Notes
Context and forms
- The Renaissance ("rebirth") valued classical learning and humanism. Shakespeare's plays were staged at theaters such as the Globe with minimal scenery, so language created the setting.
- A sonnet has 14 lines in iambic pentameter. Shakespearean sonnets use ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, with a volta (turn) and a final couplet.
- Blank verse is unrhymed iambic pentameter. Prose is often used by lower-class characters or to show disorder.
Dramatic devices
- Soliloquy: a character alone speaks thoughts. Aside: a quick remark the other characters do not hear. Dramatic irony: the audience knows more than a character does.
Tragedy and Macbeth
- A tragic hero falls because of a tragic flaw (hamartia). The audience feels pity and fear and experiences catharsis.
- In Macbeth, themes include ambition, appearance versus reality ("Fair is foul, and foul is fair"), guilt, and fate versus free will.
Topics in this unit
Each topic has its own short notes and practice.
Practice
The final two lines rhyme and often deliver the poem's conclusion or twist.
The speaker makes a comparison, then argues the beloved surpasses summer.
The audience knows about the betrayal, but the character does not.
Hubris is arrogance that tempts heroes to overreach.
Weighing a deed privately aloud is a soliloquy.
Comparing life to a short-lived candle and a forgotten actor expresses hopelessness.
Free response
Write your answer first, then open the scoring guide.
Free-response question
Read these lines spoken by Macbeth after he learns his wife is dead: "Out, out, brief candle! / Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage / And then is heard no more: it is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing."
(a) Identify one metaphor in the passage and explain what is being compared.
Show the answer and scoring guide
Life is compared to a "walking shadow" and to "a poor player" (an actor). Both comparisons show life as short and insubstantial. The "brief candle" also compares life to a flame that is quickly blown out.
Check off the points you earned:
(b) Describe Macbeth's attitude toward life in this passage and give evidence.
Show the answer and scoring guide
He believes life is meaningless and temporary. Evidence: "signifying nothing" and "is heard no more" show that he thinks nothing a person does matters in the end.
Check off the points you earned:
(c) How does this speech show the consequences of Macbeth's tragic flaw?
Show the answer and scoring guide
Macbeth's ambition led him to murder for power, but he has lost his wife and his peace. Having won the crown, he finds it hollow, which shows that his ambition destroyed what made life meaningful.
Check off the points you earned: