Macbeth

Macbeth is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, probably first performed around 1606 and first published in the First Folio of 1623. It is his shortest tragedy. The exact date of composition is uncertain, though it is usually placed around 1606, and some arguments link it to the reign of James I, patron of Shakespeare's acting company, and to political events of those years, such as the trial of the Jesuit Henry Garnet after the Gunpowder Plot. Some scholars suggest that certain passages may be by Thomas Middleton, whose play The Witch has notable affinities with it.

The play loosely draws on the historical figure of Macbeth, King of the Scots between 1040 and 1057. Shakespeare took the story from Holinshed's Chronicles, though he transformed it considerably. Its remote origin lies in Hector Boece's Latin history of Scotland, which had deliberately obscured Macbeth's figure in order to flatter a supposed ancestor of King James V, Banquo. Shakespeare reverses this: Banquo shares Macbeth's doubts, and he becomes the father of a line of kings that would have pleased the Stuart monarch.

The plot follows a Scottish general who, after hearing from three witches that he will become king, is driven by ambition and by his wife's urging. After murdering King Duncan and seizing the throne, guilt and paranoia lead him to further crimes, including the murder of Banquo, and to a tyrannical rule. Violence ultimately destroys the couple: Lady Macbeth is consumed by madness and remorse, and Macbeth falls before an enemy he had not anticipated. The structure is tightly built: events accelerate from the first act, and tension grows through the supernatural apparitions, the banquet haunted by Banquo's ghost and the visions of the fourth act.

Its reception has been exceptional. It is among Shakespeare's most frequently staged plays and has drawn renowned actors to the leading roles. There is also a long theatrical superstition that its title should not be spoken inside theatres, and it is often referred to as "the Scottish Play". The work has been adapted for film, television, opera, novels and comics, and it remains central to reflection on power, guilt and the psychology of crime.