Macbeth in Never too Late to Read Classics

Jul 29, 2016 J. Sebastian rated it it was amazing

Shelves: english-classics

For long has this been my favourite of the plays. Though brief in compass it has everything both to enthrall and horrify the reader: storms, witches, darkness, war, blood, murder, ghosts. Some of the lines of Lady Macbeth are so terrifying that I am unable to bring myself to utter them aloud, but beyond its literary quality, and its sheer power to captivate the reader and hold him spellbound, there are deep and important questions to consider about a world in which Fair is foul, and foul is fair ...more

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Jan 23, 2015 Sara rated it it was amazing

Shelves: plays, poetry, classics, historical-fiction, shakespeare

I enjoyed this re-read of MacBeth, a play that I have read probably a half-dozen times. I find I can still recite by rote the famous speech, Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time. in its entirety. Thank you, Mrs. Camp for making me memorize it all those years ago.

There is an irony that washes over MacBeth. A man of less ruthless ambition would have been happy to have been named Thane of Cawdor, could have served his I enjoyed this re-read of MacBeth, a play that I have read probably a half-dozen times. I find I can still recite by rote the famous speech, Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time. in its entirety. Thank you, Mrs. Camp for making me memorize it all those years ago.

There is an irony that washes over MacBeth. A man of less ruthless ambition would have been happy to have been named Thane of Cawdor, could have served his king, and might have ended his days with an exceptional reputation and much respected and lauded by his peers. He might never have ascended to a throne, but then he might have been a man who could have died content and mourned in a bed of old-age. Alas, no story in that! There is an evil in MacBeth that needs little prodding to emerge and that is matched by no one else in this tale but the Lady herself.

Shakespeare delights us with ghostly visitations, the machinations of witches, and a few of his most famous and moving speeches. He can, indeed, put profound words into the mouths of villains and reveal much wisdom in the words of fools. It is his command of language in all its double-meanings and layers of connotation that make him the master of his craft.

I have not ever seen MacBeth staged, which is a pity. I am sure, to have the full impact, you really must see it enacted. Perhaps that is the reason it has never made it into the top tier for me, a place reserved for Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Othello and a couple of the histories.

I love stumbling across lines in Shakespeare that have been used by other authors for book titles or quotes that have been used to the point that they have become idioms in our language. MacBeth has several of those…”something wicked this way comes”, “the sound and the fury”, “a charmed life”, “be all and end all”, “at one fell swoop.” Ah, thank you, Mr. Shakespeare, for enriching our language and telling us stories we can enjoy over and over again.

MacBeth is powerful. It endures because it is full of truths that can still be glimpsed in the world of 2018. It is a treatise on human nature, which sometimes runs afoul of what is good or godly or moral or sane.
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Aug 26, 2015 Josh Caporale rated it it was amazing

While I am a lover of literature, I must say that Shakespeare is not one of my favorites. To me, he is more about language and lyrical speaking than he is about creating a good story (just about every story he wrote was borrowed, though it was during a time where this did not matter). I did, however, really enjoy reading Macbeth and I would say that, along with Julius Caesar, this is my favorite play from his collection. The key characters, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, are power hungry characters t ...more

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Feb 19, 2018 Shirley (stampartiste) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: challenge-bingo-2018, challenge-back-to-the-classics-2018, read-classics, favorite-author-shakespeare-william

I absolutely loved this play! It was so tragic to see Macbeth devolve so quickly, as one crime made the next and the next easier and easier to perform or command others to perform. (view spoiler) ...more

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