Shakespeare's play about an indecisive Danish prince urged on to revenge against his uncle by his murdered father.

This is the most extensively annotated edition of Macbeth currently available, offering a thorough reconsideration of one of Shakespeare's most popular plays. A full and accessible introduction studies the immediate theatrical and political contexts of Macbeth's composition, especially the Gunpowder Plot and the contemporary account of an early performance at the Globe. It treats such celebrated issues as whether the Witches compel Macbeth to murder;...

A thrilling interpretation of one of Shakespeare's most famous and compelling characters, Macbeth is a dramatic re-imagining of the realities of war-torn times and a tale of all-consuming passion and ambition.

Susan Dunn is Professor of French Literature and the History of Ideas at Williams College. She is author of Nerval et le roman historique (Minard). The public beheading of Louis XVI was a unique and troubling event that scarred French collective memory for two centuries. To Jacobins, the king's decapitation was the people's coronation. To royalists, it was deicide. Nineteenth-century historians considered it an alarming miscalculation, a symbol...

"Macbeth, a general in the king's army, is returning from battle when he comes upon three witches who tell him that one day he'll be king. At first Macbeth dismisses their predictions, but an evil seed takes root in his mind, and soon he is convinced and impatient. At the urging of his wife, he resolves to take the throne by the most direct path: a dagger in the heart of King Duncan. But 'blood will have blood,' and when others grow suspicious of...

When a trio of witches prophesy Macbeth's ascension to the throne, Lady Macbeth pushes her husband into a murderous spree. But once crowned king of Scotland, Macbeth sees ghastly visions, fueled by guilt and a new prophecy, that ensure his ultimate downfall.

Roman Polanski imbues his unflinchingly violent adaptation of William Shakespeare's tragedy of ruthless ambition and murder in medieval Scotland with grit and dramatic intensity. Jon Finch and Francesca Annis star as a decorated warrior rising in the ranks and his driven wife, scheming together to take the throne by any means.

Driven by ambition and an unscrupulous wife, Macbeth murders the King of Scotland and claims the throne for himself. Haunted by ghosts and vexed by witches, he and his wife descend into the depths of madness and paranoia as they crumble beneath the weight of their crimes.

On August 18, 1648, with no relief from the siege in sight, the royalist garrison holding Colchester Castle surrendered and Oliver Cromwell's army firmly ended the rule of Charles I of England. To send a clear message to the fallen monarch, the rebels executed four of the senior officers captured at the castle. Yet still, the king refused to accept he had lost the war. As France and other allies mobilized in support of Charles, a tribunal was hastily...

Roman Polanski imbues his unflinchingly violent adaptation of William Shakespeare's tragedy of ruthless ambition and murder in medieval Scotland with grit and dramatic intensity. Jon Finch and Francesca Annis star as a decorated warrior rising in the ranks and his driven wife, scheming together to take the throne by any means.