The book traces individuals' adaptive interventions in the cultural sphere. More specifically, it investigates the purposes of dramatic adapting, which is basically regarded as a political activity. Following the intense micropolitical combat of an author with the precursor Shakespeare, adaptation becomes comprehensible as part of the ceaseless motions of macrocultural change. At each adaptation's centre, an individual subject's identity act encounters external discourses, and these transform each other and destabilise ideologies. Moreover, they lay siege to the cultural powerhouse Shakespeare. The book thus explores adapters' revolt against the loop of eternal repetition, which is created by canonic forces. In order to do so, the author uses an innovative combination of standard theories.

In this study, William C. Carroll analyses a wide range of adaptations and appropriations of Macbeth across different media to consider what it is about the play that compels our desire to reshape it. Arguing that many of these adaptations attempt to 'improve' or 'correct' the play's perceived political or aesthetic flaws, Carroll traces how Macbeth's popularity and adaptability stems from several of its formal features: its openly political nature; its inclusion of supernatural elements; its parable of the dangers of ambition; its violence; its brevity; and its domestic focus on a husband and wife. The study ranges across elite and popular culture divides: from Sir William Davenant's adaptation for the Restoration stage (1663–4), an early 18th-century novel, The Secret History of Mackbeth and Verdi's Macbeth, through to 20th- and 21st-century adaptations for stage and screen, as well as contemporary novelizations, young adult literature and commercial appropriations that testify to the play's absorption into contemporary culture.

Weyward Macbeth, a volume of entirely new essays, provides innovative, interdisciplinary approaches to the various ways Shakespeare's 'Macbeth' has been adapted and appropriated within the context of American racial constructions. Comprehensive in its scope, this collection addresses the enduringly fraught history of 'Macbeth' in the United States, from its appearance as the first Shakespearean play documented in the American colonies to a proposed Hollywood film version with a black diasporic cast. Over two dozen contributions explore 'Macbeth's' haunting presence in American drama, poetry, film, music, history, politics, acting, and directing — all through the intersections of race and performance.

"The tragedy of Macbeth is filled with blood and darkness, and is a morally and politically complex study of ambition, power and guilt. This guide offers practical aids to study and fresh new ways of responding to the play's ever-expanding critical possibilities" -- Back cover.

"In this study, William C. Carroll analyses a wide range of adaptations and appropriations of Macbeth across different media to consider what it is about the play that compels our desire to reshape it. Arguing that many of these adaptations attempt to 'improve' or 'correct' the play's perceived political or aesthetic flaws, Carroll traces how Macbeth's popularity and adaptability stems from several of its formal features: its openly political nature; its inclusion of supernatural elements; its parable of the dangers of ambition; its violence; its brevity; and its domestic focus on a husband and wife. The study ranges across elite and popular culture divides: from Sir William Davenant's adaptation for the Restoration stage (1663-4), an early 18th-century novel, The Secret History of Mackbeth and Verdi's Macbeth, through to 20th- and 21st-century adaptations for stage and screen, as well as contemporary novelizations, young adult literature and commercial appropriations that testify to the play's absorption into contemporary culture."--

This volume collects the interventions of the post-doctoral fellows and PhD students of the University of Cluj Napoca, the University of Bucharest and the University of Florence (Mediterranean Cultures; Doctoral School of Comparative Languages, Literatures and Cultures, specialisation in Language, Literature, Philology: Intercultural Perspectives) presented in occasion of the seminar Storia, identit e canoni letterari ("History, identity and literary canons", Florence, 22-23 November 2011). The contributions are centred on the idea of canon, as a cultural construct founding modern national identities. Another trace is the literary and cultural hybridisations between different geographies. For the Romanian context, the contributions pay particular attention to the movements of the avant-garde of the early 1900s. Some contributions account for the most problematic aspects of the contemporary world using interdisciplinary approaches.