EA 190 Shakespeare & Japan: Week 1 Outline (Spring 2017)

I. Quick overview of the course objectives, class requirements, and schedule. Also Pizza.

II. In this week's class we will be meeting at Langson Library with East Asian Librarian Ying Zhang to learn how to use library resources. RM 228.

This library class is meant to prepare you for the final class assignment:

An annotated bibliography, due at the end of the quarter, on a research topic of your choice, related in some way to the topic of "translation," whether of translating from one language and culture to another or from one media to another.

III. Historical ("historicized") versus Ahistorical Readings of MacbethI

A. Education Portal's Introduction to the themes in Macbeth, by Elspeth Green (Study.com), and Thug Notes by Sparky Sweets (Wisecrack)

Macbeth: Themes and Quotes from the Scottish Play

Macbeth: Thug Notes Summary and Analysis

1. What is mentioned in these analyses?

2. What is missing from these analyses?

B. Studying "texts" (literary, dramatic, film, visual) from other time periods and cultures

1. Historically: What did the play mean to people at the time? How did the play dramatize contemporaneous issues? How does it inform (i.e. influence or affect) those same issues?

2. Ahistorically:

a. Universal themes

b. Purely rhetorical analysis (New Criticism, Deconstruction)

3. What is useful/helpful about studying texts ahistorically (without regard to their original historical context)?

a. Making old stories relevant

Modern adaptations of classic texts:

1) Jane Austin's Emma: Clueless

2) Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew: Ten Things I Hate About You

4. What is usefu/helpful about studying texts historically (in relation to their original historical context)?

a. broadened perspective

b. Understanding what the audience knew or assumed, helps us understand points in the text that make no sense to us today.

1) eg. belief in witches

a) Did Shakespeare believe in them?

b) Knowing the debates at the time helps us to understand how the three weird sisters function in the play

C. In this course: Two authors/directors working with materials from 500 years earlier to deal with contemporaneous (to them) issues. Begin by looking at Macbeth and Throne of Blood.

1. Shakespeare: Macbeth (1606?) addressing issues around accession of James 1 (James VI of Scotland) via story of King Macbeth of Scotland (r. 1040-107)

2. Kurosawa: Throne of Blood (released 1957) addressing issues in early postwar Japan having to do with Bushido (Way of Samurai Warrior) and war guilt by setting Shakespeare's Macbeth in the Warring States period (Sengoku, 1467-1600 or 1603 or 1615)

D. Important point: this is not just about how a text or film "reflects" its time. Literary and dramatic texts have an influential role in how we see ourselves, which can in turn affect events, even if the author did not mean the text as a political intervention.

1. Some plays are more amenable to historicization than others -- Macbeth is particularly open to historicization because it so clearly was written for King James I as the patron of Shakespeare's acting troupe.

IV. Shakespeare's lifetime (1564-1616) and around the time he wrote Macbeth (1605-1607)

A. What is important to know about? I.e. what do you need to know about to understand what is happening in the play?

1. What are the big ideas, the big events, the big anxieties of the time?

2. Look at chronology.

B. Three main issues that are thematized in Macbeth

1. Right of King James (from Scotland) to rule England

2. Religious conflict because Henry VIII separated from the Catholic Church and established the Church of England.

3. Belief in Witches

V. Theme of Usurpation-Regicide (Killing the King)

Theme includes the question of who has a legitimate right to rule, whether kings have a "divine right" to rule.

PLOT: Macbeth overthrows Duncan and “usurps” his throne. Malcolm, Duncan’s son, overthrows Macbeth, and MacDuff kills him, chopping off his head. The Weird Sisters prophecize that Banquo's son Fleance will eventually become King (although it does not happen in the play).

A. This theme in the play is related to issues of legitimacy and succession for James I, who was brought in from Scotland following the death of the childless Queen Elizabeth to take the throne in 1603.

Historically James I traced his line back Banquo (the supposed ancestor of the Stuart/Stewart House, but which actually originates six generations later).

Note that his mother, Mary Queen of Scots, was held prisoner and executed by Queen Elizabeth in 1587.  So he is having to assert his right to be King of England fairly continuously and writes a number of essays defending his sovereignty via a doctrine known as “The Divine Right of Kings.” Note that as with a number of these kinds of issues, it is precisely when the divine right of kings is being put to the test that essays defending that right would be written.

According to James I in The Trew [True] Law of Free Monarchies, a defense of his divine right to rule:  

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."  

Question whether Macbeth losing his head at the end really supports King James' position? Especially given that his son Charles I is deposed by Oliver Cromwell and loses his head in 1649.

VI. Theme of Equivocation, Deception and/or Doubleness in Macbeth

A. Next week we will address equivocation and the Protestant Reformation, as well as doubleness and deceit in Macbeth. Please do the reading in Contextual Overview so you understand the basics of what is happening at the time. You also have a discussion notebook question on this topic.

1) General definition of equivocation: "To use unclear or ambiguous language, especially to deceive someone, conceal the truth, or avoid committing oneself."

2) 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. 

B. 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.

C. Other kinds of doubleness:

1. Gender amiguity (who is female? who is male? what constitutes manhood? womanhood?)

2. Doubleness of contrasting pairs/crossing boundaries: fair/foul, light/dark, visible/invisible etc.

D. In the second week we will concentrate on the first kind of doubleness (equivocation and deception). The other kinds of doubleness will be important to the third week's class discussion.

DISCUSSION QUESTION #1:

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.

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, as reported in Newes [News] from Scotland 1591 (Macbeth: Text and Contexts pp. 313-325, see also this shorter excerpt) and he wrote an essay Daemonology, 1597 (Macbeth: Text and Contexts 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 control winds and cause tempests (storms).

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).

VII. Witchcraft and Prophecy 

A. Basic assumption: True prophecy is only possible for God. So three possibilities:  

1. generated by the devil to tempt people into evil

2. lucky 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. Can prophecy ever fail in drama? Does it fail in Macbeth? 

MESSAGE BOARD/FORUM QUESTION:

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

NOTEBOOK DISCUSSION QUESTION #2

1. Why do you think Macbeth decides to act on the Weird Sisters' prophecies? At what point does he make his decision? Is there any indication that he might be possessed?

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

List supporting page numbers/line #s for your argument, so we can discuss them in class.

VIII. 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 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

IN-CLASS PRESENTATION #1

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 11th at 5 pm. which speech you have chosen, so I can set up the class. You can see who else has signed up for those lines, and it is fine to collaborate with other students.

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.

EXAMPLE: Ian McKellen analyzes Act 5 Scene 5 lines 20-31 ("Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow")

EXAMPLE: See these examples of rhetorical language in Macbeth.

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")

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!'")

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

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.")

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.")

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.")