MACBETH
By: Shakespeare
Background Information
- 1585-1592 is referred to as “The Lost Years”.
- What we know about Shakespeare today comes from wills, registrar records, court records, marriage certificates, and his tombstone from Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon
- Started King New School at the age of seven to study finished school at fourteen or fifteen
- Had 7 siblings, being the oldest of four brothers. His parents were Mary Arden and John Shakespeare
- Got married to Anne Hathaway, who was twenty-six, and together they had three kids, having one set of twins.
- Turned to writing poetry after a plague broke out in London causing theatres to close, and in 1594 he became a very successful actor, and playwright
- Passed away in 1616 and was a man of substantial wealth.
- Not until 1623, seven years after his death were his plays published.
Language used and the differences between them
- Macbeth was written in Early Modern English.
- Early Modern English: closest to modern English. Changes like spelling, punctuation, and pronunciation.
- Old English: Have different letter, and the letter make different sounds then what we know of.
- Middle English: the letters and spelling of the words changed and Latin terms and prefixes were used more now. It became closer to what we use today.
Understadning the language used
- Easier way to understand Shakespeare's way of writing..relate it to the way Yoda speaks.
- Inverted Syntax: when the wording of the sentence is different then the basic of what we know, subject-verb followed by an adjective, adverb, complement, or phrase.
- The way Yoda speaks he inverts the familiar syntax changing the tradition word order, just like Shakespeare did. It's basically changing the words around in the sentence that would not seem correct but still make sense on our minds.
King James
- Son of Mary Queen of Scots and the King of Scotland.
- Was a good ruler and a big fan of theater.
- His relationship with Shakespeare was that his play, Macbeth, was written based off of Scottish history to please King James. Shakespeare found many stories of violence and of witches and wizards, reflecting off of James’s beliefs between treason and witchcraft.
- King James’s view of the supernatural was that he believed in witchcraft and Shakespeare play, Macbeth, was based off of that.
Witches
- The belief that witches are real was believed during the time of Shakespeare’s day.
- Witches were powerful figures who played a main role in Macbeth.
- They were believed to see in the future, and they play a huge influence on the characters and events in the play.
- You will notice them in a lot of the scenes as you continue reading through the play.
The Curse of Macbeth
- People say the script of Macbeth is cursed and this is one of the most famous superstitions.
- Macbeth is named to be one of Shakespeare's darkest plays, which consist of betrayal, murders, witchcrafts, and greed.
- The roles of the women, like Lady Macbeth, say to be "evil spirited".
- Every time a play was performed something would go wrong.
- This is one of the biggest curses that people believed there was during Shakespeare's time.
- Watch the video below showing evidence to the curse.
Fun facts
- Shakespeare married an older women who was 3 months pregnant at the time
- Shakespeare’s parents were illiterate
- Shakespeare died in 1616 and the words “Curst be he that moves my bones” were inscribed on his grave.
Macbeth Summary