DAY 2 - CYCLE 4 - SEMESTER 2: Macbeth I:iii

Today, we looked at how to decode Shakespeare's lengthy statements so they make more sense to us. This is actually where sentence diagramming helps, because the same logic you use to tease apart sentences for a diagram are the very same skills you'll use to aid comprehesion here.

We stated by looking at the following lines of text (from I, ii, 16-23):
1. For brave Macbeth
2. —well he deserves that name—
3. Disdaining fortune,
4. with his brandish'd steel,
5. Which smoked with bloody execution,
6. Like valor's minion
7. carved out his passage
8. Till he faced the slave;
9. Which ne'er shook hands,
10. nor bade farewell to him,
11. Till he unseamed him from the nave to th’ chops,
12. And fixed his head upon our battlements.

12 people in each class were handed a line, and the remaining people had to organize them so that the key ideas (the same things that would go on top of the horizontal line in a sentence diagram) were in front, and the modifying phrases were lined up behind the appropriate main idea.

Then, we talked about some of the odd conventions Shakespeare uses (I' = in, 's = us, o' = of, ne'er = never), and addressed the questions you had about the scenes we covered on Friday. The first place you should look when you have a question is the left hand side of the page, as quite often, the book will offer an explanation of the more obscure or complicted references.

After that, we looked at the rest of scene iii, where Angus and Ross tell Macbeth that he has been made Thane of Cawdor. We studied Macbeth's reaction to this news, and Banquo's reaction to Macbeth's reaction, looking carefully at the warning Banquo gives him, and Macbeth's response. We also tried to figure out what Macbeth thinks about when he hears this news.

Macbeth and Banquo seem to respond to the witches' prophesies in different ways.
PHASE 1: During and immediately following the encounter with the witches

• BANQUO: Curious, distanced, wary, interested but uninvested
• MACBETH: Scared, spellbound ("rapt"), curious, invested, eager, disbelieving, hopeful, excited

PHASE 2: During and immediately following the encounter with Ross and Angus

• BANQUO: Leery, cautious, disbelieving (cleary distrusts the source="Can the devil speak true?")
  MACBETH: Reckless, ambitious, mesmerized with more concrete images of Duncan's death, eager, seeming to rationalize.

These two have just been in battle together and are good friends. What does this difference in responses, and the increasing divergence between them, tell us about their relationship?

Then, in your table "pie pieces" groups, I had you do two things:

1. Write stage directions for the types of facial expressions and gestures both Macbeth and Banquo would use from lines 104-146 of scene iii.
2. Make conjectures about what Banquo will say to Ross and Angus when he pulls them aside for "a word."

Your homework for tonight:

Go to the following websites and prepare a brief summary (one page in length) about the Elizabethan Worldview. You may focus on any aspects that seem relevant to you.

http://www.montreat.edu/dking/milton/significantideasofseventeethcentury.htm

http://faculty.up.edu/asarnow/GreatChainofBeing.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chain_of_Being

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rota_Fortunae

http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/Tillyard01.html

http://guildofstgeorge.com/chain.htm

http://f01.middlebury.edu/FS010A/STUDENTS/n076.htm