Macbeth
1 Oct, 2020
820 English and Old English literatures
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies. When three witches prophesy that Macbeth will be king one day, he is not prepared to wait and almost the next day he murders King Duncan as he sleeps, a guest at Macbeth’s castle. From there we explore their brutal world where few boundaries are distinct - between safe and unsafe, friend and foe, real and unreal, man and beast - until Macbeth too is slaughtered.
The image above shows Nicol Williamson as Macbeth in a 1983 BBC TV adaptation.
→ Listen on BBC Sounds website
Guests
- Emma Smith
6 episodes
Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Hertford College, University of Oxford -
Kiernan Ryan No other episodes
Emeritus Professor of English Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London -
David Schalkwyk No other episodes
Professor of Shakespeare Studies and Director of Global Shakespeare at Queen Mary, University of London
Reading list
-
Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human
Harold Bloom (Fourth Estate, 1999) Google Books → -
Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth
A. C. Bradley (Penguin Books, 1991) Google Books → -
Autobiographical Sketches
Thomas de Quincey (Dodo Press, 2008) Google Books → -
Macbeth: A Critical Reader
John Drakakis and Dale Townshend (eds.) (Bloomsbury, 2013) Google Books → -
Shakespeare After Theory
David Scott Kastan (Routledge, 1999) Google Books → -
Macbeth
William Shakespeare (ed. Sandra Clark and Pamela Mason) (The Arden Shakespeare: Bloomsbury, 2015) Google Books → -
1606: William Shakespeare and the Year of Lear
James Shapiro (Faber & Faber, 2015) Google Books → -
Macbeth: Contemporary Critical Essays
Alan Sinfield (ed.) (Macmillan, 1992) Google Books → -
Macbeth: Language and Writing
Emma Smith (The Arden Shakespeare: Bloomsbury, 2013) Google Books → -
Macbeth: A Selection of Critical Essays
John Wain (ed.) (Macmillan, 1968) Google Books → -
Actors on Shakespeare: Macbeth
Harriet Walter (Faber & Faber, 2002)
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Programme ID: m000mytn
Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000mytn
Auto-category: 822.33 (English drama)
Hello (First sentence from this episode)
Hello, Shakespeare's Macbeth is one of his greatest tragedies.