ARDEN RENAISSANCE DRAMA GUIDES offer students and academics practical and accessible introductions to the critical and performance contexts of key Elizabethan and Jacobean plays. Essays from leading international scholars provide invaluable insights into the text by presenting a range of critical perspectives, making the books ideal companions for study and research.Key features include:Essays on the play's critical and performance historyA keynote essay on current research and thinking about the playA selection of new essays by leading scholarsA survey of resources to direct students' further reading about the play in print and onlineRegularly performed and studied, Macbeth is not only one of Shakespeare's most popular plays but also provides us with one of the literary canon's most compellingly conflicted tragic figures. This guide offers fresh new ways into the play.

Leading scholars introduce and survey major issues in the study of Shakespeare's Macbeth.

Series Introduction, Andrew Hiscock and Lisa HopkinsMacbeth TimelineIntroduction, John Drakakis and Dale Townshend1. The Critical Backstory, Sandra Clarke2. Performance History, Laury Magnus3. The State of the Art, Julie Sanders4. New Directionsi. Macbeth in the Present, Terence Hawkesii. Unsexing Macbeth, Dale Townshendiii. Macbeth, Religion and Nationalism, Adrian Streeteiv. Macbeth and Sovereignty5. Resources, Christy DesmetBibliographyNotes on ContributorsIndex