For Friday: Macbeth, Act I (in-class) and Shakespeare's Language (see below)

For Friday, we'll be watching Act One of Macbeth in class to help you visualize the sights and sounds of Shakespeare's play. Feel free to start reading the play for Monday, since we'll discuss Acts 1-2 then. 

Also, here is the handout on Shakespeare's language that I didn't give out in class, but might help you deal with this language when reading the play.

Examining Shakespeare’s Language: Act One, Scene 2 (pg.9)

Captain     Doubtful it stood,

As two spent swimmers that do cling together

And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald

(Worthy to be a rebel, for to that

The multiplying villainies of nature

Do swarm upon him) from the Western Isles

Of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied:

And Fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling,

Showed like a rebel’s whore. But all’s too weak;

For brave Macbeth (well he deserves that name),

Disdaining Fortune, with his brandished steel,

Which smoked with bloody execution,

Like Valor’s minion, carved out his passage

Till he faced the slave;

Which ne’er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,

Till he unseamed him from the nave to th’ chops,

And fixed his head upon our battlements

Blank Verse/Iambic Pentameter: 10 syllable unrhymed lines (to capture a subtle poetic rhythm without being too musical)

Metaphors: “Two spent swimmers”; “villainies of nature swarm” (personification); “Fortune…showed like a rebel’s whore” (personification); “steel…smoked with execution”; “Valor’s minion…carved” (personification); “unseamed him from the nave to th’chops”

Scene Painting: Shakespeare uses this speech to ‘stage’ several scenes without having to stage them. We see Macdonwald trying to save himself like a “spent swimmer” clutching his allies, all of them drowning; then we see Fortune (success) on his arm like a whore who will sleep with anyone; but Macbeth recklessly charges into battle (not caring about his life or fortune) and so wins the day like “Valor’s minion”; then we see him cut Macdonwald from “nave to th’chops” (navel to the jaw) and behead him. All in the space of a few lines!

Syntax: “As two spent swimmers that do cling together/and choke their art.” Could read “Like two tired swimmers clinging together and drowning each other.” This is more alliterative (spent swimmers, cling/choke), and also more visual: spent = tired and dead; choke = arresting and killing.

Also, “Till he unseamed him from the nave to th’chops.” Could read “Until he cut him open from his navel to his throat.” “Unseamed him” means literally “opened his seams,” which makes him seem more like a doll composed of patchwork—brutally ripped open; more a toy than a man. Also, makes him sound like a piece of meat prepared for a feast and Macbeth a practiced butcher.