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REVIEW
Thompson, Edward H. "Macbeth, King James and the Witches."
Online at: http://homepages.tesco.net/~eandcthomp/macbeth.htm. Visited 8 August 2003.
Thesis: "This paper considers the witchcraft episodes in Macbeth in relation to two sets of ideas: the crime of witchcraft, as it was understood in Shakespeare's England, and King James' experience of witchcraft."

After an introductory section (which is mainly about King James' belief that witches had targeted him), Thompson's method is to quote a bit from Macbeth, then compare the Shakespearean passage with other representations of witches, both in other literature of Shakespeare's time and in reports of witchcraft trials.

Bottom Line: There's a lot of interesting background material here, but no commentary on how the witches contribute to the meaning of Macbeth.

Macbeth Navigator HomeSelected Bibliography

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   Author: Philip Weller
   Last Modified: 18 April 2003