# Macbeth

**Author:** William Shakespeare
**Grade range:** Grades 9–12
**Age range:** 14–18
**First published:** 1623
**Page count:** 272
**Genre:** Tragedy
**ISBN-13:** `9780743477109`
**ISBN-10:** `0743477103`
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/book/macbeth
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## About this book

Shakespeare's shortest tragedy: a Scottish nobleman, spurred by the prophecies of three witches and his ambitious wife, murders the king to seize the throne — and is destroyed by guilt. A near-universal 10th-grade English text; cited in Common Core Appendix B and on AP English Literature reading lists.

## Themes

- ambition
- guilt
- fate vs free will
- corruption
- supernatural

## Content notes

- murder
- supernatural
- violence

Common Sense Media age recommendation: 14+

## Where this book is assigned

### AP English Literature & Composition

- **recommended** · 12th grade — [source: AP Lit drama representative text](https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-english-literature-and-composition)

### Common Core State Standards (ELA)

- **recommended** · 10th grade — [source: CCSS ELA Appendix B, grades 9-10 drama exemplar](https://achievethecore.org/page/2699)
- **recommended** · 10th grade · Massachusetts — [source: MA ELA Framework grade 10 Shakespeare](https://www.doe.mass.edu/)

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