Macbeth

1. Macbeth By William Shakespeare AKA The Bard

2. A tragedy... A tragedy is a story of exceptional calamity leading to the death of a man in high estate . A.C. BRADLEY tragedie, a solemne play, describing cruel murders and sorrowes CAWDREY, 'hard word list', 1604 Tragedie. A play or Historie ending with great sorrow and bloodshed. BULLOKAR, earliest English dictionary, 1616.

3. A tragedy... Tragédia, a tragedie or moornefull play being a loftiekindeof poetrie, and representing personages of great state and matter of much trouble, a great broileor stirre: it beginneth prosperously and endethvnfortunatelieor sometimes doubtfullie, and is contrarie to a comedie. FLORIO, English-Italian dictionary, 1598

4. Tragedies ... • Chart the downfall of a hero, whose own death leads to the downfall of others. • Shakespeare's Tragedies: • Hopes & fears. • Suffering - inflicted & borne • Being human – fallible, tempted, weak, honourable

5. Structure of a tragedy There are four parts to the tragedy (a similar structure applies to comedy too): Part one - protasis, the setting up the situationPart two - epitasis, the complication of the actionPart three - catastasis, the main body of the actionPart four - catastrophe, the ending or unwinding Michael Boyd, Artistic Director of the RSC http://www.rsc.org.uk/macbeth/tragedy/definitions.html

6. Inspiration 4 Macbeth • Probably written around 1605 – 1606, published in 1623. • Shakespeare’s Macbeth presents theatregoers with an absorbing drama of kingship, tyranny, usurpation and regicide. • Inspired by a true story! • Chronicles of England, Ireland and Scotland by Raphael Holinshed published in 1587. • Was Shakespeare sucking up to his King? It seems so... • King James 1 • Had an ancestor named Banquo? • Had an interest in witchcraft!

7. Political context • King James 1 of England - AKA Stuart James V1 of Scotland - was on the throne • Great tension between Protestants & Catholics • King James 1 was keen to subdue any Catholic uprisings • 5th November 1605 – Gunpowder plot – effort to blow up King James

8. Theatre in Shakespeare’s Time • Voicing opinions • For the man in the street • Language used was the usual language • Contemporary & relevant

9. Great Chain of Being • Very hierarchical – King or Queen were divine rulers • God was at the top & was the supreme ruler. • Everything – animate & inanimate – had a place • This hierarchy was considered permanent • Concepts of heaven and hell were very real to people. • The Devil could take on the form of a ‘familiar ‘– a cat, a toad – to work with witches • Message – stay in your place!

10. The creepy world of Jacobean England • King James = God’s right hand man • Witches – bad, bad, bad. • He passed a law banning the "use, practice, or exercise [of] any sort of witchcraft, sorcery, charm or enchantment". • Witch craft trials - Nov 1590 – May 1591 – over 100 put to death • Monarch at risk from activities of witches

11. The creepy world of Jacobean England • Women – 100s accused, tortured and killed • It was believed witches could: • fly • make people ill • conjure visions • make themselves invisible • conjure storms • cause shipwrecks • cause crops to fail

12. Macbeth • In Macbeth - we have an eponymous hero & “a killing machine” • Guilty of the most heinous crime imaginable for its Jacobean audience – regicide, or the murder of a king. • Malcolm, who succeeds in murdering Macbeth, judges him a mere ‘butcher’. • Macbeth shows us something of our own darker side and our own potential for evil. • In love with his wife, a noble warrior, a brave solider, a loyal subject of his king.

13. Why was it so terrifying? • The murder of the King • The murder of innocents – children are murdered • Macbeth’s visions & imagination • The ‘Weird Sisters’ or the witches • The reversal of the natural order - storms, earthquakes, rough seas, strong winds • THE BLOOD!!!

14. Themes • Ambition • Evil • Appearance versus reality • Violence and tyranny • Guilt and conscience • Man and masculinity • Equivocation • Order and disorder • Loyalty and honour

15. What can Shakespeare's tragedies teach us? • Still relevant today • Dramas and intrigue that still rule • What motivates us • Ambition versus the common good • What makes a good leader • The language!

16. Language & Literary Devices • The creation of new words & phrases • Use of imagery in all its forms – metaphor, simile and personification. Some examples: “mind diseased”, “full of scorpions” or, when Macbeth sees himself wading through a river of blood after Macduff has turned against him (Act 3, Scene 4 lines 136 -8). Another example is when Lady Macbeth tells her husband to “look like th’innocent flower/But be the serpent under’t” Act 1, Scene V, Lines 63 – 64). Recurring images are: • darkness – creating a sense of evil • disease – crazed minds, “fog and filthy air” of the witches • clothes – to give you an identity and conceal who you are • nature – a world turned upside down by unnatural acts, animals behaving in strange ways or sending ominous messages

17. Language & Literary Devices • Piling up words in lists – “ In thunder, lighting, or in rain” or when Malcolm lists Macbeth’s vices “bloody, luxurious, avaricious...” (Act 4, Scene 3, lines 57 – 60) • Anthithesis - opposition of ideas, words or phrases – “When the battle’s lost, and won” or “Fair is foul, and foul is fair”

18. Literary devices • Soliloquies (or monologues) • Verse (more or less poetry) • Iambic pentameter – 10 syllables with a stress on every second syllable. There are also rhyming couplets –two consectuative rhyming lines in a verse. • Prose – regular speech

19. Literary devices • Foreshadowing • Dramatic Irony • Aside • Motif