Background Information

In order to truly understand Macbeth as a text, much like the study of many others, viewing and learning about what inspired the play can help to not only give more weight to the text’s themes, story, and characters, but also aid in understanding some of the more difficult to understand aspects of Shakespeare’s writing. With a text as deep and complex as Macbeth, in order to effectively understand its full context, this section will be broken down into various sections discussing not only the historical context of the play’s setting and story but also the socio-political context of Shakespeare himself and period in which he wrote Macbeth.