What does it all amount to?

Although Macbeth was written more than four centuries ago, it remains a widely studied and performed piece of dramatic literature. Not only is it studied extensively, but it has also inspired artists to work with an immense variety of media to create works depicting the personalities of the characters in the play, simulating entire scenes from the play or depicting thematic or atmospheric elements from Macbeth. Throughout the course of the Macmedia Blog project, we researched electronic versions of Macbeth as well as adaptations of the play in films, paintings, and other media forms. Our group realized just how extensive literature can truly be, reaching further simply being performed in a theatre.
This project clearly supports the idea that literature, especially timeless pieces such as Shakespeare’s Macbeth, is ‘organic’ or ‘living’ as it is constantly being changed, adapted, abridged, edited and it has continued to influence other works along the way. After it was written, Macbeth was subject to many changes and interpolations, which include the addition of characters like Hecate, as well as the addition of musical entertainment performed by the witches. Macbeth not only continued to have editorial changes made to it through the course of the past four hundred years, but it also lent endless amounts of inspiration to artists, being the subject of numerous paintings, films, books, comic strips and songs to name a few. Only a well-written piece with characters and themes that transgress the barriers of time would be so influential, proving that Shakespeare’s Macbeth remains a fully active and living piece of literature.