Macbeth
William Shakespeare
Stephen Orgel (Editor)
ISBN 9780143128564
eISBN 9780698410732
ASIN B0113LYE38
Five years back I started reading Shakespeare again, as my children were being introduced to it in High school. Then three years ago my son who is now 17 found he had a love for the Bard and for his plays, much as I did at that age. We had been sticking to the Oxford School Shakespeare editions as those were the versions they were reading in school, in fact I have read The Tragedy of Macbeth three times in that version over the last 5 years, so this year I decided to read this version. I have read it twice as my kids were reading it in school, and before going to see Goblin MacBeth. It was time to switch up the edition I was reading. We loved that the Pelican has the complete works of Shakespeare in individual volumes, and we have been picking those up to read, he gets the physical and I grab the eBooks. I loved that there are eBooks for all volumes in this series. This year we picked up tickets for three Shakespeare plays at The Stratford Festival, including this play, we did three of the Bards plays there last year and year before as well. This year his little sister aged 14 joined us for the live version of this one and now has a deep love for Shakespears’s plays both on stage and in the written format. She was amazed by the production and by the story in the play.
The Pelican Classics were among my favourite editions of the plays when I was a youth myself. I often hunted used bookstores for the hard cover edition. I think the last time I read this would have been about 35-40 years ago. And even though I have not yet seen a production it came back quickly. The description of this edition states:
“This edition of Macbeth is edited with an introduction by series editor Stephen Orgel. and was recently repackaged with cover art by Manuja Waldia. Waldia received a Gold Medal from the Society of Illustrators for the Pelican Shakespeare series. Cover artist Manuja Waldia received a Gold Medal from the Society of Illustrators for the Pelican Shakespeare series.
The legendary Pelican Shakespeare series features authoritative and meticulously researched texts paired with scholarship by renowned Shakespeareans. Each book includes an essay on the theatrical world of Shakespeare’s time, an introduction to the individual play, and a detailed note on the text used. Updated by general editors Stephen Orgel and A. R. Braunmuller, these easy-to-read editions incorporate over thirty years of Shakespeare scholarship undertaken since the original series, edited by Alfred Harbage, appeared between 1956 and 1967. With stunning new covers, definitive texts, and illuminating essays, the Pelican Shakespeare will remain a valued resource for students, teachers, and theater professionals for many years to come.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.”
Based on the commonly accepted chronological order of Shakespeare’s plays this is right about the middle of the pack, with a performance recorder in 1601. The sections in this volume prior to the text of the play are:
Publisher’s Note
The Theatrical World
William Shakespeare Of Stratford-Upon-Avon, Gentleman
The Question Of Authorship
The Texts of Shakespeare
Introduction
Note on the Text
Macbeth
Names of the Actors
I.1 Thunder and lightning. Enter three Witches.
I.2 Alarum within. Enter King [Duncan], Malcolm, Donalbain, Lennox, with Attendants, meeting a bleeding Captain.
I.3 Thunder. Enter the three Witches.
I.4 Flourish. Enter King [Duncan], Lennox, Malcolm, Donalbain, and Attendants.
I.5 Enter Macbeth’s Wife, alone, with a letter.
I.6 Hautboys and torches. Enter King [Duncan], Malcolm, Donalbain, Banquo, Lennox, Macduff, Ross, Angus, and Attendants.
I.7 Hautboys. Torches. Enter a Sewer, and divers Servants with dishes and service over the stage. Then enter Macbeth.
II.1 Enter Banquo, and Fleance, with a torch before him.
II.2 Enter Lady [Macbeth].
II.3 Enter a Porter. Knocking within.
II.4 Enter Ross with an Old Man.
III.1 Enter Banquo.
III.2 Enter Macbeth’s Lady and a Servant.
III.3 Enter three Murderers.
III.4 Banquet prepared. Enter Macbeth, Lady [Macbeth], Ross, Lennox, Lords, and Attendants.
III.5 Thunder. Enter the three Witches, meeting Hecate.
III.6 Enter Lennox and another Lord.
IV.1 Thunder. Enter the three Witches.
IV.2 Enter Macduff’s Wife, her Son, and Ross.
IV.3 Enter Malcolm and Macduff.
V.1 Enter a Doctor of Physic and a Waiting Gentlewoman.
V.2 Drum and Colors. Enter Menteith, Caithness, Angus, Lennox, Soldiers.
V.3 Enter Macbeth, Doctor, and Attendants.
V.4 Drum and Colors. Enter Malcolm, Siward, Macduff, Siward’s Son, Menteith, Caithness, Angus, [Lennox, Ross,] and Soldiers, marching.
V.5 Enter Macbeth, Seyton, and Soldiers, with Drum and Colors.
V.6 Drum and Colors. Enter Malcolm, Siward, Macduff, and their Army, with boughs.
V.7 Enter Macbeth.
V.8 Enter Macbeth.
The publishers note states:
“Certain textual features of the new Pelican Shakespeare should be particularly noted. All lines are numbered that contain a word, phrase, or allusion explained in the glossarial notes. In addition, for convenience, every tenth line is also numbered, in italics when no annotation is indicated. The intrusive and often inaccurate place headings inserted by early editors are omitted (as has become standard practice), but for the convenience of those who miss them, an indication of locale now appears as the first item in the annotation of each scene.
In the interest of both elegance and utility, each speech prefix is set in a separate line when the speakers’ lines are in verse, except when those words form the second half of a verse line. Thus the verse form of the speech is kept visually intact. What is printed as verse and what is printed as prose has, in general, the authority of the original texts. Departures from the original texts in this regard have the authority only of editorial tradition and the judgment of the Pelican editors; and, in a few instances, are admittedly arbitrary.”
And the introduction begins with:
“SHAKESPEARE’S SCOTTISH TRAGEDY was written early in the reign of James I, the Scottish king who succeeded Queen Elizabeth on the English throne in 1603. It is impossible to date the play precisely, but certain allusions – especially to the Gunpowder Plot, the Jesuit attempt to blow up Parliament in 1605, and the subsequent trial of the conspirators – suggest a date in 1606. The impulse to write a Scottish play must have been in the broadest sense political: the king who had, as one of his first official acts, taken Shakespeare’s company under his patronage, so that the Lord Chamberlain’s Men became the King’s Men, traced his ancestry back to Banquo. But there is little about the play to suggest that Shakespeare’s purpose was to celebrate his patron’s lineage, just as there is nothing straightforward about the history Shakespeare chose to dramatize.”
Later we are informed:
“Though there is no record of a court performance, King James surely must have wanted to see a play that included both witches and his ancestors. Indeed, whether or not King James was in the audience, the fact that it is the witches who provide the royal entertainment can hardly be accidental. The king was intensely interested in witchcraft. He attended witch trials whenever he could, and considered himself an expert on the theory and practice of sorcery. His dialogue on the subject, Daemonology, first published in Edinburgh in 1597, was reissued (three times) upon his accession to the English throne in 1603. This and the Basilikon Doron, his philosophy of kingship, were the two works through which he chose to introduce himself to his English subjects: witchcraft and kingship have an intimate relationship in the Jacobean royal ideology.”
The introduction concludes with:
“The addition is significant, and revealing: in Shakespeare, Macduff, fulfilling the prophecy, is simply acting as Malcolm’s agent, the man not born of woman acting for the king uncontaminated by women. But why does virtue need an agent, while vice can act for itself? And what about the agent: does the unanswered question about Macduff abandoning his family not linger in the back of our minds? Does his willingness to condone the vices Malcolm invents for himself not say something disturbing about the quality of Macduff as a hero? Is he not, in fact, the pragmatic soldier who does what needs to be done so that the saintly king can stay clear of the complexities and”
This play comprises 5 acts and a total of 28 scenes. This play falls in about two thirds of the way through the list of plays by Shakespeare, with the dates 605-1606 associated with it. The play is immensely popular and is performed time and again, often with changes in location and time. And it is among my favourites of his works.
With a dual form of dyslexia I greatly prefer eBooks. I do so because I can change the colour of the page and the font, and also change the font. I really wish that with eBooks of plays such as this one that there would be 2 copies of the play. One completely unadorned, no footnotes or end notes. And the other with the usual accompanying notes. I want a reader’s edition of the play to just be able to read it. Second if that is not to happen, I wish the notes were at the end of the act or even the end of the whole play. But that is just a personal preference. The Pelican Classics were originally published between 1956 and 1967. The Complete Pelican Shakespeare was first published in 1969. With this edition having copyright dates of 1956, 1971, 2000, and 2016. Making it one of the most currently revised that I have read. I believe the Pelican if one of the few editions to have released all 38 plays and the volume of Sonnets, as separate editions. Some other academic publishers limited to specific popular editions, and even then have not released eBooks of them all. (OUP School Shakespeare less than half have eBook editions) As such I am thankful that all 39 volumes from this series are available and available digitally.
I am glad I picked this up to read with my son before going to see a performance later in the year. It reminded me how much I loved these editions when I was young and we have started collecting the eBook versions now. If you are looking for a good copy of the play to read or study I can easily recommend this edition.
Other Posts Related to Shakespeare:
Reviews of Stratford Shakespeare Productions:
Richard III – 2022
Hamlet – 2022
King Lear – 2023
Goblin MacBeth - 2023
Something Rotten – 2024
Romeo & Juliette – 2024
Cymbeline – 2024
Twelfth Night – 2024
The Winter's Tale - 2025
…
Reviews of Shakespeare Movies:
Cymbeline – 2014
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