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Macbeth is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and one of his best-known plays. Often referred to as an archetypal tale, it warns against lust for power and the betrayal of friends. Shakespeare based the play loosely on a King Macbeth of Scotland. The play is traditionally considered "cursed", and thus many actors refer to it as "The Scottish Play" to avoid naming it.
Tallulah_Rose: "Wyrd Sisters" is a parody of "Macbeth", so everyone who enjoyed "Macbeth" might also like "Wyrd Sisters". On the other hand it's essential to have read "Macbeth" before reading "Wyrd Sisters".
themulhern: Shakespeare and Macbeth is a serious book for intelligent juvenile readers about the history, in both senses of the word, that inspired the play, and about the political circumstances that likely influenced Shakespeare's subject and his plot.
I've never read nor watched a Shakespeare play before, nor have I actually read the script of any play. I'm reading the Folger Shakespeare Library version from 2013, which has a bunch of notes and whatnot. The notes are helpful but wow I am WAY in over my head here, super lost, the language used is very much throwing me for a loop. Not sure if I'll finish reading this or maybe just put it back and try some other Shakespeare play first before coming back to this one. Unironically gives me the feeling I get when reading things in Japanese, of "uhh yeah I think I know what this part says, so I guess I kinda know what's going on", just while reading English somehow.
I studied this in high school and enjoyed it but now I love it! So much intensity, intrigue, horror, greed and despair in just a short play. I could listen, read and watch this on repeat happily. If I did read this on repeat though I would also cry every time I reached Scene IV Act III, it is incredibly well written and achingly sad. -
"All my pretty ones? Did you say all? O hell-kite! All? What, all my pretty chickens and their dam At one fell swoop?"
"So fair and foul a play I have not seen." Ahh the witches, the driving force of Lady Macbeth, the ghosts, the powerful soliloquies, the twists, the turns, the denouement. Another masterpiece by Shakespeare. I very much enjoyed this one in high school. ( )
I simply love this play, it's one of my most favourite books ever. I was only fourteen when I read it for the first time and I fell head over heels in love with Macbeth and his wife, and the witches, and the walking forest. I love this story, definitely five stars. ( )
I think these are plays you need to understand, before you understand. I know, that's a bit of oxymoron, but on first read, I spent more time on the footnotes and annotations than actually reading the story. Of course, it probably helps to see it performed as well. I'm glad I read, and its certainly going to be added to my reread pile, I think on second reading I will get considerable more out of it. ( )
And damn'd be him that first cries, "Hold, enough!"
Last words
What's more to do Which would be planted newly with the time, As calling home our exiled friends abroad That fled the snares of watchful tyranny, Producing forth the cruel ministers Of this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen, Who, as 'tis thought, by self and violent hands Took off her life; this, and what needful else That calls upon us, by the grace of Grace We will perform in measure, time and place. So, thanks to all at once and to each one, Whom we invite to see us crown'd at Scone.
Macbeth is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and one of his best-known plays. Often referred to as an archetypal tale, it warns against lust for power and the betrayal of friends. Shakespeare based the play loosely on a King Macbeth of Scotland. The play is traditionally considered "cursed", and thus many actors refer to it as "The Scottish Play" to avoid naming it.
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Macbeth è uno dei picchi dell'immensa creatività di Shakespeare. Scozia, XI secolo. Istigato da apparizioni soprannaturali e da una moglie ambiziosa, il barone Macbeth uccide re Duncan e s'invischia in una catena di delitti fino a prendere coscienza della vanità del mondo e della diabolica insidiosità delle profezie. Con l'aiuto delle truppe inglesi, la nobiltà lealista, guidata da Macduff, uccide l'usurpatore ristabilendo l'ordine. Shakespeare condensa diciassette anni di storia in un tempo apparente di poche settimane, porta in scena coscienze logorate dal Male, dà vita a personaggi immortali, come quello di Lady Macbeth, miscela di cupidigia, odio, follia. Da questa tragedia Verdi trasse un'opera memorabile e il cinema, grazie a Welles (1948), Kurosawa (1957), Polanski (1971), e ora Branagh (2013) e Justin Kurzel (2015), non ha mai smesso di esplorarne le potenzialità poetiche. (piopas)
Logan Review:
I've been fond of this take on the consequences of messing with fate. Guilt drives Macbeth insane and seeing that in hallucinations is very interesting. Both of them show their guilt by becoming the opposite of who they were in the beginning.
Haiku summary
If he had waited, The crown might have come to him, Legitimately. (hillaryrose7)