Macbeth

The Tragedy of Macbeth, or Macbeth, is one of his Shakespeare's shorter tragedies, and was probably written between 1599–1606, and is thought to have been first performed in 1606. This play was penned the play during the region of James V1, who was a patron of the playwright's acting company. The play is set primarily in Scotland, and follows the character of Macbeth, a bold Scottish general, as he becomes power-hungry and demented with political ambition. Shakespeare brilliantly portrays Macbeth and Lady Macbeth's downward spiral as they struggle with the punishing physical and psychological effects of greed. Macbeth most clearly reflects the playwright's relationship with his sovereign. Shakespeare's source for the story is the account of Macbeth, King of Scotland, Macduff, and Duncan in Holinshed's Chronicles (1587), a history of England, Scotland, and Ireland familiar to Shakespeare and his contemporaries, although the events in the play differ extensively from the history of the real Macbeth. The events of the tragedy are usually associated with the execution of Henry Garnet for complicity in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.