Macbeth Flashcards
‘So foul and fair a day I have not seen’ (3)
- Malleable
- Susceptible to malevolence
- Emulates witches oxymoronic terms
- Mouthpiece for ignoble intent
- Vessel for misconduct
- Appearance vs Reality
- In Shakespeare’s eponymous tragedy ‘Macbeth’
‘With Tarquin’s ravishing strides toward his design’ - Act 2 Scene 1
- Through alluding to Tarquin, ambitious to be a fearful reader - compounded by ravishing - deceiving imagery of enchantment - deluded to cruelty
- Aristotle’s Elements of a tragic hero
James 1 context
- Omnipotent - divine right - exempt from earthly authoritative punishment
‘Fair is foul and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air’ (2)
- ‘foul’ - plummeted into the abyss of the supernatural
- disturbed by the distorted duality
- bleak, hollow aspect of fricatives - morality decaying maliciousness whilst unnerved by the absence of purity before the captain’s speeches
- infects with a venomous presence
- curiosity for the following protagonists and their facades
- prevalent question of what’s good and bad
- deception in the name of equivocation
- symbolism, consonance, alliteration, assonance - pleasing to the air
‘So foul and fair a day I have not seen’ (1)
- reverberates the metaphorical chant ‘fair is foul..’
- echoes apparition wording and establishes a connection with macbeth
- usually uses metrical pattern consisting of lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter but the verse deviates from his customary literary convention. typical early modern english
‘Till he unseam’d him from the nave to the chaps’
- colourful, callous reportage
- convoluted syntax and hyperbolic metaphors, not only to display the greatness of Macbeth, but also to replicate the high flown rhetoric of the classical messenger, which deteriorates arguably to demonstrate the retrogression of the Captain - unreliable source
- concentrated spotlight
- initial picture
- ‘unseam’d’ - brutality, ruthlessness
‘yet I do fear thy nature; it is too full o’ the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way’
- use of motif - milk
- uses the deterioration of Macbeth’s equilibrium as an example of the capability of mankind - paints her villanously.
- the immense persistence and cupidity to proceed with sin bursts her through gender roles
- Great chain of being
‘Out damned spot! Out I say’
imperative verb “out” connotes with Lady Macbeth being both powerful and commanding, she is ordering the spot to be gone.
Lady Macbeth is sleepwalking which implies a loss of sense and nature, sleep is a natural body process which is natural to most living organisms.
speaking in prose, contrasting with her speaking iambic pentameter or blank verse.
the use of exclamation emphasises the control she thinks she has, which is ironic as she is has no control of her sleep or her sanity.
the “spot” alludes to the regicide that she committed, she is loosing sleep over the murder, even though she tries to seem powerful when she speaks to Macbeth calling him a “coward” insinuating that she is more powerful than him.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools’
Macbeth’s speech is about the futility and illusoriness of all life and everything we do: we are all bound for the grave, and life doesn’t seem to mean anything, ultimately.
the equivoactor
Why, by the verities on thee made good,
May they not be my oracles as well,
And set me up in hope? But hush, no more.
banquo avoiding macebths mental downfall
I have no words; My voice is in my sword
…
Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope the lord’s anointed temple
idea of the king as a special dwelling-place of God – appointed to be God’s representative on earth – would have appealed to James I, who was an advocate of the Divine Right of kings.
Shakespeare’s image combines the Old Testament story of the Ark of the Covenant being taken from the Temple in Jerusalem by the Babylonians
idea of a king being a holy, ‘anointed’ person containing a sacred, living soul. Both the Temple in Jerusalem and the Kings of Judah were sanctified by anointing, and kings and queens of England have also, from the time of Saint Dunstan, been anointed with chrism at their coronation. - chokes on amen
Someone has broken into the temple of Duncan’s body and stolen its contents—that is, Duncan’s life
Important themes
- hamartia
- hubris
- jacobean era
- is lady m seen as a villain because she possesses more masculine traits? or because she is a model of the past ‘subordinate’ female agency by taking her husband’s destiny into her hands? granted this leads to grief but still
