CRITICISM

Belson, Ken. Review of Macbeth. New York Times (1 December 2002): AR7.

Reviews Japanese director Yukio Ninagawa's 2002 staging of Macbeth in Brooklyn, focusing on Ninagawa's theatrical career and his thematic evocation of mortality in the production.

Bloom, Harold, ed. Modern Critical Interpretations: William Shakespeare's Macbeth. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987, 184 p.

Presents seven essays on Macbeth by Bloom and other noted contemporary critics on subjects including power, ambition, and Macbeth's criminal mind.

Braunmuller, A. R. Introduction to The New Cambridge Shakespeare: Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, edited by A. R. Braunmuller, pp. 1-94. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Surveys the language of Macbeth from its “extravagant rhetoric and dense metaphor” to its poetic devices and varied imagery.

Brooke, Nicholas, ed. Introduction to The Oxford Shakespeare: The Tragedy of Macbeth, pp. 1-81. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990.

Surveys the language, sources, and stage and textual histories of Macbeth.

Carroll, William C., ed. Macbeth: Texts and Contexts, Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1999, 394 p.

Presents dozens of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century documents that offer insight into the cultural, historical, and literary contexts of Macbeth.

Davis, Michael. “Courage and Impotence in Shakespeare's Macbeth.” In Shakespeare's Political Pageant: Essays in Literature and Politics, edited by Joseph Alulis and Vickie Sullivan, pp. 219-36. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1996.

Explores Macbeth as a tragic incarnation of courage that, when pushed to its limits, is self-annihilating.

Iwasaki, Soji. “The Stage Tableau and Iconography of Macbeth.” In Japanese Studies in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, edited by Yoshiko Kawachi, pp. 86-98. Cranbury, N.J.: Associated University Presses, 1998.

Discusses the stage architecture and iconography employed in the earliest stage productions of Macbeth.

Jack, Jane H. “Macbeth, King James, and the Bible.” ELH 22, no. 3 (September 1955): 173-93.

Probes the influence of the New Testament Book of Revelation and the writings of King James, including his Basilikon Doron (1603) and Daemonologie (1597), on Macbeth.

Lemon, Rebecca. “Scaffolds of Treason in Macbeth.” Theatre Journal 54, no. 1 (2002): 25-43.

Comments on the “failure of didacticism” in Macbeth, examining parallels and contrasts between the execution of the Thane of Cawdor for treason in the first act of the drama and the means of Macbeth's own demise at its conclusion.

Levin, Joanna. “Lady Macbeth and the Daemonologie of Hysteria.” ELH 69, no. 1 (2002): 21-53.

Presents a feminist, psychoanalytic account of Lady Macbeth that emphasizes her symbolic position as a hysterical mother and witch figure in the misogynistic social world of Macbeth.

Morley, Sheridan. Review of Macbeth. New Statesman 131, no. 4616 (2 December 2002): 40.

Provides a brief, positive assessment of Ed Hall's 2002 production of Macbeth at the Albery Theatre in London, lauding the director's ability to effectively convey the emotional sweep of the drama to modern audiences.

Waters, D. Douglas. “Catharsis as Clarification in Macbeth.” Christian Settings in Shakespeare's Tragedies (1994): 141-73.

Discovers a cathartic finality in Macbeth's encounter with “ambition, murder, guilt, fear, and ultimate destruction” that draws audiences into an imaginative sympathy with him.

Zamir, Tzachi. “Upon One Bank and Shoal of Time: Literature, Nihilism, and Moral Philosophy.” New Literary History 31, no. 3 (2000): 529-51.

Comments on the hollowness and ambivalence of Macbeth's “vaulting ambition,” asserting that nihilism is the guiding philosophical principle in Macbeth.