The Tragedy of
Macbeth was probably written in 1606 and was performed that summer at Hampton Court Palace to celebrate
the state visit of Christian IV of Denmark, King James’ brother in law. Arguably one of
Shakespeare’s best, the play touches on many topics – including witchcraft, special curative powers and the ideals of kinship – that would have appealed to James and to other Elizabethans whose interest both in the king and in Scotland blossomed when James assumed the throne in 1603.
For those keen on history, James was already king of Scotland when he became king of England. His line was descended from a line of Scottish kings dating back to the eleventh century, when Macbeth takes place.
The real life Macbeth was existent in Raphael Holinshed’s (an author in Shakespeare’s time) ‘Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland’. It is believed Shakespeare turned to this book for the basic story in this play. Shakespeare often consulted histories and stories of his own and earlier eras for the plots of his plays. He then amplified, altered and combined incidents and personalities to serve his own dramatic purposes and to shape his own creations.
In Macbeth, for example, he invented the banquet scene, the ghost of Banquo, the sleepwalking scene, and the death of Lady Macbeth. History’s Banquo is a traitor and an accomplice in the murder of Duncan, whereas Shakespeare’s Banquo is honorable and loyal. In the ‘Chronicles’, Duncan is a younger, feeble king, “a fainthearted milksop,” but in Macbeth he is an older, benevolent ruler. King James claimed Duncan, Malcolm, Banquo and Siward as his Stuart ancestors, and they all appear in Macbeth as characters above reproach.
Shakespeare fashioned the story of Macbeth into one of the best-known tragic patterns – the rise and fall of a powerful but flawed individual. In Elizabethan tragedies, the main character, or tragic hero. Is generally a high-ranking individual, distinguished by such admirable traits as integrity, bravery and strength. The hero’s personality, however, also includes a fatal weakness, or tragic flaw, that causes his eventual decline from success to destruction.
Shakespeare’s
tragedy focuses on the downfall of Macbeth. At the start of the play, Macbeth is a brilliant and courageous general who unstintingly serves Duncan, his king. Macbeth is a noble Scot who commands great respect. As the play progresses, Macbeth’s hunger for more and greater power provokes increasingly reckless and violent actions. Joined in his crimes by his wife, Macbeth rushes along a desperate course of terror and destruction, and by the play’s conclusion, he is a broken man.
Macbeth has always been a theatrical favorite, from Elizabethan times to the present. In many ways, the faraway, dark, and murderous world of Macbeth is strangely current, in part because the people in the play are so vividly alive, in part because issues in the play – loyalty, fate, and quenchless ambition – are timeless. So timeless are they that it might seem like Macbeth is speaking now, when in Act v, scene v, lines 23-26, he says; “…Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage…!”