Short description:

This edited collection gathers contributions by Shakespeare scholars from a wide range of countries, both European and non-European, representing many different cultures. It is divided into three sections: translation, appropriation and performance, which explore the challenges involved in rendering Macbeth interesting and relevant in diverse cultural conditions and some of the ways in which these challenges are faced. The collection demonstrates the extraordinarily wide appeal of the play and the way in which its core elements continuously lend themselves to new interpretation.

Sandra Clark is Professor Emerita of Renaissance Literature, Birkbeck, University of London, UK. Her special interest is in Shakespeare and early modern drama and popular literature. She is the author of six books 'including Women and Crime in the Street Literature of Early Modern England (Palgrave, 2003), and an edition of Macbeth (with Pamela Mason) for the The Arden Shakespeare, Third Series (Bloomsbury, 2015) and numerous articles and chapters in books and is also the Series Editor of the Arden Shakespeare Dictionaries.

W. Reginald Rampone, Jr is an alumnus of Washington and Lee University, Boston College, Brown University, and the University of Rhode Island, USA. He co-edited Professor Rampone co-edited Much Ado About Nothing and the New Awareness (Lexington Books, 2024) with Professor Nicholas Utzig and co-edited Global King Lear: Crisis, Adaptation, Performance (Bloomsbury, 2025) with Professor Eric Mallin. and is the author of Sexuality in the Age of Shakespeare (2010), and co-editor, with Jane Kingsley-Smith, of Shakespeare’s Global Sonnets: Translation, Appropriation, Performance (Palgrave, 2023).

Long description:

This edited collection gathers contributions by Shakespeare scholars from a wide range of countries, both European and non-European, representing many different cultures. It is divided into three sections: translation, appropriation and performance, which explore the challenges involved in rendering Macbeth interesting and relevant in diverse cultural conditions and some of the ways in which these challenges are faced. The collection demonstrates the extraordinarily wide appeal of the play and the way in which its core elements continuously lend themselves to new interpretation.

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1: Macbeth von Heiner Muller nach Shakespeare’, Lawrence Guntner (Germany).- Chapter 2: ‘Macbeth in Korea’,  Jongsook Lee (Korea).- Chapter 3:  Aye, come, Gray-malkin”: Transformed Imageries of Graymalkin/Grimalkin in Japan’, Tomohiro Okubo (Japan).- Chapter 4: ‘From Witches to Daains: An Analysis of the Eco-political Implications of Two Hindi Versions of Macbeth’ Anandi Rao (UK).- Chapter 5: Il latte dell’umana dolcezza’: A Comparative and Stylistic Analysis of Salvatore Quasimodo’s Italian Macbeth ”, Allison Steenson (UK) and Luca Trissino (Italy).- Chapter 6: ‘Macbeth in Hungary’, Balint Szele (Hungary).- Chapter 7: ‘Five Translations of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, 1874-2023’, Ingibjorg Thorisdottir (Iceland).- Chapter 8: ‘The Hollowness of the Self in Modern Japan: Tsuneari Fukuda’s Early Reception of Macbeth’, Kohei Uchimaru (Japan).- Chapter 9: ‘The Bad Sleep Well: Akira Kurosawa’s Hamlet-ian Film and Shakespeare’s Macbeth’, Kaori Ashizu (Japan).- Chapter 10: ‘Li Jianwu’s Wang Deming’, Lanyu Chen (China).- Chapter 11: ‘”something wicked”: The Cultural Functions of Fortune-telling and Witchcraft in Indian Macbeths’, Koel Chatterjee (UK).- Chapter 12: ‘Macbeth and the Jacobean Gothic’, Lucian Ghita (France).- Chapter 13: ‘”Whatever it was, it wasn’t Shakespeare”: Rolando Tinio’s Makbet in the Rise of Filipino Postcoloniality’, Ian Harvey A Claros (Phillipines).- Chapter 14: The Tragic Cycles and the Heroic Era: Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Aleksis Kivi's Kullervo, Jyrki Nummi (Finland).- Chapter 15: ‘Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood (1957) and the Question of Feudalism/Humanism in Post-War Japan’, Reiko Oya (Japan).- Chapter 16: ‘Confusion now hath made his masterpiece! Oliver Py’s Macbeth Philosophe’, John Cameron (Canada).- Chapter 17: ‘Macbeth on the Dutch Stage – National, European and Global’, Coen Heijes (Netherlands).- Chapter 18: ‘Sinophone Adaptations of Macbeth for the Global Stage’, Mike Ingham and Bing Tang (Brittany).- Chapter 19: ‘Macbeth on Contemporary Czech Stages (A)political, (Un)traditional and (A)sexual’, Ivona Misterova and Filip Krajnok (Czech republic),.- Chapter 20: ‘A queer Chilean Macbeth: Vicente Ruiz’s ‘Travesti Shakespeare’ (1988)’, Javiera Lorezini Raty (Chile).- Chapter 21: ‘Macbeth in Hungary’, Balint Szele (Hungary).- Chapter 22: ‘Macbeth in a Female Utopia: Feminist Potential in the Chinese All-female Yue Opera’s Macbeth Adaptation general Ma Long’, Yueqi Wu (China).- Chapter 23: ‘Witches or Goddesses: Encountering the Weird Sisters in Otra Tempestad’, Donna Woodford-Gormley (New Mexico).