The Shakespeare Plays / Macbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth
Maybe don’t kill people even if your spouse tells you to?
Professor Michael Delahoyde explores Shakespeare’s blood-drenched tragedy, “the Scottish play,” Macbeth. The title character, intrigued by witches’ prophecies and energetically urged on by his ambitious wife Lady Macbeth, begins his descent with regicide, a concern the Earl of Oxford seems to have struggled with. Macbeth’s guilt morphs into paranoia and leads him on to friendicide, family-icide, and a fatal battle. Before a last decapitation, we can luxuriate in hallucinations, ghosts, sleepwalking, and witches giving us the recipe for evil soup.
Here are some general questions we want to try addressing.
- Why would anyone think that this play honors King James I?!
- Why is this play titled The Tragedy of Macbeth instead of The Tragedy of the Macbeths?
- Do we really have resolution at the end of the play?
Live! Sunday Nov 10
Themes
The main themes of Macbeth include
- Ambition
- Fate vs. Free Will
- Guilt and Conscience
- Regicide
- The Supernatural
Plot Summary
In Macbeth, Shakespeare tells the story of a Scottish nobleman, a valiant warrior who encounters three witches foretelling that he will become king. This sparks his inner conflict: should he wait for fate to make him king, or take matters into his own hands?
Encouraged by his even more ambitious wife, Lady Macbeth, he reluctantly opts for the latter. They plot and murder King Duncan in his sleep, allowing Macbeth to seize the throne. However, guilt and paranoia soon consume them both. Macbeth becomes increasingly tyrannical, ordering the murder of his friend Banquo and the family of nobleman Macduff, in a desperate attempt to perpetuate his reign.
As Macbeth spirals into madness, Lady Macbeth too crumbles under the weight of her guilt, famously sleepwalking and trying to wash imagined blood from her hands. Macbeth consults the witches who offer cryptic warnings about Macbeth’s seemingly impossible downfall, giving him a false sense of invincibility. But their prophecies play out during an uprising led by Macduff and Duncan’s son. In a dramatic confrontation, Macbeth is slain, and order is restored to Scotland … for the moment….
Sources
Macbeth was first published in 1623’s First Folio. The play can be dated between 1587 (the publication of Holinshead’s Chronicles) and 1611 when Dr Simon Forman recorded having seen a performance at the Globe Theatre.
What works inspired the author?
- The Buik of Croniclis of Scotland by William Stewart, a manuscript source that was not in print until the mid-19th century.
- Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicle (1587)
Act by Act Analysis and more evidence for Oxford's authorship
Michael Delahoyde, Macbeth, Overview and Act by Act.
Visit the website of Professor Michael Delahoyde, host of our series, for an act by act analysis and full treatment of Oxfordian themes in the play.
Learn more!
Shakespeare in Scotland: what did the author of Macbeth know and when did he know it? by Richard F. Whalen, The Oxfordian vol. VI 2003
Dating Shakespeare’s Plays: “The Tragedie of Macbeth” by Sally Hazelton. In Gilvary, Dating Shakespeare’s Plays. (2010): pp.368-378.
Shakespeare’s Greater Greek: Macbeth and Aeschylus’ Oresteia by Earl Showerman. Brief Chronicles Vol. III, 2011.
A Pagan Play About Language: Challenging the Traditional Dating of Macbeth by Sky Gilbert. Video of talk presented at the SOF Annual Conference, 2016.
Macbeth: A Language-Obsessed, Heretical Play by Sky Gilbert. The Oxfordian Vol. 19, 2017.
BOOKS
Oxfordian Shakespeare Series Macbeth, edited by Richard F. Whalen. Annotated edition of the full play, informed by the view that the plays were written by Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. 2nd Edition, 2013.
De Vere as Shakespeare: An Oxfordian Reading of the Canon by William Farina. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co., 2006. 44-48.
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