Macbeth - So You Haven't Read William Shakespeare

literature gives us the opportunity to experience lives perspectives and worlds different from our own though remember friend a good story has many readings and this is but one honestly what's a scotsman gotta do to become king around here you've already proven yourself a valiant warrior on the battlefield you've met these witches who told you that you're totally gonna be king one day and right now the current king is sleeping at your house you know i bet a little regicide would allow you to seize that throne right quick what do you say that's my scotsman but as night approaches and you prepare for a murder most foul you become racked with guilt that is until you see a bloody dagger floating in the air before you its handled toward your hand and you and you wait did you not get a copy of the script you know macbeth by shakespeare oh that's right that's right the curse well it's gonna be hard to talk about mech i mean the play without saying the title but even so we'll make sure you get through this one scot-free ah come on i didn't say anything about no puns [Applause] [Music] thanks so much to world anvil for helping us discuss important worlds in literature so you haven't read william shakespeare's macbeth well if i were a betting man and i am i'd wager you're really gonna like it because it's a tale told by a genius full of sound and fury signifying just awesome but because certain overly superstitious theater people and cats believe the play to be cursed i'll be referring to it as the scottish play for now however i assure you the play is not cursed in fact the scottish play has been on stage almost constantly since shakespeare wrote it around 1606 and is considered to be one of its four great tragedies and the scottish play has maintained this popularity over the centuries because of its fantastic lead couple famous speeches fast-moving plot and spooky supernatural elements speaking of spooky the presence of the three witches of double-double toil and trouble fame actually gave rise to the legend of the curse see there's an enduring anecdote that shakespeare used actual witches spells in macbeth which led local witches to curse to play which led to theater performers believing that if they mentioned the play's name or even quoting lines while inside an actual theater will bring about bad luck as opposed to us who are inside an animated coffee shop on the internet however if you're still feeling spooked you could always go exercise the curse like some actors do by performing a ritual of running around outside turning around three times spitting and cursing but just so you know there's no actual evidence to support the idea that macbeth is more dangerous than any other play however that's not to say that the tale itself is without its share of peril you are macbeth a scottish nobleman and brave warrior you've just won an important battle for king duncan and are heading home for some well-deserved praise however on your way back you run across three witches doing dumb witch stuff and these weird sisters prophesies that not only is king duncan about to promote you but you yourself will be king one day ah silly witches what do they know right however when you get to the king he immediately promotes you huh all right maybe there's something to these witches after all then you write to your wife lady macbeth to let her know about your promotion and about the witch's prophecies she's so excited by the news that she decides you shouldn't wait until fate makes you king you must cease your first opportunity to kill duncan and take his crown for your own now you're not really into this idea at first but after she gives you a murderous tough love pep talk that night you sneak into duncan's room and stab him to death you and lady macbeth then frame the murder on the king's guards throw suspicion on duncan's sons so they're forced to flee and are soon crowned the new king of scotland but now that you're king you are afraid that someone else might do what you did to duncan so you decide to kill anyone who might figure out the truth but when that fails to make you feel better you seek out the witches again and ask them for some reassurance they tell you to beware of your friend mcduff but that you can't be killed by men of woman born and that your rain will be safe until the local forest marches toward your castle so i guess after you take care of that mcduff thing sounds like you're going to be fine for a while unfortunately when you send men to kill mcduff they only manage to kill his family which then leads him to swear revenge against you then you notice that lady macbeth has kinda gone mad as she's sleepwalking through the castle reenacting the murder of duncan yeah that's not good and on top of that you receive word that duncan's son malcolm now has an army actually that one's kind of the least of your worries because you're safe as long as the forest doesn't move what i'm sorry the forest is moving okay oh boy you know i'm just gonna give you a minute to process all that ferocious fauna and we'll take a look at how the scottish play survived to our time because of shakespeare's theater buds macbeth was first performed at the globe theater home to shakespeare's company of performers the king's men so named because their patron was none other than king james there shakespeare himself was both an actor and a playwright while his company had exclusive rights to perform shakespeare's plays in the absence of copyright laws many unscrupulous publishers tried to cash in on his biggest hits by printing cordos a kind of book made by folding paper over four times of his most popular works but since they couldn't get shakespeare's original scripts to base those on they would create their copies by having actors or even audience members recite the whole play from memory thus many of these surviving copies of shakespeare's plays from the time are most likely bad quartos so perhaps in an effort to counter these bad quartos two of shakespeare's fellow kingsmen published a collection of 36 of his plays in a tome that has come to be known as the first folio published in 1623 seven years after shakespeare's death the first folio is the only official source we have today of half of his place including macbeth also fun fact the first folio is riddled with typesetting errors and compromises which actually turned out to be a positive thing because it's allowed scholars to identify which pages were set by different typesetters anyhow accuracy wasn't exactly a major goal for publishers or playwrights back in those days i mean shakespeare based macbeth on the inaccurate retelling of the life of a real scottish king in holland sheds chronicles a contemporary book of english history i mean why let historical accuracy get in the way of a good story and macbeth is a very good story it's a bloody action-packed tragedy filled with witches ghosts and dark magic oh speaking of which let's get back to your castle and those traveling trees now in actuality it's just malcolm's army holding branches but still counts for prophecy's sake no worries though because they're all just regular humans born from women and mcduff is nowhere in sight oh wait there he is and he tells you he's not a woman born because his mom had a c-section wait why would that make any difference you're defeated malcolm is crowned the ruler of scotland and scene congratulations you've played the much coveted role of macbeth and unlike him you survived and as the great actor patrick stewart has said once you've played macbeth you can say the title as much as you want so you can grab a copy of the script or a couple tickets to a live production with full confidence that you'll have a great and curse-free time or as shakespeare might say round about the bookstore go at the cashier money throw buy the book or see the play for you'll be happy either way and buy zoe's awesome purse you'll be safe from any curse yeah that rhymed right [Music] but wait a minute so did the witches actually know the future or did they just take a peek at the fates super detailed notes and lineage trees over in world anvil and then use that information to manipulate macbeth into making all that murder come true i think we cracked it zoe as i'm sure you know by now a bunch of us at extra credits have been crafting our own imaginary worlds for years be they rpgs novels or video games and if you're like us you know how much work it is keeping all of the disparate elements of your world building project organized and that my friends is precisely where world anvil comes in world anvil is an award-winning tool set used by millions of world builders writers and gamers that helps you create store and organize your world setting you can use it to craft entire rpg campaigns tracking timelines family trees and diplomatic relationships create interactive maps to help bring your story to life and then once your world is forged you can 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honestly just have an awesome time doing it you can check out world anvil absolutely free and for a limited time you can receive 40 off any annual membership by using the code extra credits then not only will the awesome worlds you dream up come to life faster but you'll also be helping out us at ec in the process once again that's code extra credits for 40 off any annual membership and thanks so much for your support we can't wait to see the world you build hey hearty thanks of legend to ahmed zee odd turk alicia bramble angelo valenciana arcolite games casey newstead dominic valenciana joseph blame and kyle murgatroyd [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: Extra Credits

Views: 108,963

Keywords: Classics (Field of Study), So you Haven't Read, Education (TV Genre), Macbeth (Book), William Shakespeare (Author), Humanities (Field Of Study), Literary Criticism (Field Of Study), Book Review (Award Discipline), Classics (Field Of Study), Literature (Media Genre), Classic Literature, Literature Review (Literature Subject), animated, summary, explained, Theatre (TV Genre), Sonnet (Poetic Verse Form), Analysis (Quotation Subject), Macbeth (Play), holinsheds chronicles, cursed

Id: jg6cSJS0NaI

Length: 9min 55sec (595 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 20 2022