Macbeth Before Shakespeare

"Macbeth before Shakespeare is the history of a man and a myth. The man is the historical King Mac bethad while the myth is his literary descendant Macbeth. During the five and a half centuries before William Shakespeare wrote his Tragedie of Macbeth the man was replaced by the myth that was recreated in the hands of successive authors. The real prince's ancestors had been immigrants to Britain from Ireland and Mac bethad's career began after the murder of his father by his cousins. The literary character was created as the family of his rival Malcolm Canmore became supreme and wrote their own history with Macbeth as their villain. The evolution continued and in the fifteenth century he was accompanied by otherworldly beings, diabolical prophecies, and natural phenomenon. Macbeth was recast early in the sixteenth century and took his place in the intellectual warfare of Scotland. The legend moved to England in Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles where a new Macbeth had a complex personality with fashionable interests in law and unfashionable ones in the occult. The succession of King James I of England led English acting companies, such as the Lord Chamberlain's Men with actor and playwright William Shakespeare, to produce plays with Scottish scenes or characters. King James became their patron and as a member of the King's Men, Shakespeare wrote his Tragedie of Macbeth, one of their most popular plays from the seventeenth century to the present"--