Macbeth
Three figures greet a Scottish general with titles he does not yet hold, and one of the titles is king. The play moves faster than any other Shakespeare tragedy: within two acts, a murder has been committed, a family has been destroyed and the language has begun to lose its footing.
Guilt here is physical. Hands are washed, blood is smelled, sleep is withheld. The political point is equally clear: a man who takes a throne by violence teaches everyone around him that violence works. It is the shortest tragedy and the one most often taught, for good reasons.
Public-domain status
First published in 1623. In the United States, works published before 1930 are in the public domain. In the European Union the general term is the life of the author plus 70 years; William Shakespeare died in 1616, so this work has been free to republish there since 1687.
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