Shakespeares Macbeth Background and Important Terms Macbeth and

Shakespeare’s Macbeth Background and Important Terms

Macbeth and Shakespeare Facts ▪ Shakespeare wrote 36 plays and 154 sonnets. ▪ Shakespeare wrote to satisfy his patrons, not as a means of personal expression. ▪ Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s shortest plays. ▪ Macbeth is considered a play that brings “bad luck. ” ▪ Macbeth is based on a real Scottish king and Shakespeare got the historical information from Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1577).

Macbeth’s Context ▪ Renaissance: 1485 -1660; began in Italy ▪ Renaissance means rebirth, as Europe was recovering from the Black Death and the Middle Ages. ▪ During the Renaissance, people became curious about themselves and human nature and lost faith in the church. ▪ People turned to Latin and Greek classics to discover new answers to life’s big questions, leading to an intellectual movement called humanism.

Macbeth’s Context ▪ In 1455, Johannes Gutenberg invented the first printing press. ▪ Queen Elizabeth I greatly encouraged the creative arts, so a great deal of literature emerged and she inspired many writers. ▪ Shakespeare wrote Macbeth during King James I’s reign, who was originally from Scotland. ▪ During the Renaissance, women were not permitted to perform on stage, so boys or effeminate men played the female roles.

Macbeth = Tragedy ▪ Tragedy: a literary work depicting serious events in which the main character, who is often high-ranking and dignified, comes to an unhappy end ▪ Tragic hero: protagonist of a tragedy who usually wins some self-knowledge and wisdom, even though he or she suffers defeat, possibly even death. ▪ Tragic flaw: an error in judgment or character weakness which usually causes the tragic hero’s downfall

Macbeth Literary Terms ▪ Paradox: an apparent contradiction that is actually true ▪ Aside: private words that a character in a play speaks to the audience or to another character, which are not supposed to be overheard by others ▪ Soliloquy: a long speech in which a character who is usually alone onstage expresses his or her private thoughts or feelings

Macbeth Literary Terms ▪ Motif: a word, character, object, image, metaphor, or idea that recurs in a work or in several works ▪ Iambic pentameter: a line of poetry made up of five iambs. An iamb is a metrical foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. ▪ Blank verse: poetry written in unrhyming iambic pentameter

Macbeth Characters ▪ Macbeth ▪ Lady Macbeth ▪ King Duncan ▪ Macduff ▪ Banquo ▪ Malcolm ▪ Donalbain ▪ Numerous minor characters (All are listed on page 301 in your textbooks)