Macbeth by William Shakespeare

[Music] during the next half an hour we are going to be discussing William Shakespeare's well known tragedy Macbeth as we know William Shakespeare was an Elizabethan poets playwright that is he lived and wrote most of his poems and plays during the time of the Tudor monarch Elizabeth the first he's widely considered one of the greatest dramatists in English speaking on the fecundity of Shakespeare's imagination Alexander Duma the French writer said after God Shakespeare has created most before we proceed to the details of the play let us learn a bit about the dramatist William Shakespeare was born in 1564 at Stratford upon even in England as the son of John Shakespeare and Mary Arden John Shakespeare was an alderman and glower Mary Arden belonged to a wealthy land to owning family Shakespeare probably immortalized his mother's family name in the Forest of Arden in as you like it William Shakespeare was probably educated in a grammar school whose curriculum consisted of Latin grammar and classics his contemporary Ben Jonson has observed that Shakespeare knew small Latin and less Greek at the age of eighteen Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway who was eight years her senior James Joyce puns on the name of the couple when he says if others have the will and hath away with Anne Shakespeare had three children a daughter by a name Susanna and twins Hamnet and Judith sometime after 1585 Shakespeare left for London the capital city of England in London he started a successful career as a writer an actor and part owner of a drama company called Lord Chamberlain's Men which later came to be known the Kingsmen Shakespeare started writing place in a traditional manner adapting available plots and stock dramatic devices but later he came to be known for his insightful originality especially in the creation of characters he even aroused the envy of some of his fellow playwrights such as Robert Greene Shakespeare's plays were staged it many theaters the theater the curtain and the globe he lived in London for nearly three decades after that probably he retired to his hometown Stratford upon even he died on the 23rd of April 1616 in 1623 that is seven years after Shakespeare's death two office friends John Hammond and Henry Condell published a volume called the First Folio it's a collected edition of Shakespeare's poems and plays Shakespeare's surviving works consists of 38 plays these include collaborations as well 154 sonnets and two long narrative poems rape of Lucretia and Venus and Adonis and several other poems Shakespeare is generally considered the most popular writer in English his plays have become immensely popular they have been translated into every major language they are studied interpreted and performed more than the works of any other playwright his plays are usually classified into comedies tragedies and historical plays some scholars also add category such as Chronicle plays Roman plays problem plays and dramatic romances tragedy is a dramatic genre which deals with human suffering why does the hero or heroine of a tragedy suffer according to the ancient Greeks the cause of a tragic hero suffering is what they called hamartia the word hamartia is often translated as a flaw or defect in character but a more precise meaning of the word hamartia is a mistake Macbeth is a tragedy of ambition it is one of Shakespeare's four great tragedies you know the names of the other tragedies the other tragedies are Hamlet Othello and King Lear Macbeth is the shortest and the most impressive of these tragedies it seems to have been written sometime between 16 not 3 and 16 not 7 the play was also subject to several revisions it is about a regicide and it's aftermath in other words it is a story of an ambitious conscience-stricken and imaginative general who is driven by his wife or by his ambition to murder his king let us now explore the characteristics of Shakespeare's tragedies as in classical tragedies Shakespeare's tragic heroes are men of high state and noble status in Macbeth the protagonist is a Scottish general he's also a close relative of King Duncan King Leah Leah is a King of Britain and Hamlet is a Prince of Denmark the plot of a tragedy is about the evils that befall a conspicuous per person like this another feature of Shakespeare's tragedies is that they end in the deaths of both the hero and the heroic in Macbeth both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth die this is also true of plays like Romeo and Juliet both the hero and the heroine die at the end of the play there is a moral order in Shakespeare's plays as a plot of the play advances this moral order collapses or deteriorates the overall impression is one of waste power glory intelligence all values which people cherish and call men to action perish unlike in classical tragedies this has little to do with fate the reason for the deterioration in Shakespeare's tragedies is the human will to evil moral corruption or human wickedness we must remember that Shakespeare's emphasis is not on the physical death of his heroes it is on the idea fall of a good man the consequences of this fall are significant for the hero for Macbeth life loses all meaning after he has committed his crimes he delivers a soliloquy when he hears of Lady Macbeth's death in this memorable soliloquy he articulates the futility of human life lives but a walking shadow a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more it is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing it is a speech of pessimism and despair it also speaks of the vanity and absurdity of human life but if you look at this passage very carefully you can find something else also Macbeth is also trying to draw some kind of consolation from the meaninglessness of life if life itself has no meaning or purpose then his crimes are also meaningless and he might be saved it is also significant that Shakespeare employs the theatrical metaphor in this passage perhaps he's suggesting that life is also illusory like dramatic art tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time why do you think the word tomorrow is repeated for Macbeth life has lost its organic unity so every day is merely a meaningless monotonous and absurd repetition of the previous day Shakespeare's words are so dense in meaning they provide profound insights on life and human nature Shakespeare also depicts abnormal states of mind in his tragedies this includes insanity somnambulism and hallucination King Lear goes mad affiliate commits suicide Macbeth hallucinates and Lady Macbeth walks in sleep the dramatis personae of Macbeth include Duncan King of Scotland Malcolm Duncan's eldest son Donalbain Duncan's youngest son Macbeth a general in King Duncan's army he was originally the Thane of Glamis then Thane of Cawdor and later King of Scotland Lady Macbeth Macbeth wife and later Queen of Scotland Banquo Macbeth friend and a general in King Duncan's army Fleance Banquo son Macduff Thane of Fife Lady Macduff Madhav's wife Magda of son then we have the Scottish stains Ross Lennox Angus man teeth and Katniss we had Seward Earl of Northumberland and general of the English forces young Seward who Seward's son Satan Macbeth servant Hecate goddess of witchcraft and a three who predict that Macbeth will become a king Shakespeare's source for the tragedy of Macbeth was the account of King Macbeth of Scotland Macduff and Duncan in a book called Holland shits chronicles Holland shits chronicles published in 1587 was a history of England Scotland and Ireland but Shakespeare changed the story and character of Macbeth given in hollingers chronicles his criterion was not historical accuracy but artistic efficacy Macbeth opens amidst thunder and lightning the three witches are The Weird Sisters agreed that that mixed meeting shall be with Macbeth as the scene changes a wounded sergeant reports to King Duncan that Macbeth one of the Kings kinsmen and Banquo another general have just defeated the combined armies of Navi and Ireland which were led by the traitor mengdan walled everyone praises Macbeth's loyalty bravery and fighting prowess the passage is quite ironic it is ironic because soon macbeth will also turn out to be a traitor like macdonald when the scene changes Macbeth and Banquo enter talking about the weather and their victory in the battle soon the three witches greet them with their prophecies on a lonely heat the first which hails Macbeth as a Thane of Glamis the second Hills him as a teen of Gordo the third which hails him the king that shall be Hereafter as Macbeth appears to be stunned to silence Banco challenges them they prophesy that bancos descendants will be Kings though he himself will not be one soon message arrives that the title of Thane of Cawdor has been bestowed upon Macbeth does the first of the witch's prophecies is fulfilled this functions as a trigger for the rest of the action in the play Macbeth is brooding it seems that he has already made up his mind to become the king of Scotland he sends a message to his wife Lady Macbeth the message talks about the witch's prophecies when King Duncan decides to stay at the Macbeth's castle at Inverness Lady Macbeth hatches a plot to murder King Duncan and secure the throne for her husband Macbeth is a little apprehensive about regicide but his wife succeeds in persuading her husband to follow her plan he murders Duncan but he's so shaken that Lady Macbeth has to take charge she places the daggers on Duncan's sleeping guards so as to frame them early in the morning Lennox a Scottish nobleman and Macduff the loyal Thane of Fife arrive her drunken Porter opens the entrance of the castle in his state of drunkenness he thinks that he is the porter of the gates of hell this situation is also quite ironic the murder of Duncan has just occurred and Macbeth's castle has become literally a Hell Macbeth leads the noble men into the castle and Macduff enters Duncan's chamber he discovers Duncan scops in a feigned fit of anger Macbeth kills both the guards before they get they get a chance to proclaim their innocence Macduff is suspicious of Macbeth but he does not express his suspicions openly he has to be politically correct fearing for their lives Duncan's sons also flee from the land Malcolm to England and Donalbain to Ireland being the closest relative of King Duncan who is in Scotland Macbeth a sense of throne Macbeth is uneasily conscious of the which is prophecy about banku and his descendants he invites banku to a royal banquet he learns that banku and his son fly-ins are to ride out that night he hires assassins to kill them the assassins succeed in killing banku but Fleance escapes meanwhile at the banquet Macbeth and Lady Macbeth invite the Lords of the country to a night of drinking and merriment at this point Banquo's ghost enters and sits in Macbeth's place Macbeth grows furious but only he can see the ghost it is a subjective ghost the others panic when the King rages at an empty chair but now Lady Macbeth takes control of the situation she tells the guests that her husband has been suffering from a harmless malady her disturbed Macbeth misses the three witches again remember that this time he seeks out the witches they conjure up three spirits with three prophecies and warnings an alarmed head tells Macbeth to beware of Macduff a bloody child wants non born of woman shall harm Macbeth a crowned child holding a tree states that Macbeth will never be vanquished until great Birnam wood comes to high Dunsinane Hill Macbeth is lulled into a false sense of security by the witches ambiguous words he's informed that Macduff is in exile in England so he orders the execution of Macduff's wife and child Lady Macbeth collapses psychologically from the guilt of the crimes she and her husband have committed she walks in sleep and tries to wash away imaginary blood stains the sleepwalking scene is one of the most memorable in the whole of Shakespeare in England Macduff is told about the slaughter of his fan in Scotland Macbeth is increasingly seen as a tyrant Malkin leads an army also joined by Macduff and Seward the senior the Earl of Northumberland when the army is camped in the Birnam wood the soldiers are asked to cut down and hold tree limbs in order to camouflage their numbers thus the witches first prophecy is fulfilled meanwhile Macbeth learns about the death of his wife then he delivers a soliloquy on the futility of life a soliloquy is a dramatic device by which an actor expresses his thoughts and feelings the purpose of a soliloquy is to convey the thoughts and feelings to the audience in the battle that follows Macduff confronts Macbeth Macbeth boasts that he does not fear Macduff because no one born of woman will be able to harm Macbeth Macduff declares that he was prematurely ripped from his mother's womb that is he was born of caesarean section in this way the witch's second prophecy is also fulfilled Macbeth realizes too late that he has misinterpreted the witch's words or they have deliberately misled him Macduff beheads Macbeth and the first prophecy is also fulfilled Malcolm is placed on the throne of Scotland then what happens to the witch's prophecy about Banquo and his descendants James the sixth of Scotland who assumed the throne of England as James the first was supposedly a descendant of Banquo let us now explore the major themes of the play Macbeth what is a play ultimately about the play Macbeth has attracted much scholarship and many speculations some scholars see Macbeth as Shakespeare's complement to King James at first these scholars tell us that Shakespeare sought to flatter King James a first by developing the story of Macbeth King James the first traced his descent to Banco an imaginary Scottish gentlemen of the 11th century the King must have been pleased by the ancient supernatural predictions of his glory secondly Shakespeare's characterization of the witches in the play also must have pleased the King because the depiction of the witches corresponds exactly to the Kings belief in witches as he put it in the scholarly treatise demonology Shakespeare presents the witches as wrinkled ugly women who have sold their souls to the devil for the gift of prophecy seeking and accepting the help of the witches Macbeth is also partly guilty of trafficking with the devil so in a way Macbeth is about man's bondage to evil other scholars see the play as the exploration of the mind of a killer they go to the extent of calling Macbeth a butcher and Lady Macbeth affiant they admire the profound character studies offered by Shakespeare with great dramatic skill and profound psychological insight Shakespeare presents Macbeth as a victim of criminal ambition there is nothing wrong with ambition but in Macbeth's case it is an ambition to seek and possess what is not his even before Macbeth meets the witches this ambition is inherent in him in fact the slumbering ambition makes him more amenable to the witch's suggestion this is clear from Macbeth's responds to the witch's prophecies he listens to them with rapt attention he broods over the prophecies he is also anxious about the prophecies the course of action suggested by ambition is perilous soon it becomes a passion we know that Macbeth murders the King in order to secure the throne for himself many critics view Macbeth as a historical play which deals with the punishment for treason but whippet is insecure in his ambition even after he secures the throne for himself the murder of Banquo is undertaken partly from the resentment that the fruit of his Labour's should be enjoyed by bancos descendants Macbeth embarks upon an orgy of crime and murders Madoff's wife and children how few critics prefer to called Macbeth a Christian tragedy which traces in detail the damnation of the soul many have detected in it the elements of a morality play the porter in the play also speaks in the Calvinistic fashion of damnation Macbeth is ridden with guilt despondency overwhelms him he cries out in agony and despair he cannot find meaning or purpose any there in life this is surely the most harrowing vision of spiritual isolation ever to be realized in drama the disastrous consequences of Macbeth's ambition are not limited to him during Shakespeare's time people including King James believed in the Divine Right theory of kingship the King was considered the regent or the beauty of God on the earth thus rebellion against or murder of the King was considered not only a crime against the state but also a sin committed against guard from the moment of King Duncan's murder Scott is portrayed as a country shaken by the inversions of the natural order Scotland experiences violent weather conditions the richest lines in the first act fair is foul and foul is fair summarizes the inversion of order hierarchies are tempered with the great chain of being is upset moral and political degradation is paralleled by perturbations in nature among the inversions of the natural order is a disturbance of sleep in the regular order of nature one part of the day is meant for work and the other part is meant for sleep but after Macbeth murders Duncan he hears a voice saying that Macbeth has murdered sleep the statement is figuratively mirrored in Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking supernatural elements abound in Macbeth the three witches called The Weird Sisters and bancos ghosts are the two notable examples of the supernatural Shakespeare's depiction of the witches follows contemporary belief in the play they represent forces of darkness chaos and conflict but are they capable of originating evil in men the question is are they mere witness to evil or are the agents of evil it is true that the witch's prophecies lead Macbeth to murderous thoughts but it is also true that he has this inclination to do evil even before he meets the witches after he meets the witches this temptation to do evil takes a concrete shape in fact the witches approached Macbeth because they know that he is more amenable to their suggestions than Banquo of course the witch's prophecies and equivocal statements lead him to his ultimate doom their prophecies are morally neutral meg it has the full freedom to choose his course of action in other words he has free will Shakespeare's versatile genius has given the world a wide variety of heroes and herranz they have a certain depth and complexity as a result they are subjects of perennial interest the character of Macbeth is presented in a progressive manner our downward progress from good to bad and from bad to worse throughout this process of deterioration Macbeth is shown as intensely human essentially noble and good and yet susceptible to evil continually the character of Macbeth is realistic and credible though at the end of the play Macbeth has become a monstrously wicked man he's not a morally cold Wilen who deliberately chooses evil for his guard until Macbeth yields to the temptation of becoming the king himself he is known for his loyalty and bravery people talk about these qualities of his even after he has embarked upon his career of crime he's constantly plagued by his conscience he has a very sensitive conscience and this sensitive conscience makes him hate every act of evil as he commits it he tries to stifle the warnings of his conscience but he cannot suppress the warnings entirely Macbeth's physical courage stands in sharp contrast to his moral covetous due to this moral covetous he is unable to resist his wife's desire to make him the king and commit Duncan's murder he commits the subsequent murders with less education it is this moral covetous which makes Macbeth a tyrant as the plot advances he becomes distrustful treacherous and cruel we have already seen that the cause of this moral covered is is Macbeth's excessive ambition ambition is one trait that defines Macbeth's character closely linked to Macbeth's excessive ambition is his capacity for lively imagination he sees the air-drawn dagger which seems to move towards King Duncan's chamber he also sees a vision of Banquo's ghost AC Bradley who has certain on Shakespeare's tragedy says that it is true imagination that Macbeth is kept in touch with supernatural impressions it is also through his imagination that Macbeth is made liable to supernatural fears all the intimations of conscience and honor come to Macbeth through his imagination in fact his better nature expresses itself through his imagination it is Bradleys contention that if Macbeth had obeyed only his imagination he would have been safe but Macbeth's imagination also becomes the instrument by which nemesis avenges the crime in comparison with Macbeth Lady Macbeth appears only a few times in the play yet our understanding of her character is quite comprehensive Lady Macbeth is one of those commanding of inspiring figures whom one finds in Shakespeare once in a while she is called the Clytemnestra of English tragedy she's as ambitious as her husband but she is more practical in attaining the object of her ambition this is evident from her response to the witch's prediction Macbeth is somebody who listens to the witch's prediction firsthand but he experiences a conflict in his mind regarding what to do the prediction is only reported to Lady Macbeth but the flame of ambition possesses her in a moment and she starts working on the realization of the tambaran Lady Macbeth also has an inflexible will that keeps or appears to keep her imagination conscience and feeling in check she knows her husband's weaknesses she also knows that she has to gourd her husband into committing the murder Lady Macbeth has a hypnotizing effect on her husband she displays great self-control and presence of mind even in moments of great danger and horror as in the murder scene and the banquet scene her resourceful practical intelligence makes her behave in a calm manner but it is her excessive willpower which proves to be her ruin as well her imperious will makes her impose upon herself and bear a strain which is beyond the endurance of the rest of her powers soon her resistance collapses and she becomes a nervous wreck in other words she collapses psychologically because she has artificially hardened her otherwise tender nature in the memorable sleepwalking scene we see how memories of the murders of Duncan Vanko and Macduff's wife and children know at her heartstrings and have corroded her nerve centers the touching words the Thane of Fife had a wife tell us that she can still feel for a murdered woman

Channel: CH_01: VAGEESH [ Language & Literature]

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Length: 33min 21sec (2001 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 06 2017