"Perhaps no other Shakespearean drama so engulfs its readers in the ruinous journey to evil as does Macbeth. A timeless tragedy about the nature of ambition, conscience, and the human heart, the play holds a profound grip on the Western imagination. Now the most extensively annotated edition of the play to date makes it completely accessible to readers in the twenty-first century and a resource for students, teachers, and the general reader." "Burton Raffel's on-page annotations offer generous help with vocabulary and usage of Elizabethan English, pronunciation, prosody, and alternative readings of phrases and lines. And in his introduction he provides religious and social contexts that increase the reader's understanding of the play. In a concluding essay, Harold Bloom argues that Macbeth is the playwright's most internalized drama."--BOOK JACKET.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 205-207).