EA 190 Shakespeare & Japan: Week 2 Outline

Websites and links

Blackadder "Don't Mention Macbeth"

http://shakespeare-online.com/

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow" analysis and performance by Ian McKellen

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow" performance by Patrick Stewart

I. Poetic language in Macbeth (make sure you read "Reading Shakespeare's Language: Macbeth" p. xv-xxiv)

A. A major innovation of Shakespeare was the idea that character can be evoked through style of speech. Previously, dramatists such as Christopher Marlow clearly marked upper-class characters by their use of verse (usually iambic pentameter) versus lower-class characters who used prose.

Shakespeare gives characters verse, blank verse or prose to speak, without regard to class status.

1. Some useful definitions of prose, verse and blank verse and how to recognize them. Click here for another link that specifically analyzes these forms in Macbeth.

2. Who speaks verse in Macbeth? Who speaks blank verse? Prose?

B. Major forms of rhetorical language in Macbeth (besides metaphor/ simile/ metonymy)

1. Apostrophe: speaking to an object (or an idea) as though it were sentient/animated ("Ode to a Nightingale")

2. Personification: endowing an object or idea with human characteristics ("Mother Earth is being raped by stripmining.")

3. Puns: these play a lesser role in Macbeth but occur at key moments ("gild/guilt")

4. Alliteration/ Assonance: "cabined, cribbed, confined"; "creeps its petty pace,"

The first two techniques in particular create a very intense “poetification” of Macbeth’s use of language. Macbeth's speech is marked by an extraordinary poetic imagination -- it is one reason we feel sympathy for him even as he descends into evil.

Examples of rhetorical language in Macbeth

QUESTIONS

1. Choose one of the speeches by Macbeth or Lady Macbeth listed below. Use the sign-up sheet for week 2 to let me know by Tuesday April 7th at 5 pm. which speech you have chosen, so I can set up the class.

2. Describe the context of the speech. What is the situation in which Macbeth or Lady Macbeth makes this speech? What is the point of the speech: Is the character commenting on his or her state of mind? Urging action? Making a more general comment?

3. "Translate" the lines into modern English as best you can (you may use the internet or other sources to help you figure out what the lines mean, but do not simply quote the "translation" verbatim and make sure you cite your sources). What is lost when you rephrase and reorder the lines into modern English?

4. What are the main images or metaphors employed? How do these images help develop our understanding of the character or help develop a theme seen elsewhere in the play?

Suggestion: watch your lines in performance on the DVD to see how the actor/s indicate meaning. Feel free to look for other versions of the play on Youtube to see if the actor appears to understand the lines differently. If you send me the Youtube URL I can show those in class.

 

LINES (Peter?)

1) Act 1, Scene 3, Lines 140-1: book p. 23, video 9:40
(Macbeth: "Two truths are told...And nothing is, but what is not")

Son, Madelyn

MACBETH 

Aside.

 

 

Two truths are told,

 

 

As happy prologues to the swelling act

 

 

Of the imperial theme. -- I thank you, gentlemen.

 

 

Aside.

 

 

This supernatural soliciting

 

 

Cannot be ill, cannot be good: if ill,

 

 

Why hath it given me earnest of success,

 

 

Commencing in a truth? I am thane of Cawdor:

 

 140

 

If good, why do I yield to that suggestion

 

 

 

Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair

 

 

 

And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,

 

 

 

Against the use of nature? Present fears

 

 

 

Are less than horrible imaginings:

 

 

 

My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,

 

 

 

Shakes so my single state of man that function

 

 

 

Is smother'd in surmise, and nothing is

 

 

 

But what is not.

 

 

 

2) Act 1 Scene 5, Lines 45-60: book p. 33, video 16:45
(Lady Macbeth: "The raven himself is hoarse...To cry, 'Hold, hold!'")

Isabel, Ariel, Jennifer

LADY MACBETH 

Give him tending;

 

He brings great news.

 

Exit Messenger.

 

The raven himself is hoarse

 

That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan

 

Under my battlements. Come, you spirits

 

That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,

 

And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full

 

Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood;

 

Stop up the access and passage to remorse,

 

That no compunctious visitings of nature

 

Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between

 

The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,

 

And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,

 

Wherever in your sightless substances

 

You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,

 

And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,

 

That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,

 

Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,

 

To cry 'Hold, hold!'

 

3) Act 1, Scene 7, Lines 1-16: book p. 39, video 20:07
(Macbeth: "If it were done....Not bear the knife myself.")

Natalie, Tiffany, Julia

MACBETH 

If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well

 

It were done quickly: if the assassination

 

Could trammel up the consequence, and catch

 

With his surcease success; that but this blow

 

Might be the be-all and the end-all here,

 

But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,

 

We'ld jump the life to come. But in these cases

 

We still have judgment here;
that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor:

this even-handed justice

 

Commends the ingredience of our poison'd chalice

 

To our own lips. He's here in double trust;

 

First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,

 

Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,

 

Who should against his murderer shut the door,

 

Not bear the knife myself.  [TO HERE] 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 his taking-off;

 

And pity, like a naked new-born babe,

 

Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed

 

Upon the sightless couriers of the air,

 

Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,

 

That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur

 

To prick the sides of my intent, but only

 

Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself

 

And falls on th'other.

 

4) Act 2, Scene 2, Lines 45-57: book p. 57, video 34:45
Macbeth: " Methought I heard a voice....Macbeth shall sleep no more.")

Mana, Jonathan, Stephanie

MACBETH

Methought I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more!

 

Macbeth does murder sleep', the innocent sleep,

 

Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care,

 

The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,

 

Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,

 

Chief nourisher in life's feast,--

LADY MACBETH

What do you mean?

MACBETH

Still it cried 'Sleep no more!' to all the house:

 

'Glamis hath murder'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor

 

Shall sleep no more; Macbeth shall sleep no more.'

 

 

5) Act 5, Scene 3, lines 23-33: book p. 169, video second half, 33:00
(Macbeth: "I am sick at heart when I behold....which the poor heart would fain deny and dare not.")

Juliana, Storm

MACBETH

Take thy face hence.

[Exit Servant]

 

Seyton!--I am sick at heart,

 

 

When I behold--Seyton, I say!--This push

20

 

Will cheer me ever, or disseat me now.

 

 

I have lived long enough: my way of life

 

 

Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf,

 

 

And that which should accompany old age,

 

 

As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,

 

 

I must not look to have; but, in their stead,

 

 

Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath,

 

6) Act 5, Scene 3, Lines 45-58: book p. 171, video second half 35:50
(Macbeth and the Doctor: "How does your patient, doctor?....Throw physic to the dogs, I'll have none of it.")

Claire,

MACBETH

I'll put it on.

 

Send out more horses; skirr the country round;

 

Hang those that talk of fear. Give me mine armour.

 

How does your patient, doctor?

Doctor

Not so sick, my lord,

 

As she is troubled with thick coming fancies,

 

That keep her from her rest.

MACBETH

Cure her of that.

 

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,

 

Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,

 

Raze out the written troubles of the brain

 

And with some sweet oblivious antidote

 

Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff

 

Which weighs upon the heart?

Doctor

Therein the patient

 

Must minister to himself.

MACBETH

Throw physic to the dogs; I'll none of it.

 

Come, put mine armour on; give me my staff.

 

Seyton, send out. Doctor, the thanes fly from me.

 

Come, sir, dispatch. If thou couldst, doctor, cast

 

The water of my land, find her disease,

 

And purge it to a sound and pristine health,

 

I would applaud thee to the very echo,

 

That should applaud again.--Pull't off, I say.--

 

What rhubarb, cyme, or what purgative drug,

 

Would scour these English hence? Hear'st thou of them?

 

II. Usurpation-Regicide/Legitimation

A. THE QUESTION HERE is whether Shakespeare's portrayal of Macbeth and Banquo is simply propaganda for James I.

1. How is Banquo portrayed versus the historical Banquo? Does his son inherit the throne within the play? Does this support Stewart legitimacy?

2. How is Malcolm portrayed? What is the effect of listing all his vices? (Act 4, Sc 3, 61-132) What is the function of having the English support Malcolm to take back his rightful throne?

3. How is Macbeth's death at the end problematic for the Divine Right of Kings as promoted by James I, even if Macbeth is portrayed as a tyrant?

According to James I (The Trew [True] Law of Free Monarchies):

The king is "the head of a body composed of diverse members..." and so "it may very well fall out that the head will be forced to garre cut off some rotten members...to keep the rest of the body in integrity, but what state the body can be in, if the head, for any infirmity that can fall to it, be cut off, I leave to the reader's judgment."

Given the quotation above, how might James I have responded to Macbeth's bloody head at the end of the play? In fact, from the point of view of later history, what happens to James I's son Charles I?

4. Historically James I traced his line back Banquo (the supposed ancestor of the Stuart/Stewart House which originates six generations later), so look for places in the play where the legitimacy of Banquo and his decendants is foregrounded. List the page numbers and line #s so we can discuss them in class plus a brief explanation of why these lines are pertinent. You can also use <Act X, Scene Y, Lines xx-zz> to specify lines.

III. Equivocation and the Reformation

A. Equivocation: Language and images related to equivocation, deception, and doubleness appear throughout the play: saying one thing but meaning another, hiding your true feelings, telling a smaller truth that hides a larger untruth, or telling a small lie that hides a larger truth. Please read the contextual overview for a brief explanation of the historical reasons for why equivocation was an important issue at the time: it was related to the suppression of Catholicism by Henry VIII, and the persecution of "recusant" (hidden) Catholics by James I in the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot of November 5, 1605.

Gunpowder Plot November 5, 1605 ("remember, remember the fifth of November") was a "terrorist" plot in which a group of Catholics hid 36 barrels of gunpowder packed with nails in the basement of a building adjacent to the House of Parliament, with the intent of blowing it up along with the King (who was supposed to visit Parliament that day).

Equivocation as a technical term (AKA the Doctrine of Mental Reservation) allowed the speaker to employ double meanings of words to tell the literal truth while concealing a deeper meaning. It was used by Jesuits faced with government suppression, speaking a partial truth to the interrogators while reserving the full truth mentally for only God to hear.

For example, from the Biography of Jesuit John Gerard (1597) on his interrogation in court about equivocating when asked whether he was a Catholic or not: "I maintained that equivocation was different from lying. In equivocation the intention was not to deceive, which was the essence of a lie, but simply to withhold the truth in cases where the questioned party is not bound to reveal it."

Henry Garnet (1555-1606) was a Jesuit priest who scholars now believe may not have been involved in the Gunpowder Plot itself, but probably knew about it through hearing confession of at least one of those involved. He was caught in the aftermath of the failed plot and probably tortured to get a confession, then executed. He had written an essay in 1598 entitled A Treatise against Lying and Fraudulent Dissimulation or A Treatise of Equivocation which was found in the possession of one of the conspirators; this pamphlet was used to prove his guilt at trial.

a. Why would Catholics who were suppressed/oppressed in England at this time, advocate equivocation? Why would equivocation be seen as problematic by the government?

b. Look for places in the play where equivocation/doubleness appears to occur (hint: the Weird Sisters), or where deception is used to cover true intent (hint: by Macbeth and Lady Macbeth). Is equivocation and deception clearly distinguished in Macbeth? Who is equivocation most strongly associated with in the play? Who is deception most strongly associated with?

List the page numbers/line #s with a brief note on how the equivocation functions at that moment in the play, so we can discuss them in class.

Death of Macbeth (Patrick Stewart) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_-w5vlK8H8

IV. Witchcraft and the Reformation

A. James I was an ardent believer in witches; he had several "witches" tortured and put to death who had supposedly participated in fomenting a rebellion against him in Scotland (reported in News from Scotland 1591 pp. 313-325, see also this shorter excerpt) and he wrote an essay (Daemonology, 1597 pp. 325-328) arguing that the power of witches came from their contract with the devil. In Macbeth, a number of the details of how witches act came from these two texts, which introduced new ideas about witches from Europe, such as using sieves as boats, or having the power to cause tempests.

B. For James I, witchcraft theory merges with the Divine Right of Kings theory, so that witchcraft becomes a form of treason: "The true aim of witches is to assault the body of the king." So in this period, "the discourse of witchcraft intersected with many other controversial issues of the time, from the place of women and the nature of supernatural power, to treason and regicide." (William Carroll, ed. Macbeth: Texts and Contexts p. 306).

V. FORUM QUESTION: Does Macbeth have a choice or is he fated?

A. Two issues to consider:

1. A basic concept of tragedy first stated by Heraclitus: Ethos Anthropos Daimon "A man’s character is his fate/destiny". 

From internet (lost the place!!): 

"Heraklitos thought that character, the essence of the individual, determines his or her experience; Character, the tone of the individual, resonates with the music of his destiny. It is the flaws of character that are tragic. Viewing destiny in this way, the fates are not outside us, in the heavens, weaving and cutting the threads of our lives. Instead, they are consonant with our character. This consideration is at the root of the world view that good things happen to good people." 

If we believe this conventional concept that the tragic events that unfold are caused by flaws in the main character what is Macbeth's tragic flaw?  

2. Witchcraft and Prophecy

a. Basic assumption in Shakespeare's time: True prophecy is only possible for God. So three possibilities:

1) generated by the devil to tempt people into evil
2) lucky (or highly educated) guesses
3) fraud to fool the gullible (illusions and stage tricks)

b. Mistrusted by government because of association of prophecy with political rebellion; but note the following prophecy that was produced specifically for James 1 (click here).

c. But how is prophecy different in "real life" than in drama? Can prophecy ever fail in drama? Does it fail in Macbeth?

B. To what extent do the Weird Sister's prophecies determine Macbeth's fate?

Do the prophecies a) mirror his already murderous thoughts b) anticipate/predict his murderous thoughts or c) determine (fate) his murderous thoughts?

b. Why do you think he decides to act on their prophecies? At what point does he make his decision? (Give scene-lines to support your position.) Is there any indication that he might be possessed?

c. What about Lady Macbeth? What is her relation to the Weird Sisters? What imagery in her speech seems to link them together?