Eric Rasmussen

A profoundly affecting play, Macbeth is Shakespeare's darkest tragedy, though perhaps not as nihilistic as the pre-Christian King Lear. Not that Macbeth's Christian era has any considerable redemptive effect on the play. There is Christian imagery throughout the play, of course, but I would contend with critics like Empson and Bloom that Shakespeare was not a particularly Christian playwright. It has hard to say anything about Shakespeare from his plays - he is the least auto-biographical show more writer in the Western tradition, one might say. He may well have been Christian (perhaps even Roman Catholic, as some have speculated) but I do not think his plays, Macbeth least of all, espouse any overt religious message. One can tack such a message onto Macbeth, if you wish, by investing Macbeth's opponents (young Malcolm, Ross, Macduff, and the other rebellious thanes of Scotland) with the ethos of 'good Christian knights', sent to kill the emissary of evil. But I would contend that this is a misguided misreading of the play. Macbeth may be morally abhorrent, but the play is closer in structure to a Sophoclean tragedy, with the focus nearly entirely on Macbeth, not on the 'avenging Christian heroes'.

Bloom contends that Macbeth is extremely horrifying not because of its disturbing imagery and actions:Titus Andronicus is much more bloody, and yet less horrifying than Macbeth, and in any case, playgoers of his time could go to Tyburn to watch bloody executions. Rather, the horror is in Macbeth's extreme interiority and his proleptic imagination, which infects the whole play, as well as those who watch or read the play. Reading Macbeth awakens anxieties in us because it makes us aware of our own propensity and capacity for evil. 'Evil' is, of course, a particularly ambiguous term nowadays, with relativism making such a strong claim to our morality. But, within the confines of world morality, few would claim that Macbeth and his wife's initial ethos of 'the ends justify the means' is not particularly terrible. Even the Macbeths realise the horror of what they have done, though it has diverging effects on the two. In any case, the though that we may be capable of atrocities is uniquely tempting in this play. Macbeth is initially a 'golden boy', though we sense the danger of his propensity for slaughter, even though it is initially in service of the monarch. I never lost my admiration for Macbeth's bravery throughout the play, though I would strongly condemn his actions. It is this dichotomy between centripetal admiration, and a concurrent centrifugal revulsion, which draws one into Macbeth's unique psychology.

Lady Macbeth is the only of other strong character in the play - the thanes and Malcolm are colourless in comparison. But she falls away after the beginning of Act III, and the play then focuses on Macbeth to the near-exclusion of everything else. This is unique in a Shakespearean tragedy - even Hamlet has his mother, uncle, and Horatio. Macbeth is left centre-stage, with his famous soliloquy on death ('Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow...'). Though he is killed, we remain strangely uneasy at the end of the play. I think this is because of the above-mentioned identification with Macbeth: we fear our capabilities for evil, but, in a perverse sense, also exult in them. Even more perversely, I felt a distaste for king Malcolm and his easy morality. Perhaps I am merely a misanthropic egoist, always fearing that the 'do-gooding rabble' might come after me as well. All I can say to that is:

Stars, hide your fires!
Let not light see my black and deep desires.

More seriously (well, you judge whether I was serious previously...) is the role of the witches / weird sisters in the play. Do they control Macbeth, planting the seed of murder in his mind? Or has he always had the potential for evil in him? The text is ambiguous about this, but I suspect that Macbeth considers evil long before the witches appear. For instance, they never, ever tell Macbeth to do anything. He comes to the idea of murder all by himself, with some promptings from his wife. And, conversely, when they make predictions to Banquo, Banquo does not run off to kill the monarch. Evil (whatever you mean by that word) seems to reside in humanity itself, not in the outside universe. Which is a bit of a cop-out: the witches are, after all, in the play. Bloom says, despite his fascination with the witches, that they are nearly redundant, which I would agree with, following my interpretation of Macbeth's own culpability. But, then, why did Shakespeare feel the need to add them to the play? Was it only because James I had an inordinate interest in witches and the supernatural in general? This hardly seems like a good enough reason for such a large aspect of the play. Is it because Holinshed mentions them in his Chronicles, on which the play is based? Shakespeare often leaves out things in Holinshed which he finds extraneous. Or did Shakespeare also find witches fascinating? It could be for anyone of these reasons, but I think the last is the most intriguing.

This is, obviously, a great play. It is economical, fast-paced, and cuts to the bone of what Renaissance tragedy could do. It is also frightening, and more so the more one thinks about it. I could say much more about the play - I've left out a whole discussion on the use of humour in the Porter's scene, which Coleridge hated, but which De Quincey examined at length. I also haven't said much about the role of imagery in the play, or the pathetic fallacy of nature responding to the death of the king. Time is short, the art too long.

On a last note: thank God this play isn't as amenable to post-modern reimagings as, say, Othello or The Tempest! I hate polemical interpretations which pervert Shakespeare's plays beyond all recognition. Retellings are fine, but don't give me a Marxist-feminist-structuralist play in which Macbeth is a hero of the proletariat, who kills the factory boss, but then descends into a homo-erotic coupling with the cross-dressing 'Lady' Macbeth, who convinces him to re-exploit the poor factory workers.

Obviously, at the end, he is overthrown because of repressed longings for Malcolm, who resembles his mother. Obviously.

God, help us. show less

When I saw the summary on the Early Reviewers request page I quickly jumped over to the "request" button. I studied English in college and absolutely loved renaissance literature, particularly Shakespeare, so I was excited to jump right in as soon as I received the book. Despite being quite familiar with Shakespeare's works, I never really knew much about the plays in physical form, if that makes sense; when I studied them, the folios and what the plays were written on rarely came up as it show more was the plays themselves that we concentrated on. This book opened my eyes to just how valuable the original folios are and all the mystery and intrigue that occurred as those books changed hands throughout the years. I found this incredibly interesting and was a bit disappointed that the book was less than two hundred pages because this is a subject I'd gladly have read much more about.

Reading this book I realized part of what made it so captivating for me: the author clearly loves what he does and that shows through in his writing. I liked all the personal anecdotes about his team's experiences as they worked on tracking down different copies of the folios. While I do realize that frequently Rasmussen gives his own opinions about what could have happened in the past rather than cold hard facts about missing copies, I didn't find this to be a problem and thought it made the book more accessible to a wider audience than if it had been more scholarly.

There are only two real flaws I could see with the book. The first is that it is just a sort of introduction into the subject. It isn't particularly in depth and the author does include a lot of personal opinions and speculations, but I do think this to be a really good introduction. It ensnared me and has me wanting to find out more on the subject, anyway! The other problem is that the book was somewhat disjointed; maybe with a bit more editing, the chapters could have fit better together or something like that. Regardless of these two flaws, I really enjoyed this book and I'll give it 4 stars. show less

I'm so very glad to have this as part of my collection. I adore the layout and aims of Bate & Rasmussen's RSC Complete Works, even if I ultimately believe the more all-encompassing scholarship of the Ardens is the pinnacle in Shakespearean research. But every home should have a complete works, and the RSC is top-notch.

Of course, a "Collaborative Works" is always going to be divisive among reviewers, and my own mind is both rapturous and doubtful about this edition. The plays herein are show more freshly edited and lovingly presented, with a vast amount of detail about the authorship question, stylistic analysis, recent productions, and an overall view of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. (One of the most important changes in scholarship in the last 50 years is a renewed willingness to see Shakespeare as a creative working in an active theatre industry, rather than some gloomy tower-bound "author" creating plays.) While I'm academically conservative, it is true that the academic establishment has a tendency to grow defensive against change, and I welcome the editors keeping Shakespearean scholarship on its toes. Some of the plays here almost undoubtedly have the Bard's blood running through them, and it's great to see them being revived.

If I have any issues, it's really only that there could have been MORE. The editors openly admit that "The London Prodigal" is very probably not by Shakespeare. I'm completely fine with that. As they point out time and time again, this notion that plays by Shakespeare are instantly valid for our day and age while others are simply archaic is absurd. These plays are vibrant and enjoyable, as well as reminders of the great variety and versatility of the theatre of an entire age. So I suppose my shame is, after reading the introduction and reasons why some plays were omitted... well, why not include a few more? Make this a brand new "Works", to bring so many plays back into people's homes?

Anyhow, that's a slightly ambitious point. I'm very happy to have this. Bate & Rasmussen may have drawn the net too wide in search of Shakespeare (even if I think it is too narrow overall) but it's surely better to encompass all of Shakespeare plus some assortments, than to omit some of his words simply out of some sense of tradition? show less

The title of this book is pretty misleading, because it's not actually about thefts of Shakespeare First Folios. It's about trying to find copies, some of which were stolen, some of which the locations were simply unknown.

That said, it's still an interesting and enjoyable look at some scholarly detective work, and you can learn a fair bit not only about First Folios, but about the book trade and book identification.