Macbeth by William Shakespeare

 Macbeth is one of William Shakespeare's tragedies written and first performed in 1606 to King James the First of England. The play is about this heroic soldier, Macbeth, who meets three witches who give him three prophecies; one that he will be Thane of Glamis which he already is, The second that he will be Thane of Cawdor which the audience knows he is but Macbeth does not know and the third that he will be king. We then see the rise and fall of Macbeth as he becomes King and then finally dies. On the base layer, this play is about The Divine Right of kings and what would happen to traitors if they tried to assassinate the king, which was a problem for King James who was in the middle of a few unsuccessful assassination attempts. When we look a bit deeper, the play is also about the supernatural, children, honesty, loyalty, betrayal, Kingship and so much more which is all written for a Jacobean audience.

I like reading this play because it is full of action and you get to really look inside different peoples minds at what they think of King Macbeth. Although this play was written well before the Gothic genre, it is clear that there are lots of Gothic traditions in the play which makes it a very exciting read and in a way raises the question, Was Shakespeare father of Gothic Literature? I also like the deeper meanings of the play which are not entirely easy to notice for the modern reader the first time but shows us despite this play taking place in 1606, the Jacobean audience had some very interesting mindsets and the characters of the play also had some very interesting mindsets. From my GCSE studies, I have also learned that it is a play that Sigmund Freud has read and commented on which highlights just how interesting the play is and the fact that it clearly has elements of psychology makes it a play of much interest particularly for me. I find once you get into the play, it is very good and it takes you to a mindset where you almost cannot stop reading.

At first, I understand that Macbeth may not be a play that you want to read or watch because it is something you need a 'because' to be able to read. For me, I had to read it because it is one of my texts for my AQA GCSE English Literature course and if I was not studying this text for my course I probably would never of read it. Going on from that, another reason why it is so had to read is that it is 400-year-old language, which uses words which we no longer use and may not know the meanings of. This is one reason why I took me so long to read this play however, I used the CGP GCSE Macbeth complete play version as not only it pointed out keep language and the themes but it translated the old words into more modern words which are easier to understand. I do not really like revision guides but I must give CGP some credit for this guide.

Altogether, Macbeth will not be for everyone and especially if you have no reason to read it, I think it is a good piece of literature to read. Others will prefer watching it at a theatre rather than reading it which is understandable but I actually prefer reading it to watching it personally. This is a very action-packed play which as mentioned above looks at a variety of things and although they are not really as relevant for today's audience, it is interesting to study what was relevant for the Jacobean audience. I would rate this text as 2 stars. I rate it at that because yes it is quite hard to read, no it may not be the most interesting thing to read or watch but there are some things that make it good when you understand what is going on and what the language means. I acknowledge we are all different and although I personally rate this at 2 stars, someone else may rate it at 5 stars. I would encourage people to read a version of Macbeth, even if it is not the original version but rather a new version with translations.