HISTORICAL CONTEXT
How can we use it to consider authorial intent and
audience interpretations?
Please be reading a book as we prepare who will be presenting
presentations and quizzes.
CONTEXT: SUCCESSION IN
SHAKESPEARE’S TIME
• Succession:
the action or right of succeeding to a throne, title, or property.
For Shakespeare’s audience, succession – how one King
or queen followed the last one – was an important
political issue. From about 1590, people worried about
When heShe
became
who would succeed Queen Elizabeth.
had noKing, James chose Shakespeare and
fellow
actorsrefused
as his royal company – the King’s Men.
children. The law was complicated,hisand
Elizabeth
this was
influenced
to allow any discussion about it,Perhaps
so nobody
sure. Shakespeare when, about three
yearsalready
later, he
wrote
When she finally died in 1603, James,
King
of about Scotland and succession.
Scotland, was declared the next King of England.
In the world of the play, though, succession is different.
Duncan can choose who will be the next King. When he
chooses Malcolm (one of his two sons), Duncan makes it
impossible for Macbeth to become King lawfully…
CONTEXT: WITCHES IN SHAKESPEARE’S TIME
Throughout Shakespeare’s life, witches and witchcraft were the object of fevered fascination.
King James I, ruler of England when Macbeth was written, ___________wholeheartedly in
witches. He even wrote a book about witches’ _________and how to spot them. Persecutions
reached terrifying proportions – between 1560 and 1603 over 16,000 __________were
convicted of being witches and ___________to death.
Witches were credited with the powers such as predicting the ________, flying, bringing on
night in daytime, causing fogs and killing __________. People believed that Witches could
raise evil _________and that they were responsible for bad harvests, bad weather and disease.
England was a Christian country and though deep divisions existed between Protestants and
Catholics, nearly everyone believed in Heaven and ________. Most people believed in witches
and thought that they were servants of the ________. Many of those watching Macbeth
saw in it the signs of a man and woman seized by demonic _____________and
temptation from the devil.
CONTEXT: WITCHES IN SHAKESPEARE’S TIME
Throughout Shakespeare’s life, witches and witchcraft were the object of
fevered fascination. King James I, ruler of England when Macbeth was written,
believed wholeheartedly in witches He even wrote a book about witches’
powers and how to spot them. Persecutions reached terrifying proportions –
between 1560 and 1603 over 16,000 women were convicted of being witches
and burned to death.
Witches were credited with the powers such as predicting the future, flying,
bringing on night in daytime, causing fogs and killing animals. People believed
that Witches could raise evil spirits and that they were responsible for bad
harvests, bad weather and disease.
England was a Christian country and though deep divisions existed between
Protestants and Catholics, nearly everyone believed in Heaven and Hell. Most
people believed in witches and thought that they were servants of the devil.
Many of those watching Macbeth saw in it the signs of a man and woman
seized by demonic possession and temptation from the devil.
SUPERNATURAL & WOMEN
• What influences does the supernatural element have on action and atmosphere of
the play?
• Why do you think Shakespeare included witches in his play and had the supernatural
influence the characters?
For example: why have Lady Macbeth
refer so often to evil and supernatural
things? What might Shakespeare be trying
to say about her character? What effect
might this have on an audience’s
Impressions?
• Why might Shakespeare have made
Lady Macbeth act differently than what
was expected of women in that time?
• How might Jacobean audiences have
reacted to Lady Macbeth?
Act 1, Scene 5: LADY MACBETH
Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood.
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
[…]
And take my milk for gall, you murd'ring ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature’s mischief. Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark
To cry “Hold, hold!”
Remember this is formative. It will
be marked over half term and you
will receive feedback on your
argument, writing technique,
analysis of evidence. You will then
be able to redraft sections.
TOMORROW: WRITING THE
ASSESSMENT
• You will spend the first ten/fifteen minutes:
• Looking at your feedback from the homework.
• You will have the question and the key scene (2:2) in front of you for you to
read. ‘How does Shakespeare construct our understanding of Lady
Macbeth’s character?’
Is she always powerful? Is she weak in some ways? Is she irrational? How do we
understand Lady Macbeth’s personality especially during this scene? (2:2)
• You will have the Macbeth text if you wish to refer to any other scenes to
support your argument (has she changed? Stayed the same?)
• You should make a plan of your argument and key points you want to write
about – plan them into a logical order (introduction, paragraphs, conclusion)
• You will have Tuesday and Wednesday to write your essay.