On Shakespeare and Artistic License

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how there are many points of contention between historians and artists when it comes to the subject of artistic liberties versus historical fact. Through a review of "Macbeth" and some of his other plays, it attempts to determine some of these historical inaccuracies and analyze why they occurred. It focuses on the question of whether or not Shakespeare was even concerned with being historically accurate or whether he intentionally took ?liberties? with his plays.

From the Paper:

"Many of Shakespeare's primary sources are now available in their entirety on the Internet. Facsimiles of Holinshed's history is available, Reginald Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft and King James I Daemonologie are available in their entirety. Seneca's plays are available in their original Latin, as well as some excellent translations. Many others have written on the historical inaccuracies of Shakespeare's plays long before it was so easily to look at his primary sources and compare them to the play. These authors only focused on whether Shakespeare's plays were historically accurate, and the consensus of the pool of authors was a unanimous consensus that Shakespeare's did contain historical inaccuracies. This fact has been reiterated and restated many times, by many authors. There is no reason to restate what is now considered historical fact, as it is now considered common knowledge that Shakespeare's plays are historically inaccurate when compared to modern historical sources."

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