Macbeth, the Jacobean Scot, and the Politics of the Union

Shakespeare's Macbeth does not present a particular position on Anglo-Scottish politics that defines itself in relation to the belief system of one small political body, as is often argued, but confronts three models of the Union recorded in the pamphlet literature of the period and dramatized on the Jacobean stage. The construction of the drama as a whole—the configuration of character, form, and genre and the use of geographical space—produces a number of colliding and competing positions on the Union, reflecting the complexity of its relationship to the Court and to the marketplace.