What was king James I role in the creation of Macbeth?

Answer 1

James i though that William Shakespears play Macbeth was very good, he was overwhelmed and pleased, he was that pleased that he sent him out a letter explaining how impressed he was with Shakespears play. This play pleased the king very immensely

Answer 2

None, unless Shakespeare chose the story on the assumption that it would please the king. Apparently, if that was the intent, it didn't really succeed: it doesn't show up on any list of plays performed at court, unlike Othello, written shortly before. It apparently was a flop with the regular theatre-goers as well, since the copy we have includes some cute song-and-dance numbers taken from Thomas Middleton's play The Witch, added, one must assume, to try to salvage a failed play.

Answer 3

"Besides, this Duncan hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been so clear in his great office, that his virtues will plead like angels Trumpet-tongued against the deep damnation of this taking-off." Macbeth says this in Act I Scene 7. From his description it appears that he thinks that Duncan is a good man and a successful king. His murderer is not going to be a popular person, that's for sure.

Answer 4

There is no King James in Macbeth. There was a King James who was the ruler of England at the time Macbeth was written who did write a book about witches called Daemonologie. He did not approve of witches, subscribed to the then relatively new idea that witches had a pact with the devil and is associated with increased witch-hunting in Britain.

This is, however, probably irrelevant in every possible way to the play Macbeth. The witches were part of the story as Shakespeare got it from Holinshed; he did not put them in to please James. The idea that the play was written as a piece of flattery to the king was first advanced in the 1950s. The evidence presented was feeble but the idea took hold of the imaginations of a lot of schoolteachers and has been repeated so often over the last 60 years that it is by now treated as gospel. However, the truth is that the changes alleged to have been made between Holinshed's history and Shakespeare's play to please James are minimal. The evidence that the play was ever played at court is nonexistent. The only evidence of its performance was at the Globe, and it does not appear in the lists of plays performed at court (which are, of course, not complete, but still . . .) The play was not popular: it was never released in Quarto form, and it was revised substantially from its original form. The reviser, Thomas Middleton, included some of the cute song-and-dance numbers performed by the witches in his own play The Witch, in which witches are shown as harmless, helpful and not in league with the devil. Middleton wrote that play to be performed by the King's Men, the same company as Shakespeare wrote for, and it was performed by them. There was clearly no reason for the King's Men to adopt James's peculiar views on witchcraft, and clearly they did not.

Answer 5

King James was not the King in the play Macbeth.

Answer 6

King James 1 has no role in Macbeth. Macbeth's sovereign is King Duncan