Macbeth Order V Disorder Heidi Drake Colchester Royal

Macbeth: Order V Disorder Heidi Drake – Colchester Royal Grammar School Twitter: @mrsd_english Instagram: @mrsd_reads_crgs

Macbeth: Order v Disorder – The Place of ‘Order’ in Drama Traditional conception of drama of this era is that the plays explore a ‘period of misrule’ where the normal order is overturned. In comedy this is ‘resolved’ through marriage; in tragedy through death(s). To confirm the restoration of order the highest rank left at the end of the play closes the play – ideally with a rhyming couplet. All of this supports the feeling of ‘catharsis’ at the end of plays.

What is ‘order’ at this point in time? Renaissance thinking: Man can only be truly free under the appropriate order (cf. King Lear, Kent’s banishment) ‘Freedom lives hence and banishment is here. ’ (1. 1. 184) The Great Chain of Being was a contract that all had an active role to play in. Supported by religion: Almighty God hath created and appointed all things in heaven, earth, and waters, in a most excellent and perfect order. In heaven, he hath appointed distinct and several orders and states of archangels and angels. In earth he hath assigned and appointed kings, princes, with other governors under them, in all good and necessary order. An Exhortation Concerning Good order and Obedience to Rules and Magistrates

What is ‘disorder’ at this point of time? Disorder could have several causes. Not only through a disruption to the Great Chain of Being from below but also from the failure of the ruler. A failure of the ruler would lead to a failure of the state. The Mirror for Magistrates (1559 -1610) had several warnings to rulers against slipping into disorder: ‘Well is that realm governed in which the ambitious desire not to bear office. ’ Order was controlled and moderate. Order does not mean absolute rule but appropriate and proportionate. A ‘disordered’/tyrannical state brought freedom for no one. Not even the tyrant himself.

Where is order in Macbeth? • The play doesn’t open in an ordered state. • Duncan attempts to assert order in 1. 4 (but the end of the scene…) • The beginning of 3. 4 LM ‘You know your own degrees, sit down. ’ • 4. 1 – the apparition of future monarchs (? incl. Mirror for James) • Demonstrated to exist in the English court through the references to Edward the Confessor in 4. 3. Such a ‘good’ example of kingship that he actually became a Saint. • The end: Malcolm finishes the play: ‘So thanks to all at once, and to each one, /Whom we invite to see us crowned at Scone. ’

Where is disorder in Macbeth? • Opens in a storm during an invasion/civil war. • The murder over-turning the rules of hospitality as well as kin killing. • The murder ripples through the natural world in 2. 4 ‘tis day/And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp. ’ • Killing of Banquo • 3. 4 The Banquet – LM takes charge – ‘You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting/With most admired disorder. ’ (107 -8) • 3. 4 The Banquet – Order has completely broken down – ‘Stand not upon the order of your going/But go at once. ’ (117 -8) • 3. 6 Line 25 Lord – ‘this tyrant’ first of many to describe Macbeth in this way • Massacre of the Macduffs

The end: Order restored? • Macbeth doesn’t have a full realisation of his crime – he comes close at LM’s death and Macduff’s revelation but resolves to ‘die with harness on our back’ (5. 5 51) and to ‘try the last’ (5. 8 32) This was addressed in post-Restoration versions. In Garrick’s version (1761) he added a death speech for Macbeth: ‘Tis done! The scene of life will close. Ambition’s vain, delusive dreams are fled, And now I wake to darkness, guilt and honour. I cannot bear it! Let me shake it off ‘Twill not be; my soul is clogged with blood. And cannot rise! I dare not ask for mercy! It is too late, hell drags me down. I sink, I sink! Oh my soul’s lost forever! (Dies)

The end: Order restored? • Macduff kills Macbeth – this is morally satisfying after the killing of Macduff’s family. Macduff has a ‘morally right’ reason to kill Macbeth and this serves to over-ride the sin of regicide (He is after all Macbeth’s mirror). • Malcolm does not kill Macbeth – Duncan’s murder was Macbeth’s first domestic killing. Malcolm is cold and calculating and doesn’t put himself in the risky position. He tells us a lot but shows us little (and which 4. 3 version should we believe). Is he really the better option (what of England)? • And what’s going to come next…

The disorder of problematic succession • Scottish court is an anxious one – particularly about the succession. • Wars of the Roses (1455 -1485) • Henry VII (1485 -1509) • Henry VIII (1509 -1547) • Edward VI (1547 -1553) • Mary I (1553 -1558) • Elizabeth I (1558 – 1603) • James I (1603 -1625)

Macbeth: A Disordered Text? There is much about Macbeth that marks it out from other tragedies by Shakespeare: • Macbeth is shortest Tragedy in Folio (only Comedy of Errors and The Tempest are shorter) • Hecate appears in only two scenes and is bizarrely not mentioned in any other scenes. The only other appearance of Hecate in drama of this period is in Middleton’s The Witch. • The Witch has the full version of the two songs in the Folio. • Macbeth has been dated to 1606; The Witch to about 1616.

Macbeth: A Disordered Text? • Simon Foreman’s account (April 1611) contains no reference to Hecate and calls the witches faeries/nymphs (perhaps suggesting a change in staging style). • The stage direction at the start of 1. 2 is more in the style of Middleton than Shakespeare • There a few plot holes between 3. 6 and 4. 1 (see Macbeth: The State of the Play). ? hinting at a re-write. • The stage directions for the end of the final duel are contradictory.

Macbeth: A Disordered Text? So…. • Was the play changed for a revival after 1611 and adapted to fit changing interests and staging. • Was this done by known Shakespeare collaborator Middleton? • Was the script that the Folio was assembled one that Shakespeare would have recognised? • Does this matter? One of the main things editors of Shakespeare do is attempt to impose ‘order’ on the texts.

Macbeth: A Reading List Macbeth: Language and Writing – Emma Smith Springboard Shakespeare: Macbeth – Ben Crystal Macbeth: The State of the Play – ed. Ann Thompson English Renaissance Tragedy – Peter Holbrook The Art of Drama: Vol. 2: Macbeth – Neil Bowen et al Poetics – Aristotle The Arden Shakespeare: Macbeth – ed. Clark and Mason A book well worth pre-ordering to explore the play further is this:

Macbeth: Things that helped me • Shakespeare’s Globe – www. shakespearesglobe. com teacher training sessions, school workshops, theatre visits • Students watching the play in one go (not just clips in lessons) • Directing the play • Getting out of the classroom and into the drama studio.

Macbeth: Who to follow on A by no means complete list: @GCSE_Macbeth @SPryke 2 @Matthew_Lynch 44 @Tilly. Teacher @teachals @Says. Miss