Commentary

• Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth

  - A.C. Bradley, Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth (London: Macmillan, 1904)
  Excerpt: “In these lectures I propose to consider the four principal tragedies of Shakespeare from a single point of view. Nothing will be said of Shakespeare’s place in the history of either English literature or of the drama in general. No… More

• Shakespeare’s Politics By Allan Bloom

  - Bloom, Allan. Shakespeare’s Politics. With an essay by Harry V. Jaffa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981.
  From the publisher: Taking the classical view that the political shapes man’s consciousness, Allan Bloom considers Shakespeare as a profoundly political Renaissance dramatist. He aims to recover Shakespeare’s ideas and beliefs and to make his work… More

• Macbeth’s Last Words

  - José Benardete, “Macbeth’s Last Words,” Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy, 1, no. 1 (1970): 63–75
  Excerpt: Last words, one supposes, have always been felt to be especially poignant. At any rate, “they say the tongues of dying men / Enforce attention.” Although Macbeth is denied a death speech proper, he is given what comes as close as… More

• The Insufficiency of Virtue: Macbeth and the Natural Order

  - Jan H. Blits, The Insufficiency of Virtue: Macbeth and the Natural Order (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996)
  Summary from the Publisher: The first scene-by-scene philosophical study of any Shakespeare play, this book demonstrates why Shakespeare’s poetic writings still arouse and sustain serious inquiry and reflection. Using a combination of philosophical… More

• Macbeth and the Gospelling of Scotland

  - Paul A. Cantor, “Macbeth and the Gospelling of Scotland,” in Shakespeare as Political Thinker, eds. Alvis and West, 315–51
  Excerpt: Shakespeare develops the tragedy of Macbeth out of this tension between the heroic warrior’s ethic and the gospel truth. The story of Macbeth gave Shakespeare a chance to portray a world in which Christianity has changed the fabric of… More