Dark and violent Macbeth is also the most theatrically spectacular of Shakespeare's tragedies.
Indeed for 250 years - until early this century - it was performed with grand operatic
additions set to baroque music.In his introduction Nicholas Brooke relates the play's changing
fortunes to changes within society and the theatre and investigates the sources of its enduring
appeal. He examines its many layers of illusion and interprets its linguistic turns and echoes
arguing that the earliest surviving text is an adaptation perhaps carried out by Shakespeare
himself in collaboration with Thomas Middleton.This fully annotated edition reconsiders textual
and staging problems appraises past and present critical views and represents a major
contribution to our understanding of Macbeth.
