...A TEACHER’S GUIDE TO THE SIGNET CLASSIC EDITION OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S MACBETH LINDA NEAL UNDERWOOD S E R I E S E D I T O R S : W. GEIGER ELLIS, ED.D., ARTHEA J. S. REED, PH.D., UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA, EMERITUS and UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA, RETIRED A Teacher’s Guide to the Signet Classic Edition of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth 2 INTRODUCTION William Shakespeare developed many stories into excellent dramatizations for the Elizabethan stage. Shakespeare knew how to entertain and involve an audience with fast-paced plots, creative imagery, and multi-faceted characters. Macbeth is an action-packed, psychological thriller that has not lost its impact in nearly four hundred years. The politically ambitious character of Macbeth is as timely today as he was to Shakespeare's audience. Mary McCarthy says in her essay about Macbeth, "It is a troubling thought that Macbeth, of all Shakespeare's characters, should seem the most 'modern,' the only one you could transpose into contemporary battle dress or a sport shirt and slacks." (Signet Classic Macbeth) Audiences today quickly become interested in the plot of a blindly ambitious general with a strong-willed wife who must try to cope with the guilt engendered by their murder of an innocent king in order to further their power. The elements of superstition, ghosts, and witchcraft, though more readily a part of everyday life for the Renaissance audience, remain intriguing to modern teenagers. The action-packed...
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...To what extent is masculinity associated with evil and violence in Macbeth? Evil is a theme widely explored by Shakespeare in his plays and “Macbeth” is no exception. This play demonstrates violence in relation to evil and evil in turn is a reflection of the desperation and anxieties of the characters in “Macbeth.” The question of whether masculinity is associated with evil and violence is easily answered as the main character in this horrific tragedy is Macbeth himself, who commits a range of heinous crimes from murder to dabbling with witchcraft. However, the extent to which masculinity is related to evil is more obscure. In this essay I am going to show that evil and violence in “Macbeth” is not monopolised by masculine characters. To show this I will be analysing female characters who demonstrate strong evil qualities and personalities such as Lady Macbeth, The Witches and Hecate. I will also discuss Banquo, Macduff and King Duncan because these characters represent chivalry, nobility and honour of human characters, even though they are male. The first character I will be looking at is Macbeth himself. This is because he is the central character and focus of the entire play. From the outset Macbeth is depicted as a fierce war hero: “Till he unseamed him from the nave to the chops, And fixed his head upon our battlements.” (Act 1: Scene 1: Lines 22 – 23) The captain using the...
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...Synopsis Macbeth is a play about a Scottish nobleman who learns, from a prophecy given to him by three witches, that he is to become king. When Macbeth's ambition overcomes his moral judgement, he assassinates the reigning king and fulfils the prophecy. In doing so, however, he undermines his own rule with insecurity - insecurity he created when he upset the natural succession to the throne. Beheaded in battle, Macbeth's death allows the rightful heir to reclaim the throne and order is restored. Historical background The play is set in Scotland and the characters' names, including Duncan, Macbeth, Malcolm and Siward, are based on the names of real 11th century British figures. Although Duncan and Macbeth were both kings in life as in the play, Shakespeare did not directly base his narrative on fact, but instead used historical events as a frame for the action in the play. The real Macbeth, ruler of the Moray region of Scotland, was elected to the Scottish throne when the previous king, Duncan, died in battle. Whether Macbeth killed Duncan in the battle remains unknown. Historical opinions suggest that Macbeth was a charitable king who brought peace and prosperity to Scotland during his reign of 17 years. During this time, he made advances into northern England, which displeased Siward, Earl of Northumberland. Siward then campaigned to depose Macbeth and reinstate Malcolm Canmore, Duncan's son. Malcolm eventually beheaded Macbeth in a duel at Lumphanan to become Malcolm...
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...scene showed some the effects of the link between man and God being severed through Pathetic Fallacy. Another way in which Shakespeare would have tried to impress his audience, mainly the monarch at the time (King James 1st) was through the character Banquo. King James believed himself to be a descendent of Banquo, therefore he was written to be a noble, wise and regal man whose good qualities tended to make some of the other characters, particularly Macbeth, envy him. King James 1 considered himself to be an expert on witchcraft, he wrote a book which stated that witches made a pact with the devil, so including the evil ways of the witches and showing them to be dark creatures that turn good loyal men into murderers would have pleased the King as that is how he viewed them himself. If you continue to look into Macbeth’s character, he starts to spiral out of control very quickly. He starts to fear betrayal, which is extremely ironic considering the amount he has already betrayed his king and his country. “But to be safely thus. Our fears in Banquo, stick deep; and in his royalty of nature.” Macbeth is worrying whether he can trust Banquo because of him witnessing Macbeth’s conversation with the witches; this is the point where Macbeth decides that it would be easier to kill...
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...wearing his wife’s dress. Over four hundred years ago, William Shakespeare wrote the tragedy Macbeth. The play began with Macbeth, a brave Thane within Scotland, receiving a prophecy from three witches that led him to believe he will become king. Filled with ambition and driven by the words of his wife, Macbeth killed King Duncan of Scotland and was crowned king.Eventually the guilt and paranoia of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth led to the murders of Banquo, members of the Macduff family and countless others to secure Macbeth’s power. More prophecies pushed Macbeth into a state of overconfidence, which ultimately resulted in the demise of Macbeth and his wife. Throughout the tragedy, Shakespeare used Macbeth and...
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...“Significant ideas are raised in plays” Discuss significant ideas in Macbeth Throughout the Elizabethan era, literary work was written for performance on the stage in order to entertain an audience. These performances, known as plays raise significant ideas that are the underpinning issue or idea that propels and sustains the play. As time passes, different generations look at the significant ideas in Shakespeare with new eyes, redefining and reinterpreting as influenced by the political, social and cultural conditions of each era. These significant ideas that are raised in Shakespeare’s play Macbeth (1606) include supernatural, ambition and temptation, and violence. Macbeth introduces an element of fantasy into the normal tragedy narrative through the characters of the witches. The witches are important figures in the play, as their function is both to predict Macbeth’s fate and to signal to the reader what is to come. Far from serving as a distracting element, the witches help focus the audience on some of the darker and more sinister aspects of the play. Shakespeare’s use of this supernatural idea is raised throughout the entire play. If the witches’ prophecy is understood to be imposing a supernatural order on the natural order of things, the natural order can also be understood as responding with tempestuous signs. Following Duncan’s death, Lennox describes the “unruly” night in detail and his personal emotions. Similarly, Ross notes that “the heavens, as troubled...
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...of themes portrayed in Macbeth, ambition is one of the main themes, it essentially conveys how morality is turned upside down. The main idea is that Macbeth's ambition leads to his own destruction. Initially Macbeth- General of the army and a loyal servant to his king was returning home from battle with Banquo, they come across three witches who state that Macbeth will be made king and so will Banquo's children. They both think that the predictions are absolute crap. However, when Macbeth returns to Cawdor, he is suddenly made thane, which then arouses his lust for power and spikes his ambition, he instantly goes on to murder King Duncan along with the temptation of Lady Macbeth. This creates regret because she...
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...Lady Macbeth is the secondary character in The Tragedy of Macbeth, she is the wife to the main character Macbeth and they plan to murder their way to be king and queen. At first Lady Macbeth showed strong will and pushes Macbeth to kill the King of Scotland. But slowly through the story she loses self control and begins to show weird signs of some mental illness. The mental illness i'm diagnosing her with is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder(PTSD). For lady macbeth Having PTSd occurred during the killing of King Duncan, Banquo and The Macduff family excluding Macduff himself. Killing people has to be one of the most traumatic incidents a human being can experience, and I will explain what PTSD is and the side effects it causes, My reasoning for...
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...William Shakespeare and Graham Greene both present characters as being both heroes and villains in the tale of the tragedy of Macbeth and the short novel of The Destructors. Greene portrays ordinary people who have both the capacity of good and evil. Macbeth is different as we have the character of Macbeth who isn’t clear cut as good or evil, throughout the novel his character slowly decays into a villain. In Macbeth, the first time being switched from the shadowy world of witches to the physical world of battle we are presented with the characters of Ross and the Captain. Shakespeare uses these characters as devices to provide us with an insight into the character of Macbeth heroism. The Captain, covered in blood describes Macbeth as being...
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...Weston Balskus Macbeth Thesis Paper 1-2-13 British Lit The Witches in ‘Macbeth’ “Double, double, toil and trouble; Fire burn and caldron bubble” (Act 4 Scene 1). These famous words, said by the three witches, come from one of William Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies- ‘Macbeth’ Completed in 1606, this play is set in Scotland, and dramatizes the corroding psychological and political effects produced when its protagonist, the Scottish lord Macbeth, chooses evil as the way to fulfill his ambition for power. Shakespeare wrote this play when attitudes were completely different to the attitudes of society today, in particular, widespread belief in witchcraft. In the play of 'Macbeth' the witches have an important effect on Macbeth, the characters, the plot, the theme and the audience. They help construct the play and without them it would have been a totally different story line. The three witches effect characters’ lives, orientate the plot, they are related to most of the themes or motifs and appeal the audience's attention. The witches, or three sisters, have a strong effect on the characters of the play- especially Macbeth. When Macbeth meets the witches for the first time, they greet him as the Thane of Cawdor. Macbeth is Thane of Glamis and does not know about Cawdor, he hasn’t heard that the Thane of Cawdor has died. “I know I am Thane of Glamis, But how of Cawdor? The Thane of Cawdor lives” (Act 1 Scene 3). When Macbeth learns that the thane of Cawdor has in fact died...
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...Shakespeare: Spelling not yet standardized, thus name spelled in different ways • Shakespeare, Shakspere, Shackspere, Shaxper, Shagspere, Shaxberd, etc. Shakespeare: The most well known playwright of Elizabethan times is Shakespeare. But there were also other writers who in their time were just as, or even more famous than him. WHAT MAKES SHAKESPEARE STAND OUT? – The volume of his works Plays firmly attributed to Shakespeare ■ 14 COMEDIES – funny play – with amusing events – ended in marriage / or happily o Midsummer Night’s Dream, Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, As You Like It, Much Ado about Nothing… ■ 10 HISTORIES – Richard III, Richard II, Henry IV… ■ 10 TRAGEDIES – ends in death ← Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, Julius Caesar… ■ 4 Romances – ( chivalry and love) Pericles,...
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...Bloom’s Classic Critical Views W i l l ia m Sha k e Sp e a r e Bloom's Classic Critical Views alfred, lord Tennyson Benjamin Franklin The Brontës Charles Dickens edgar allan poe Geoffrey Chaucer George eliot George Gordon, lord Byron henry David Thoreau herman melville Jane austen John Donne and the metaphysical poets John milton Jonathan Swift mark Twain mary Shelley Nathaniel hawthorne Oscar Wilde percy Shelley ralph Waldo emerson robert Browning Samuel Taylor Coleridge Stephen Crane Walt Whitman William Blake William Shakespeare William Wordsworth Bloom’s Classic Critical Views W i l l ia m Sha k e Sp e a r e Edited and with an Introduction by Sterling professor of the humanities Yale University harold Bloom Bloom’s Classic Critical Views: William Shakespeare Copyright © 2010 Infobase Publishing Introduction © 2010 by Harold Bloom All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For more information contact: Bloom’s Literary Criticism An imprint of Infobase Publishing 132 West 31st Street New York NY 10001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data William Shakespeare / edited and with an introduction by Harold Bloom : Neil Heims, volume editor. p. cm. — (Bloom’s classic critical views) Includes bibliographical references...
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...The Illusion of Leadership Directing Creativity in Business and the Arts Piers Ibbotson The Illusion of Leadership This page intentionally left blank The Illusion of Leadership Directing Creativity in Business and the Arts Piers Ibbotson © Piers Ibbotson 2008 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2008 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan®...
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...35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 Carl and the Passions changed band name to what How many rings on the Olympic flag What colour is vermilion a shade of King Zog ruled which country What colour is Spock's blood Where in your body is your patella Where can you find London bridge today What spirit is mixed with ginger beer in a Moscow mule Who was the first man in space What would you do with a Yashmak Who betrayed Jesus to the Romans Which animal lays eggs On television what was Flipper Who's band was The Quarrymen Which was the most successful Grand National horse Who starred as the Six Million Dollar Man In the song Waltzing Matilda - What is a Jumbuck Who was Dan Dare's greatest enemy in the Eagle What is Dick Grayson better known as What was given on the fourth day of Christmas What was Skippy ( on TV ) What does a funambulist do What is the name of Dennis the Menace's dog What are bactrians and dromedaries Who played The Fugitive Who was the King of Swing Who was the first man to fly across the channel Who starred as Rocky Balboa In which war was the charge of the Light Brigade Who invented the television Who would use a mashie niblick In the song who killed Cock Robin What do deciduous trees do In golf what name is given to the No 3 wood If you has caries who would you consult What other name is Mellor’s famously known by What did Jack Horner pull from his pie How many feet in a fathom which film had song Springtime for Hitler Name the legless fighter pilot of...
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