The title of lecture was “Macbeth Macbeth Macbeth and the Power of Poetry.” Russ McDonald begins by discussing how the play shows how a heroic man takes the life of a fellow human and suffers unbearable punishments. Three things he believes you should think about while reading the play; it makes you think about the nature of evil, Macbeth is short and direct with a stressed structure and concentrated poetic surface, and the key attraction of they play is the dark music, ordinary poetic power, and extraordinary texture of the text. At the beginning of the lecture McDonald considers all of the topics he would not be focusing on that have also been discovered about the text. His interest was in the patterns of poetic language that brought about the music of the text through iambic pentameter, repetition, and metaphors.
The interest was not only in the repetition of the text, but the variation that becomes not only an instrumental feature of the poetry but a very important aspect towards the meaning of the play. The plethora of stanzas he presented were linked to time and succession of repeated actions in the text as well as repeated action of the characters. A consistent theme that we brought up in class and that was mentioned in the lecture was the exploration of masculinity that can be seen throughout Macbeth. It explores the ideas of what is natural and appropriate for humans and their actions. Then he discussed the effects of alliteration and assonance, and the fact that animals can make vowel sounds but not consonants. While consonants may be the framework of language he discusses how the vowels, which are used throughout the play, are the life of sounds.
Later he discussed the word “success,” which is mentioned about seven ...
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...olicy groups, think tanks, all of which influence government decisions. The other impact they have is on individual candidates through the influence of money. Decisions are no longer being made for the best of our nation and the people but through greed. I truly wonder what happens to the morals and principles of people as they move up through positions. Is this what is going to happen when I finally can get a job? I know that it is much harder to get a job that does things mostly for the good because with each progression in life there is a regression that comes along with it. If people put that as their first priority maybe this would not happen. I always wonder what happens when professors move up to the administrative level, as I know for a fact they do not see eye-to-eye on many issues. The nature of humans is something I do not know if I will ever understand.
Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Ed. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 7th ed. New York: Longman, 1999.
In William Shakespeare Macbeth the composer emphasizes the controlling force that power possesses over another being. Shakespeare utilizes many types of powers in different contexts, such as domestic power, supernatural power and the power of the natural order within Elizabethan society. The composer employs these powers within the text to not illustrate but also highlight their controlling and possessive influence on the central figures within the text. The play climax’s around the protagonist dealing with the consequences of his actions in succumbing to external pressures and an inner hunger for ambition and power. In perusing such desires he gets killed epitomising the rigidity to the natural order in which all citizens during the Elizabethan era must conform to.
Never to go unnoticed, the name William Shakespeare describes an experienced actor, an exceptional playwright, and a notable philosopher. As one of the most influential men of the sixteenth and seventeenth century, Shakespeare impacted many artists with his riveting masterpieces. Shakespeare captured the attention of the people through his exquisite work in blank verse, and he inspired them with universal truths of the human condition. His sonnet sequence, consisting of 154 poems, is arguably the finest collection of love poems in the English language. Shakespeare continuously impressed his audience with his explorations of life’s complexities. Such an intricate man; however, he never wrote about himself. He would not discuss his composition methods and only through careful analysis could one understand the underlying truths to his work. Shakespeare was often known to use plots from other sources and enrich them to masterpieces with his genuine knowledge of literature. Although he completed many poems in his lifetime, each one of them was rich in quality and very complex in structure. The play, Macbeth, reveals the uniform structure of a typical Elizabethan tragedy with five acts that carefully reflect the pyramid organization of an exposition, a rising action, a climax, a falling action, and a denouement.
of literature, whether you realize it or not. The importance of obtaining masculine qualities to Macbeth
In the early 1600’s, William Shakespeare penned an Aristotelian tragedy ‘Macbeth’ which provides his audiences both then and now with many valuable insights and perceptions into human nature. Shakespeare achieves this by cleverly employing many dramatic devices and themes within the character of ‘Macbeth’. Macbeth is depicted as an anti-hero; a noble protagonist with a tragic flaw that leads to his downfall. This tragic flaw of Macbeth’s, heavily laden with the themes of ‘fate or free will’, and ‘ambition’, is brought out by Shakespeare in his writing to present us with a character whose actions and final demise are, if not laudable, very recognisable as human failings.
Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” explores a fundamental struggle of the human conscience. The reader is transported into the journey of a man who recognizes and acknowledges evil but still succumbs to its destructive powers. The character of Macbeth is shrouded in ambiguity that scholars have claimed as both being a tyrant and tragic hero. Macbeth’s inner turmoil and anxieties that burden him throughout the entire play evoke sympathy and pity in the reader. Though he has the characteristics of an irredeemable tyrant, Macbeth realizes his mistakes and knows there is no redemption for his sins. And that is indeed tragic.
The essence of Macbeth lies not only in the fact that it is written by the universal talent William Shakespeare; the royal-conspiracy, the political unethical activity, the killin...
Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Ed. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. New York: Washington Square Press New Folger Edition, 1992
Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Ed. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 7th ed. New York: Longman, 1999.
Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Elements of Literature, Sixth Course. Ed. Kristine E. Marshall, 1997. 300-312. Print.
While in Hamlet and others of Shakespeare's plays we feel that Shakespeare refined upon and brooded over his thoughts, Macbeth seems as if struck out at a heat and imagined from first to last with rapidity and power, and a subtlety of workmanship which has become instructive. The theme of the drama is the gradual ruin through yielding to evil within and evil without, of a man, who, though from the first tainted by base and ambitious thoughts, yet possessed elements in his nature of possible honor and loyalty. (792)
Campbell, Lily B. "Macbeth : A Study in Fear." Readings on Macbeth. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, Inc., 1999. 126-35.
As with all great works of literature, William Shakespeare’s Macbeth has spawned countless essays concerning its interpretation. Two such essays, “Shakespearean Tragedy” and “General Macbeth,” produced by two eminent literary critics, A.C. Bradley and Mary McCarthy, find themselves in conflict. The essays’ respective authors diverge on subjective points such as interpretation of character, original intent, and meaning. Bradley’s Macbeth is courageous and encumbered by the dregs of guilt, while McCarthy’s version takes a less orthodox path.
Macbeth is, however, not only a study of fear; it is a study in fear. The sounds and images in the play combine to give the atmosphere of terror and fear. The incantation of the witches, the bell that tolls while Duncan dies, the cries of Duncan, the cries of the women as Lady Macbeth dies, the owl, the knocking at the gate, the wild horses that ate each other, the story, the quaking of the earth - all of these are the habitual accompaniments of the willfully fearful in literature. (238-39)
In Macbeth, Shakespeare confronts audiences with universal and powerful themes of ambition and evil along with its consequences. Shakespeare explores the powerful theme of the human mind’s decent into madness, audiences find this theme most confronting because of its universal relevance. His use of dramatic devices includes soliloquies, animal imagery, clear characterisation and dramatic language. Themes of ambition and mental instability are evident in Lady Macbeth’s reaction to Macbeth’s letter detailing the prophecies, Macbeth’s hallucinations of Banquo’s ghost and finally in the scene where Lady Macbeth is found sleep walking, tortured by her involvement.