sample copy. not for distribution. · sample copy. not for distribution. iv sample copy. not for...

Sample Copy. Not For Distribution.

i

Macbeth - Critically Annotated

Shakespeare


ii

Publishing-in-support-of,

EDUCREATION PUBLISHING

RZ 94, Sector - 6, Dwarka, New Delhi - 110075 Shubham Vihar, Mangla, Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh - 495001

Website: www.educreation.in __________________________________________________

© Copyright 2016, Author

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, magnetic, optical, chemical, manual, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written consent of its writer.

ISBN: 978-1-61813-349-6

Price: ` 345.00

The opinions/ contents expressed in this book are solely of the author and do not represent the opinions/ standings/ thoughts of Educreation.

Printed in India


iii

Critically Annotated

Shakespeare

Macbeth

Edited by

Nilanko Mallik MA, PhD (AM)

EDUCREATION PUBLISHING (Since 2011)

www.educreation.in


iv


v

This book is dedicated

to

all those who would like to

Shake all spheres

with learning, knowledge

and performance


vi


vii

CONTENTS

S. No. Chapter Page no.

- About the Book ix

- Acknowledgements Xi

1. About the Playwright 1

2. The Elizabethan Theatre 4

3. Shakespeare’s Works 9

4. Shakespeare’s Verse Style 15

5. Macbeth – Textual Analysis 25

1. Chief Characters - Overview 25

2. Acts and Scenes - Overview 27

3. Role of Witches in Macbeth 38

4. Supernatural Element in Macbeth 44

5. Themes in Macbeth 47

6. Character Summaries 53

a. Macbeth 53

b. Lady Macbeth 54

c. Banquo 55

d. Macduff 56

6. Macbeth - The Text with Annotation 57

7. Appendices 197

I. Macbeth’s Bloodline 197

II. Excerpts from Holinshed’s

Chronicles 198

III. Excerpts from Daemonologie 202

IV. Excerpts from The Discoverie of

Witchcraft

209


viii

8. References 219

LIST OF FIGURES AND ILLUSTRATIONS

Fig.1. Conjectural reconstruction of the Globe theatre 4

Fig.2. The Stage Parts of an Elizabethan Theatre 5

Fig.3. Map of London Showing the Playhouses. 8

Fig.4. Present Reconstruction of the Globe Theatre. 8

Fig.5. A View of Inverness Castle. 28

Fig.6. Inverness Castle from Another Side. As can be

seen, birds still fly around it!

29

Fig.7. Dunsinane Hill fort Viewed from the slopes of

Black Hill

35

Fig.8. Birnam Wood 36

Fig.9. Bloodline of Macbeth 197


ix

About The Author

Macbeth: Critically Annotated Shakespeare is set to be

the first in a series of books set to provide detailed

critical explanations of the lines, along with hints on

performances.

The book is meant for students, teachers, scholars,

researchers, and also for performers. A lot of the

annotations look at how the parts should be performed,

and they are mentioned by placing two star/asterisk

marks before the note number in the explanations.

A visible advantage of the book is that the

annotations are on the same page as the text, so that the

readers don’t have to flip through pages to look at the

annotations and turn back to the text. The flow of

reading is not disturbed as the annotations are on the

same page.

Besides giving annotations - which not only provide

explanations of lines, but also offer character trait

discussion and discussion of other issues, so that

students will find lots of matter for academic needs – the

book also provides background information on the

playwright and the times, about his works in general,

and then explores some topics related to the text,

covered under Textual Analysis section.

The references don’t just list the works which have

been cited, but also list other quality works which

students can resort to (hence, I have not written ‘Works

Cited’ but ‘References’).

Last but not the least, the illustrations enhance the

knowledge of the readers and make the book a

wonderful academic, and leisurely read, as well as a read

for performers and directors.

I hope the book will be well received. Like all first

editions, typing and/or other errors might have crept in,

despite the best scrutiny. My earnest request to the


x

readers is to patiently pardon me. Suggestions for future

improvements are welcome by email communications.

Nilanko Mallik

Kolkata 2016


xi

Acknowledgements

It is not possible for any annotator or editor to take the

full credit for the annotations or the editing, for (s)he has

to rely on the generations of scholarship that have

layered up before, right from the Quarto and the Folio

editions. Other than these editions, I must mention the

Arden edition, the Cambridge Edition and the New

Cambridge Edition, and the Oxford Edition, for their

excellent annotations.

I am thankful to the British Council Library,

Kolkata, for its stock of valuable books. Its online

collection is also impressive. I am thankful to the Folger

Shakespeare Library for its invaluable resources.

I am thankful to Sagnik Bagchi, who, from his

precious time, came to help me see that the text printed

here is error-free, right to its punctuations. Errors, if any,

are my overlooking.

I am extremely grateful to Wikimedia Commons for

the stock of free images, and to the persons who have

licensed them for free use, with proper attribution. All

attributions are cited below the images where they occur.

I am thankful to Pixabay and Freeimages for their

stock of excellent images, which have provided the input

for the covers.

Special thanks to the team of Education.in, for

working patiently with me for the cover pictures. I am

grateful to them for the fast processing of the book and

for making it available internationally.

The sources for the text of Macbeth are

1. Online archive at MIT <http://shakespeare.mit.edu>

which, in turn, uses The Complete Moby(tm)

Shakespeare

2. The New Cambridge Shakespeare, which, in turn,

uses the Riverside Shakespeare.


xii


About The Playwright

1


No one knows when William Shakespeare was born at

Stratford-upon-Avon. We know he was baptized on the

26th of April, 1564, at the Holy Trinity Parish Church. It

is presumed that his birth was on the 23rd

of April, as the

Book of Common Prayers stated that a child be baptized

n the next Sunday or the day considered holy, unless

there were other reasons. Kay (1992) opines, If

Shakespeare was indeed born on Sunday, April 23, the

next feast day would have been St. Mark's Day on

Tuesday the twenty-fifth. There might well have been

some cause, both reasonable and great -- or perhaps, as

has been suggested, St. Mark's Day was still held to be

unlucky, as it had been before the Reformation, when

altars and crucifixes used to be draped in black cloth,

and when some claimed to see in the churchyard the

spirits of those doomed to die in that year. . . .but that

does not help to explain the christening on the twenty-

sixth (54).

He was the third child and eldest son of John

Shakespeare and Mary Arden. His father made his early

living by making and selling gloves, but rose high in

public life, becoming alderman in 1565 and bailiff in

1568, but later on, fell from grace and as imprisoned.

Shakespeare received his education at King Harvard

VI‟s Grammar School, Stratford. However, he did not go

up to university and was officially no scholar. We know

little of what he did (or where he was after leaving

school). Davies put forth the theory that Shakesepeare

1


Nilanko Mallik

2

fled from Stratford after running into trouble for deer

stealing, and falling into the hands of Sir Tomas Lucy,

the local magnate (Pressley). Another source says that he

was a local schoolmaster. However, scholars have

branded these years - 1578-82 - as the first “lost years”

of Shakespeare.

However, we do know that he married Ann

Hathaway, who was the daughter of a farmer. The

marriage took place in November 1582. Their first child

was a girl called Susanna, who was baptised on May 6,

1583. They had two more children - Hamnet and Judith -

on February 22, 1585. Hamnet died at a very early age.

Susanna‟s daughter, Elizabeth (died 1670) was the

bard‟s final direct descendant. From 1585-92, we again

lose track of him, and this is the second “lost years” of

Shakespeare.1 Theories abound that he was making his

skills as an actor, teacher (Aubrey 1898) or gathering the

plots of his plays.

The records become clearer after 1592. From the

mention of Shakespeare‟s name in the (in)famous

letter/pamphlet named “Groatsworth of Wit”2 by the

playwright Robert Greene in September 1592, we come

to know Shakespeare was becoming a playwright - a

rival to contest with the „University Wits‟, Marlowe,

Peele, Nashe, Kyd and Lodge. In it, Shakespeare is

alluded to as an “upstart crow”. This tells us that

Shakespeare had already become famous enough to earn

this jealous comment. However, we do not know of his

works of the period. That is why it is believed that we do

not have all the plays of Shakspeare.3 Shakespeare wrote

plays teeming with human emotions, and was a master in

depicting human state of mind. He also wrote a few

poems and 154 sonnets.

Shakespeare obtained a grant of arms in 1596; the

following year he bought New Place at Stratford. He



3

retired from public life in 1610, and went to live at

Stratford, but continued to write till 1613. He died on

23rd

of April 1616. At his grave, the following epitaph is

inscribed:

“Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forbeare

To dig the dust enclosed heare.

Bleste be the man that spares these stones,

And curst be he that moves my bones.”

X

1Findings now reveal that in 1589, William Shakespeare’s name appears in a

court case. His name is listed with his parents, against the other party, John

Lambert, over a land dispute in Wilmcote. This does not suggest that

Shakespeare was physically present at the place - the names of all the

dwellers might have been mentioned so that none was excluded. So, the lost

years, despite the little peep-hole, remains till 1592. 2A groat was a coin of small value. 3The latest addition to the list is The Two Noble Kinsmen, although it is still

disputed.


Nilanko Mallik

4

The Elizabethan

Theatre

Fig.1. Conjectural reconstruction of the Globe theatre by C. Walter Hodges based on archeological and documentary evidence

<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hodge's_conjectural_Glo

be_reconstruction.jpg>4

In the Elizabethan theatre, there was no scenery. So, the

Folio and the Quarto editions are mostly without scene

headings. Also, there was hardly any division of scenes;

at times, even Acts were fused together As for the enactment of the plays, there was no permanent

4This image is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

2


The Elizabethan Theatre

5

playhouse till the setting up of the Theatre in Shoreditch,

which was then a suburb of London. By 1592, two more

playhouses were created - The Curtain (Shoreditch) and

The Rose (near Southwark Cathedral).

The Elizabethan players were often called upon to

act in the great hall of a nobleman‟s house, or in one of

the Royal palaces, or in town halls or just in yards, as

well as their theatres. The playhouses were usually

circular or octagonal, with three levels of galleries. The

tops of the galleries were covered, and the galleries

looked down upon the stage, which was positioned at the

central corner. The stage opened out to the yard or pit,

which was open to the sky. So, there was no overall roof.

Fig.2. The Stage Parts of an Elizabethan Theatre – A Modern Reconstruction of The Globe Theatre

<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Globe_Theatre_Buehne.j

pg>5

5This image is available for free use under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International, 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0

Generic license, by the author Tohma.


Nilanko Mallik

6

The stage was not entirely open to the sky, though. It

was divided into three parts - the front stage, which

opened out to the yard (a part of this portion was open to

the sky); the back stage or the inner stage, which was

just the back portion of the stage; and the upper

stage/balcony (two pillars at the sides of the back stage

supported this second storey, so the upper stage ran on

top of the back stage and half of the front stage). The

front stage was used to depict balcony, or when first

floor needed to be shown. On both sides of he stage,

there were doors (one on each side) through which the

actors came and went. The pillars went above the stage

to finally support a covering, which was painted like the

sky, and was termed as „The Heavens‟. There was a

trapdoor in the stage, necessary for sudden

disappearances or appearances.

There was usually no curtain (except the ones to

cover the chamber-like back-stage) or stage equipment.

If necessary, a chair would be placed - rather, kept from

the first to last - for the King‟s throne! So, all

descriptions were through words. The plays were held in

broad daylight, and it was left to the playwright to bring

the atmosphere of a romantic moonlit night through

words when the sun was shining in its full strength!

So, before studying Shakespeare, one must keep the

theatrical limitations in mind and remember what we are

reading now is only a play. I have known teachers who

grossly misinterpret Julius Caesar by putting the rhetoric

question “Caesar talks of Calpurnia dreaming of

Caesar‟s statue smeared with blood, with Romans

bathing their hands. However, never in the drama do we

find Calpurnia dreaming so - it is only Caesar who says

this. is Caesar not exaggerating?” These teachers simply

forget that showing a person sleeping - not to mention

producing the dream while the person sleeps! - was

simply impossible in the Elizabethan drama. In Richard


The Elizabethan Theatre

7

III, Richard is found sleeping, but that is more of a lying

down on the floor of the stage and getting up from there.

If Shakespeare had made Calpurnia stand in front of the

stage, saying she had dreamt so, and then made Caesar

utter the same thing once more, such teachers might

have been pleased, but the spell of the supernatural night

would have been utterly broken. So, Shakespeare resorts

to Classical device - that of reporting the action - which

was a technique in the Greek and Roman tragedies.

This is also the reason why Macbeth reports the

murder of Duncan after he‟s committed it. And as there

was no curtain to cover the entire stage, „dead bodies‟

could only leave the stage by making others carry them

out. A scene was supposed to end after all the actors had

left it.

The company of actors was called Fellowship of

Players, who were usually ten to fifteen in number, with

three or four boys. There were no female actors; boys

were disguised as girls. Another important member of

the company was the clown or low comedian (who

would play the Fool or Court Jester in tragedies or be

simply the clown in comedies). So, Shakespeare had to

write his plays in such a manner so as to give roles to all

members of the team. His plays were mainly in two

play-houses - The Globe Theatre and the Fortune

Theatre. But some of his plays were also performed in

Royal Courthouses. Most of Shakespeare‟s plays were

performed in The Globe. It was burned down during a

performance in 1613.It was constructed once more, and

that too, did not survive long. A new theatre has been

constructed in the modern times as a site for visitors in

Southwark.


Nilanko Mallik

8

Fig.3. Map of London Showing the Playhouses.

<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:London_theatres_C16%E2%80%94C17,_after_Redwood.svg>6

Fig.4. Present Reconstruction of the Globe Theatre. <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Globe_Theatre_%288063

141279%29.jpg>7

6This image belongs to the public domain, as it was made before 1923. 7This image is available under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

license, by the author Peter Broster.


Shakespeare’s Works

9


It was earlier believed that Shakespeare wrote 36 plays,

in addition to the Long Poems and Sonnets. New

scholarship has confirmed that he has penned at least 38

recorded plays, and possibly a few more which have

been lost. The number of long poems (5) and the sonnets

(154) remain the same.

There is also a debate (more in newspaper articles,

blogs and films than among Shakespeare scholars or

historians) that Shakespeare might not have written the

plays at all, or that there was no one person named

Shakespeare, but that the name refers to a group. We

shall, in the pages which follow, look at the plays as

attributed to the name of Shakespeare (whether person or

group, real or fictional), with their presumed and

assumed dates of composition and performance. I have

also added the abbreviation of the work beside each, so

that the reader becomes familiar with it whenever such

abbreviations are used here or elsewhere, for they are the

conventional abbreviations to refer to the plays.

Genre Performance Publication

Comedies

The Comedy of

Errors (Err.) 1592-93; 1623

The Taming of the

Shrew (Shr.) 1593-94; 1623

3


Nilanko Mallik

10

The Two

Gentlemen of

Verona (TGV)

1594-95; 1623

Love's Labor's Lost

(LLL) 1594-95; 1598

A Midsummer

Night's Dream

(MND)

1595-96; 1602

The Merchant of

Venice (MV) 1596-97; 1600

Much Ado About

Nothing (Ado) 1598-99; 1600

Twelfth Night

(TN) 1599-1600; 1623

As You Like It

(AYLI) 1599-1600; 1623

The Merry Wives

of Windsor (Wiv.) 1600-1601; 1602

All's Well That

Ends Well (AWW) 1602-03; 1623

Measure for

Measure (MM) 1604-05; 1623

Pericles (Per.) 1608-09; 1609

The Winter's Tale

(WT) 1610-11; 1623

The Tempest

(Temp.) 1611-12; 1623

The Two Noble

Kinsmen (TNK) 1612-13; 1634

Histories

Henry VI, Part 2

(2H6) 1590-91; 1594

Henry VI, Part 3

(3H6) 1590-91; 1594



11

Get Complete Book At Educreation Store

www.educreation.in


sample copy. not for distribution. · sample copy. not for distribution. iv sample copy. not for...

Documents