Instructions and Quick-Write

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Instructions and Quick-Write

• Pick up the two handouts from the front table and
  take out a sheet or 2 of notebook paper.
• In a paragraph of 5 or more sentences respond to
  the prompt
• Can too much ambition drive people to do terrible
  things? Try to use a historical example to
  support your point.

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Macbeth Background and Literary Terms

• English IV

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DRAMA AND TRAGEDY
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Drama

• A narrative that is meant to be performed by
  actors in front of an audience. The plot and
  characters are developed through dialogue and
  action.

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Tragedy

• A drama that presents the downfall of a dignified
  character or characters who are involved in
  historically or socially significant events. A
  tragedy ends in catastrophe usually death for
  the main character(s).
• Examples
• Hamlet, Macbeth, American Beauty, Death of a
  Salesman

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Tragic Hero

• The protagonist of a tragedy usually a dignified
  individual of historical or societal significance
  who fails or dies because of a character flaw or
  a cruel twist of fate. This character will often
  show strength while facing his or her destiny.

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Tragic Flaw

• An error in judgment on the part of a tragic hero
  that sets the events of a tragic plot into motion.

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DRAMATIC CONVENTIONS
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DIVISIONS

• Act
• A larger division of a dramatic text that
  indicates a shift in location or the passage of
  time.
• Scene
• A smaller division of a dramatic text that
  indicates a shift in location or the passage of
  time.

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• Shakespeares tragedies typically follow this
  pattern
• Act I Exposition
• Act II Rising Action
• Act III Crisis/Turning Point The characters
  make a choice the determine the direction of the
  rest of the play.
• Act IV Falling Action
• Act V Resolution
• Debate exists as to where the Climax falls.
  Some argue that it falls in Act III, others argue
  for Act V. We will decide for ourselves.

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Stage Directions

• Directions in the text of a drama that allow
  actors and directors to stage the drama and
  readers to see the action. They are typically
  italicized and will often explain how characters
  should look, speak, move, and behave.
• Example
• BENEATHA Haylo (Disappointed) Yes, he is.
  (She tosses the phone to WALTER, who barely
  catches it) Its Willie Harris again. (from A
  Raisin in the Sun)

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Dramatic Irony

• The audience is aware of something that the
  characters onstage are not aware of works to
  build suspense in a text or drama.

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Comic Relief

• A humorous scene, incident or speech that
  relieves the overall emotional intensity. By
  providing contrast, comic relief serves to
  heighten the seriousness of the main action while
  helping audiences to absorb earlier events in the
  plot and get ready for the ones to come.

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Dialogue

• A conversation between two or more people. Any
  portion of a staged drama, that is neither a
  monologue nor a soliloquy, is a dialogue.

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SINGLE-PERSON SPEECHES

• Monologue
• A long speech by one person to an audience of any
  number of people.
• Has an intended audience (talking to another
  character)
• Soliloquy
• A long speech in which a character who is onstage
  alone expresses his or her thoughts and feelings
  aloud.
• Has no intended audience (talking to oneself)

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Aside

• Words spoken by a character in a play to the
  audience or to another character that are not
  supposed to be heard by the others onstage.

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Apostrophe

• A figure of speech in which one directly
  addresses an absent or imaginary person, or some
  abstraction. This is often used when emotions
  become most intense.
• Example
• "Hello darkness, my old friend I've come to talk
  with you again Paul Simon

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OTHER LITERARY TERMS
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Blank Verse

• Poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter
  blank means the poetry is not rhymed this is
  the major form of verse in Shakespeares plays.

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Character Foil

• A character who is used to contrast another
  character

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Paradox

• An apparently contradictory statement that
  actually reveals some truth.
• Examples
• Everyone is completely unique, just like
  everyone else
• Some day you will be old enough to start reading
  fairy tales again." -The Lion, the Witch, and the
  Wardrobe
• Each new power won by man is a power over man as
  well. Each advance leaves him weaker as well as
  stronger.-C. S. Lewis
• Exception Paradox "If there is an exception to
  every rule, then every rule must have at least
  one exception, the exception to this one being
  that it has no exception
• Petronius Paradox "Practice moderation in all
  things. Including moderation."

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Oxymoron

• A concise paradox that brings together two
  contradictory terms.
• Examples
• jumbo shrimp, act naturally, found missing,
  genuine imitation, good grief

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Pun

• A play on the multiple meanings of a word or on
  two words that sound alike but have different
  meanings.
• Example
• What has four wheels and flies? A garbage truck!
  (pun on the word flies)

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William Shakespeare 1564-1616
All the world 's a stage, / And all the men and
women merely players.
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• Born in Stratford
• The 3rd of 8 kids
• Married at age 18
• (his wife was 26)
• Worked as an actor
• Eighteen plays printed
• small books called
• quartos
• First folio in 1623

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The Globe Theater 1599
Burned in 1613
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The New Globe Theater
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The Plays

• Comedies
• Tragedies
• Histories

• The Tragedies
• Hamlet
• Romeo and Juliet
• Othello
• King Lear
• Macbeth

Which plays have you heard of?
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Characters Macbeth

• Characters
• Duncan King of Scotland
• Malcolm heir to the throne
• Macbeth general of the kings army
• Banquo general of the kings army
• Macduff Macbeths foil
• Lady Macbeth wife of Macbeth

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Themes Macbeth

• Appearances can be deceiving.
• Violence resulting when social order is tampered
  with
• Qualities of good and evil combined in a single
  individual
• Seduction of power and ambition turns noble
  people into tyrants
• Internal desires versus external realities
• What is good and what is bad is not always black
  and white

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Historical Context

• Witchcraft, Treason, and the Great Chain of Being

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Witchcraft
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Elizabethan Belief in Witches

• Ghosts, malevolent spirits, witches, and other
  supernatural elements were common belief
• Queen Elizabeth I passed the 1562 Elizabethan
  Witchcraft Act forbidding conjuration,
  enchantments, and witchcrafts
• Belief in witches inspired violent behavior in
  Shakespearean times
• Historians cite that 16,000 women were killed due
  to witchcraft accusations
• King James wrote a book on the subject
  Daemonology (Shakespeare incorporated this aspect
  of the kings character when creating the role of
  Macbeth)

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Treason
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The Gunpowder Plot of 1605

• The seeds of discontent were sown in the late
  1520s during the reign of Henry VIII when he
  parted from the Roman Catholic Church
• subsequent monarchs decided the fates of the
  nations believers
• Elizabeth became fearful of an encroaching
  Catholic Europe so she began to repress and
  persecute Catholics

• "Remember, remember the fifth of
  November.Gunpowder, Treason and Plot.I see no
  reason why Gunpowder TreasonShould ever be
  forgot."

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• Three British Catholic gentlemen met in secret
  (Catesby, Wintour, and Wright)
• King James promises a relaxation in the
  anti-Catholic laws, but it now appeared that he
  would be even more severe in their persecution
  than his predecessor had been
• The plan was to blow up the King and the House of
  Lords at the next Opening of Parliament by
  renting a cellar right under the House of Lords
• they would then seize the royal children and
  return Catholicism to the land

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• To commemorate the discovery of the Plot, King
  James had a medal created picturing a serpent
  hiding amongst flowers
• Look like the innocent flower, but be the
  serpent undert
• The Shakespearean audience would have understood
  the context and allusion

• Guy Fawkes was able to fill the underground
  storehouse with some thirty-six barrels of
  gunpowder
• Everything was set in place all the conspirators
  had to do now was wait.
• The plan was foiled when a letter was sent to
  Lord Monteagle telling of the plot
• All the conspirators except for one were executed
  for their crimes

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The great Chain of Being
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The Great Chain of Being

• Based on the Greek philosopher Aristotles
  concept of the universe
• Everything in the world had its position fixed by
  God
• The Earth was the center of the universe and the
  stars moved around it
• In Heaven, God ruled over the archangels and
  angels
• On Earth, society reflected this order with its
  fixed classes from the highest to the lowest
  kings, churchmen, nobles, merchants, and peasants
• The animals had their own degrees too, the lion
  being the king
• Among the trees, the most superior was the oak
  among flowers, it was the rose. Among the
  minerals, gold was the most superior.

• Any attempt to break the chain of being would
  upset the established order and bring about
  universal disorder.
• The king held a God-ordained position which is
  known as the divine right of kings. Therefore,
  if the kings position was violated, such as
  rebellion or assassination, it would bring strife
  and chaos to the world, simply because it
  amounted to rebellion against God.
• It was a sin committed against God and must be
  punished.