From Harold Bloom, the greatest Shakespeare scholar of our time, comes
a portrait of Macbeth, one of William Shakespeare's most complex and
compelling anti-heroes--the final volume in a series of five short books
about the great playwright's most significant personalities: Falstaff,
Cleopatra, Lear, Iago, and Macbeth.
From the ambitious and mad titular character to his devilish wife Lady
Macbeth to the mysterious Three Witches, Macbeth is one of William
Shakespeare's more brilliantly populated plays and remains among the
most widely read. Macbeth is a distinguished warrior hero, who over the
course of the play, transforms into a brutal, murderous villain and pays
an extraordinary price for committing an evil act. A man consumed with
ambition and self-doubt, Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's most vital
meditations on the dangerous corners of the human imagination.
Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom investigates
Macbeth's unthinkable actions with razor-sharp insight, agility, and
compassion. He also writes about his shifting understanding--over the
course of his own lifetime--of this endlessly compelling figure.
"Acclaimed critic Bloom once again plumbs the depths of a Shakespeare
play to reveal new insights [that]...will shift the reader's
perceptions of a literary classic" (Publishers Weekly). "A lingering
and deeply curious, even troubled, look at the titular character in the
legendary play...this clear, concise, empathetic" (Kirkus Reviews)
volume delivers that kind of exhilarating intimacy and clarity in
Macbeth, the final book in an essential series.
