fun way to get more people interested in the greatest writer that ever lived. Hopefully these books will attract more fans as they did me. MacBeth is a truly nightmarish and spooky play, filled with revenge, adventure, guilt and redemption. My favorite scene is the one in which Lady MacDuff and her son are attacked by the Murderers, immediately after a heartbreaking conversation together. The contrast of motherly love followed by brutal murder is at once horrible and fascinating. The Roman Polanski film is especially noteworthy.

Having studied this book for GCSE, I imagined it to be a typical example of an Old English story which was either soppy or CRAP!! However I was pleased and surprised to find that I was able to understand it with the help of notes. This play incorporates many features used in Shakespearean plays and which are woven to make this a play of murder, mystery, evil, righteousness, and love. THe author ingeniously uses our humble language so as to produce a masterpiece. The story is compelling and although it appears as a nonsensical plot it makes for great reading. The only reservation I have about this play is that the language will invariably put people off. Strive with it!!!!

Many readers of Shakespeare spend hours trying to navigate the Olde English. When they finally grasp the language (seldom before Act III) they are treated to a rare experience in poetic power. The pages begin flying past as the master's prose engulfs our attention. But too many have already quit in frustration or arrived arrive exhausted. Enter this nicely practical edition for the tragedy of MacBeth. Readers gain knowledge and proficiency from the excellent annotationns and helping points, as if a gentle hand is guiding us over the hump. We still need to work, but we get there faster. Then we enjoy the genuis of Shakespeare as his prose begins to fly. MacBeth is a stark tale of raw ambition, deceit, murder, passion, and madness. We follow the evil hands of MacBeth and Lady MacBeth as they lust for power. "None of woman born shall harm MacBeth," the deceitful witches tell them, along with a warning to "beware of McDuff." Hearing what they want to hear, MacBeth and Lady MacBeth proceed on a trail of pure evil. After shedding blood, their assumption of power does not provide the rewards that MacBeth and his Lady expected. Instead they find a dark spiral that descends into fear, guilt, and madness. Shakespeare apparently penned this classic in the first decade of the 1600's; now some four centuries later it remains a gripping, powerful tale. And this version should help readers "get there" a little faster, at which the master's prose takes us in stunning, poetic flow.