Rating: 
Summary: Rapt Withal
Review: Shakespeare's shortest and bloodiest tragedy, MACBETH is also possibly the most serious. Macbeth is a warrior who has just had his greatest victory, but his own "vaulting ambition," the spectral promises of the three weird sisters, and the spurring on of his wife drive him to a treason and miserable destruction for which he himself is completely responsible. The ominous imagery of the fog that hovers over the first scene of the play symbolizes the entire setting of the play. Shakespeare's repeated contrasts of such concepts as fair and foul, light and darkness, bravery and cowardice, cut us to the quick at every turn. MACBETH forces us to question "what is natural?" "what is honor?" and "Is life really 'a tale/ Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury/ Signifying nothing?'" Few plays have ever illustrated the torments of Guilt (especially how it deprives one of Sleep) so vividly and stirringly.I have read this play curiously as a child, excitedly as a teenager, passionately as a college student, and lovingly as a graduate student and adult. Like all of Shakespeare's writing, it is still as fresh, and foreboding, and marvelous as ever. As a play it is first meant to be heard (cf. Hamlet says "we shall hear a play"), secondarily to be seen (which it must be), but, ah, the rich rewards of reading it at one's own pace are hard to surpass. Shakespeare is far more than just an entertainer: he is the supreme artist of the English language. The Arden edition of MACBETH is an excellent scholarly presentation, offering a bounty of helpful notes and information for both the serious and casual reader.
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Summary: best edition of Shakespeare's Macbeth
Review: "Macbeth" is one of Shakespeare's most powerful plays. Without doubt, audiences always remain guessing as they read the powerful speeches of Macbeth and his wife, who change dramatically during the story. The plot is not Shakespeare's most clever or most genius, but beautiful nonetheless!! And the best part is, thru this play, Shakespeare shows us that people are good at heart, even if corrupted within their lives. Which version of "Macbeth" to buy? Definitely this one. The right pages provide the original play, while the left page provides definitions for old or hard vocabulary. There are also plot summaries before each scene. In addition to page numbers, each page also indicates act and scene, making the search for certain passages extremely easy. The lines are, of course, numbered, for easy reference (if you're reading this as a school assignment.) And of course, the stage directions are included too. A very helpful edition of Shakespeare's work.
Rating:
Summary: A very useful edition of a great play
Review: Macbeth has always been one of Shakespeare's most popular plays. It is vivid, has blood & murder, magic, visions, treachery, and just deserts. I mean, what is not to love? The play moves along quickly and isn't one of the longer plays. For all these reasons and more, audiences love it. But there is a lot more to the play than the plot outline might suggest. Shakespeare brilliantly works out the subtleties of character through the action, interactions, and self-discussions in the play. It isn't a simple "action" play, it is also a masterwork of revealing the character of the characters even when they are themselves unaware of the trap they are leaping into. I am partial to the Arden editions because I trust the text, love the extensive notes, and the introductory and additional material that helps give the play context and talks about sources Shakespeare almost certainly used. In this case Holinshed's "Chronicles of Scotland". Throughout this edition there are also discussions of the textural problems of this play: where some things seem to be missing, what might be interpolations, and so forth. This is a very useful edition of a great play.
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Summary: Great Play Indeed
Review: Noble Macbeth and the story of his decay due to the seduction of the forces of darkness - I liked it. The play sets off with an impressing scene, the chant of the three witches, a perfect use of language, I dare say. It takes only about a page and I knew it by memory after two times reading. We used to quote it during the breaks, and actually still do so sometimes. "When shall we three meet again...and so forth. After this promising start the language gets quite hard (I'm not any native form Enland, the US or any other english speaking part of this planet). One can follow the action though and every five or six pages there's a reward for your patience, at least for anybody who likes the power Shakespeare's language is able to display in their good or best moments: "Have we eaten on the insane root?" and the likes. Of course there's also the famous "It is a tale, told by an idiot...". It's for these moments, where Williams knew how to transfere a feeling of one of his caracteres into the realm of a universal significance, that I enjoyed the play...
Rating: 
Summary: A dark bloody drama filled with treachery and deceit.
Review: If you are looking for tragedy and a dark bloody drama then I recommend Macbeth with no reservations whatsoever. On a scale of 1-5, I fell this book deserves a 4.5. Written by the greatest literary figure of all time, Shakespeare mesmorizes the reader with suspense and irony. The Scottish Thane Macbeth is approachd by three witches who attempt and succeed at paying with his head. They tell him he will become king, which he does, alog with the aide of his ambitious wife. Macbeth's honor and integrity is destroyed with the deceit and murders he commits. As the novel progresses, Macbeth's conscience tortures him and makes him weak minded. Clearly the saying "what goes around comes around," is put to use since Macbeth's doom was similar to how he acquired his status of kingship. He kills Duncan, the king of Scottland and chops the head off the Thane of Cawdor, therefore the Thane of Fife, Macduff, does the same thing to him. I feel anyone who decides to read this extraordinary book will not be disatisfied and find himself to become an audience to Shakespearean tragedies.
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Summary: Best Shakespeare play out there
Review: Suspense, great characters, terrific plot, historical importance. Just a terrific piece of literature.
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Summary: The lust for illegitimate power
Review: This is one of Shakespeare's plays I have liked best so far (I still have several ones left to read), along with Hamlet, King Lear and Julius Caesar. It is the tragedy of ambition and delusion, and the fatal results of those two vices combined. It is also one of Shakespeare's plays in which the supernatural has a greater participation. Just as Hamlet is driven to revenge by a ghost -his father's- Macbeth is driven to desperate ambition for power by three witches who tell him he is destined to occupy the throne of Scotland (way back in the Middle Ages). Though Macbeth is not a very resolute man and so has many doubts, his inescrupulous wife jumps in on the prophecy and pushes him all along. She must be one of the dreariest women to have appeared in fiction ever. You can imagine her truly as the mother in law from hell. Together, the Macbeths perpetrate a series of treasons and horrible murders, and even start up a war, all for the throne they will, of course, never enjoy. As always with Ol' Billy, the dialogues are incredibly strong and magnificent, full of passion and energy. The scene where the ghost of Banquo appears in the middle of a dinner is more than spooky, horrifying. This play is pure evil, violence, disaster and remorse, and the final transformation of Macbeth is necessarily too late, but worth contemplating.
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Summary: BAD EDITION
Review: I am giving the Dover Thrift Edition 1 star, not the play, the play is a world classic and a masterpiece. The edition, however, is pitiful. I would like to know how many people were lured into buying this because it is so cheap?
This would not do for any kind of performance because it provides very little, if any, notes as to what is going on in the background, what the actors should be doing, how they are feeling, details at all! It is simply a horrible edition for anything but putting on your bookshelf to rot. Unless you never plan on reading this book, don't buy it. PLEASE!
Rating:
Summary: An amazing play
Review: Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's finest accomplishments. It is a good vs evil tale about a man, Macbeth, who apparently sees three witches, who are said to be prophets. He starts out as noble, serving the King of Scotland, and a brave and ruthless warrior ("unsealed him from the nave to the chops"). Repeated meetings w/ the three witches would have a profound effect on Macbeth, and his wife, Lady Macbeth. He slowly becomes deranged and hungry for power, and the entire play showcases his manipulative rise to the top, all the way to the point where he becomes the King of Scotland, and his eventual decline (also predicted accurately by the witches). It is full of awesome motifs, moral and interesting themes, great dialogue, action, and believable characters. The only reason I gave this 4 stars is because I had to read this my sophmore year of high school, and I had to analyze this book page by page, line by line, and the student teacher who taught it to us was obsessed with symbolism (like my sophmore teacher already was), and it diminished the appeal of the book to me, albeit slightly. Forget my past encounters in reading this book, because chances are they will not be helpful, but Macbeth is worth reading and analyzing, and it is easily one of Shakespeare's best plays.
Rating:
Summary: A must read...
Review: This book truly is my favorite book by Shakespear... Forget Romeo & Juliet...That's for sissies, this book has, witches, blood, death, plots to kill the kings, war, crazy house wives, and did I mention ghosts? If you want a good read, or just want to tuck it under your arm and walk around looking smart, then this is a good book for you...
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