Macbeth
Tags
Summary
Editor's review
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Readers with a strong interest in Shakespearean drama or Western classical literature who wish to engage in close textual study
- Students and researchers in drama, literature, or psychology who need to analyze the psychological transformation of classic characters
- Readers who enjoy exploring philosophical questions such as the dark side of human nature, moral dilemmas, and the corruption of power
- Readers seeking an authoritative, thoroughly annotated, and reliable Chinese translation from a respected publisher
Not a good fit for
- Casual readers looking for light entertainment or fast-paced narrative
- Readers unfamiliar with or unable to engage with classical dramatic form, poetic language, and extensive soliloquy
Reading tips
- While reading, focus on the soliloquies of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, comparing how their guilt manifests and how their fates diverge
- Using the annotations in The Commercial Press edition, note the recurring natural anomalies (such as inverted day and night, or the crying strange birds) and consider their symbolic meaning
- After finishing the play, watch one or two classic stage or film adaptations to experience its dramatic tension and tragic atmosphere directly
About the publisher
The Commercial Press is a publisher known for classic works and academic publishing, with titles spanning Eastern philosophy, foreign literature, world history, social culture, and applied psychology. Its list includes classical commentaries such as Zhu Xi's Collected Commentaries on the Analects and Wang Bi's Commentary on the Zhouyi, as well as modern annotated translations like Zhuangzi with Modern Notes and Translation. In foreign literature it offers War and Peace and Crime and Punishment, while in world history it carries Braudel's The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II. Applied psychology is represented by Irvin D. Yalom's Existential Psychotherapy, and ethical texts include a Greek-Chinese-English edition of the Nicomachean Ethics. Its authors and translators include Zhu Xi, Wang Bi, Yalom, Braudel, and translators such as Huang Zheng, Zhang Yiling, Shen Dongyu, and Tang Jialong, balancing the editing of original texts with academic translation.
Contents
- 版权信息
- 剧中人物
- 第一幕
- 第一场 荒地
- 第二场 营地
- 第三场 荒野
- 第四场 苏格兰王宫
- 第五场 英威内城堡
- 第六场 英威内城堡外
- 第七场 英威内城堡
- 第二幕
- 第一场 马克白城堡内
- 第二场 马克白城堡内
- 第三场 同前
- 第四场 马克白城堡外
- 第三幕
- 第一场 苏格兰皇家城堡内
- 第二场 马克白城堡内
- 第三场 距苏格兰城堡约一哩处
- 第四场 苏格兰王宫宴会厅
- 第五场 荒原
- 第六场 苏格兰王宫中
- 第四幕
- 第一场 山洞
- 第二场 马达夫在菲府的城堡
- 第三场 英格兰王宫前
- 第五幕
- 第一场 马克白在登西兰的城堡
- 第二场 登西兰近郊
- 第三场 马克白在登西兰的城堡
- 第四场 比南森林附近
- 第五场 马克白在登西兰的城堡
- 第六场 登西兰城堡外
- 第七场 登西兰城堡外
FAQ
*Macbeth* is one of Shakespeare's 'four great tragedies.' What makes it most distinctive?
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Why are the witches' prophecies so important in *Macbeth*?
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About the author
William Shakespeare was an English playwright and poet of the Renaissance, born and also buried in Stratford. His works span tragedy, comedy and history plays, with representative works including Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet, as well as 154 sonnets. His plays are notable for portraying character psychology and fate through the development of plot, and his language combines poetic quality with a strong sense of the stage, while his comedies and history plays each have a distinct character. This library holds 77 of his works, covering categories such as folk literature, foreign literature and classic works, including individual plays, full-color illustrated editions and multi-volume history plays. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the history of Western literature, and his works are still read, performed and studied worldwide.
Xu Yuanchong (1921–2021) was a native of Nanchang, Jiangxi, a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication of Peking University, and a renowned translator. He devoted more than eighty years to literary translation, with translations spanning Chinese, English, and French. He was especially known for translating classical Chinese poetry into English and developed a method and theory of rendering poetry in rhyme, earning him the reputation of being the only person to translate poetry among English, French, and Chinese. Among the 72 works in our collection, his translations include foreign literary works such as Hamlet, Macbeth, The Tempest, Antony and Cleopatra, The Importance of Being Earnest, A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, and The Taming of the Shrew, mostly classified under foreign literature. In 2014, he received the Aurora Borealis Prize for Outstanding Translation of Literature from the international translation community.
