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British Drama

Notes Self Assessment

Multiple Choice Questions:
1. The story of Macbeth is taken from
(a) Holinshed’s Chronicle of the History of Scotland
(b) the Folio of 1723
(c) the book of Stationers’ Company
(d) the Folio of Blount and Jaggard.

2. Shakespeare was indebted in the supernatural parts of Macbeth to The Witch, a
play by
(a) Collier
(b) Thomas Middleton
(c) Richard Grant
(d) John Bellenden.
3. Macbeth was written by command as one of the plays to be given before
(a) King of England and the King James of Denmark
(b) William Davenant and Charles II
(c) King James I and the King of Denmark
(d) King James I and Charles II.
Fill in the blanks:
4. Macbeth was written by command as one of the plays to be given before ......... and
the King of Denmark.
5. Charles Kean and his wife Ellen Tree staged a spectacular, long-running Macbeth
at the ......... in 1853.
6. Macbeth was first printed in the .........of 1623.
7. William Charles Macready proved a ......... Macbeth in his revival of 1837.

State whether the following statements are true or false:
8. David Garrick during his management of the Drury Lane Theatre (1742-1776),
revived Macbeth as written by Shakespeare.
9. Charles Kean and his wife Ellen Tree staged a spectacular, long-running Macbeth
at the Drury Lane Theatre in 1853.
10. Margaret Webster’s famous production of Macbeth with Maurice Evans and Judith
Anderson set a standard for decades to come.

9.2 Summary
• The play Macbeth has immense historic interest, its incidents dating back to the days of Edward
the Confessor.
• There were sufficient materials for the drama in Holinshed’s Chronicles of Englande, Scotlande,
and Ireland, the first edition of which was issued in 1577, and the second in 1586-87. The extracts
from Holinshed in the notes will show that the main incidents are taken from his account of
two separate events—the murder of Duncan by Macbeth, and that of King Duffe, the great-
grandfather of Lady Macbeth, by Donwald.

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