Role of Language in Shakespeare’s Macbeth How does it add to the Gothic effect?

Task: pick out a favourite quote from either Macbeth, Banquo, the Witches or Lady M Analyse the quote for meaning.

Purpose of His Language For the stage, not for the page. Dramatic effect To be heard, not just to be read. To be acted out in front of a live audience, not just visualized in the mind. Shakespeare never wrote to be published; he wrote for the stage. His actors later assembled their lines and published his collected works after he died.

Shakespeare’s Sentences Interruptions dramatic effects Intentionally Vague Language Wordplay How Shakespeare reveals his characters Language is Power: “The pen is mightier than the sword.” Types of speeches Poetry Equivocation, ambiguity Imagery

Shakespeare’s Sentences Today, sentence structure follows a sequence of subject first, verb second, and an optional object third. Shakespeare, however, often places the verb before the subject, which reads, “Speaks he” rather than “He speaks.” Inversions like these are not troublesome, but when Shakespeare positions the predicate adjective or the object before the subject and verb, we are sometimes surprised. Lady Macbeth demonstrates this inversion as she speaks of her husband: “Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be/What thou art promised” (I.v.14-15). In current English word order, this quote would begin, “You are Glamis, Cawdor, and will be what you are promised.”

Interruptions dramatic effects Look at how the Captain first introduces Macbeth: For brave Macbeth—well he deserves that name— Disdaining Fortune, with his brandish’d steel, Which smoked with bloody execution, Like valor’s minion carved out his passage Till he faced the slave; (I.ii.18-22) The delay between subject “Macbeth” and verb “carved” is separated by 5 phrases (19 words). What is the effect of these phrases upon the listener of Macbeth’s exploits?

Intentionally Vague Language Why? Shakespeare often uses intentionally vague language for ambiguity, double meaning, and to spare syllables. Of course, the witches: Something wicked this way comes. (IV.i.45) Notice Macbeth’s first soliloquy: If it were done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well It could be done quickly. (I.vii.1-2) What is “it”? Why can’t Macbeth bring himself to say what “it” is?

Wordplay Shakespeare’s most frequently used types of wordplay are common: metaphors, similes, personification, allusion, and puns. Most common: metaphor, simile. After trying to kill a father and son, Macbeth describes the son, who escaped as: There the grown serpent lies, the worm that’s fled Hath nature that in time will venom breed, No teeth for the present. (III.iv.29-31)

How Shakespeare reveals his characters: What characters say to each other What characters say about other characters What characters say to themselves What characters do (actions). Notice: 3 of the 4 deal with Language…

Language is Power: “The pen is mightier than the sword.” He who controls language, controls others Language (argument) is used to attain and maintain position by royalty, between nations, by clergy in the church. “The pen is mightier than the sword.” Macbeth rises to power through the Captain’s monologue. Duncan doesn’t see him in battle; he hears of him in battle. Macbeth seeks to become King after hearing the witches’ prophecies, writing a letter to his wife, and through her convincing speech “screw your courage to the sticking place…”

Macbeth is won over by language from women The Witches provide Macbeth the nouns: “All hail, Macbeth, Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor, That shalt be King hereafter.” (I.iii.50-53) Lady Macbeth provides Macbeth the verbs: “Look like the time.” “Bear welcome…” “Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t.” “Leave all the rest to me.” (I.v.66-76)

Types of speeches Long Ones Monologue: one actor to other actors on stage Soliloquy: one actor to audience, alone on stage Short Ones: Aside: one actor to another, under one’s breath Monosyllabic: one syllable sentences

Blank Verse: Unrhymed Iambic Pentameter Shakespeare saves poetry (blank verse) for his characters of noble birth. (5:5:9-10) Prose is used to represent the speech habits of the common people (though still imaginative, poetic) Bourgeoisie (nobles) = iambic pentameter (poetry) Proletariat (commoners) = prose

Types of Language in Macbeth Poetry (Blank Verse) Poetry (Rhyming Couplets) Witches: short, choppy iambic tetrameter 4 measures) Prose Porter (servant): dark, bawdy common language; paragraphs (II.iii) pg. 86 Macbeth: thoughtful, poetic iambic pentameter (elevates him above rest) Lady Macbeth: plain, unimaginative iambic pentameter Bleeding Captain: strong, harsh, war-like iambic pentameter

Equivocation, ambiguity Language of confusion; ambiguity; double meanings; half-truths; paradoxes; riddles “Foul is fair and fair is foul” “nothing is but what is not” “Lesser than Macbeth and greater.” Equivocal Morality: How do you know what’s good, or who’s good, if there’s overlap between good and evil? “These solicitings cannot be evil, cannot be good…”

Act I, Scene 2 Blood Imagery: until Macbeth “brandished his steel, which smoked with bloody execution.” Macbeth carved his way through Macdonwald’s men until “he came face-to-face with the slave (Macdonwald)...” …at which point Macbeth “unseamed him (Macdonwald) from the nave to the chops and stuck his head upon the battlements.”

Dramatic Irony We know what characters don’t. Suggests supernatural control (god-like author mimicked by witches) 1.3.38: Macbeth (Echoes the witches): So foul and fair a day I have not seen More equivocation, Foreshadowing

Major Forms of Imagery Animal: “The raven himself is hoarse That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan”; horses eating each other Light / Dark: murder first done at night, then during the day; “Let not light see my dark and deep desires” Clothing: “Why do you dress me in borrowed robes.”; “Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould But with the aid of use”

Major Forms of Imagery Weather: “When shall we three meet again In thunder, lightning, or in rain?” Gender: “Unsex me here”; “If you were a man…” Sickness: If thou couldst, Doctor, cast The water of my land, find her disease And purge it to a sound and pristine health” Appearance vs. Reality: “Look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under’t

Clothing and baby images Macbeth (1.3.108): The Thane of Cawdor lives. Why do you dress me in borrowed robes? (prose) [Aside to Banquo]: Do you not hope your children shall be kings?

Time (tomorrow and tomorrow) Macbeth struggles with predestination, restlessness. Ignores Banquo’s garment image and completes either Banquo’s verse line or his own! (1.3.145-149) If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me Without my stir. Banquo: New honors come upon him Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mold But with the aid of use. Macbeth [aside]: Come what come may, Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.

Now look at your quote again and add further interpretation.