Sample Copy. Not For Distribution.
i
Macbeth - Critically Annotated
Shakespeare
Sample Copy. Not For Distribution.
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
Sample Copy. Not For Distribution.
iii
Critically Annotated
Shakespeare
Macbeth
Edited by
Nilanko Mallik MA, PhD (AM)
EDUCREATION PUBLISHING (Since 2011)
www.educreation.in
Sample Copy. Not For Distribution.
iv
Sample Copy. Not For Distribution.
v
This book is dedicated
to
all those who would like to
Shake all spheres
with learning, knowledge
and performance
Sample Copy. Not For Distribution.
vi
Sample Copy. Not For Distribution.
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
Sample Copy. Not For Distribution.
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
Sample Copy. Not For Distribution.
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
Sample Copy. Not For Distribution.
x
readers is to patiently pardon me. Suggestions for future
improvements are welcome by email communications.
Nilanko Mallik
Kolkata 2016
Sample Copy. Not For Distribution.
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.
Sample Copy. Not For Distribution.
xii
Sample Copy. Not For Distribution.
About The Playwright
1
About The Playwright
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
Sample Copy. Not For Distribution.
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
Sample Copy. Not For Distribution.
About The Playwright
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.
Sample Copy. Not For Distribution.
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
Sample Copy. Not For Distribution.
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.
Sample Copy. Not For Distribution.
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
Sample Copy. Not For Distribution.
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.
Sample Copy. Not For Distribution.
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.
Sample Copy. Not For Distribution.
Shakespeare’s Works
9
Shakespeare’s Works
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
Sample Copy. Not For Distribution.
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
Sample Copy. Not For Distribution.
Shakespeare’s Works
11
Get Complete Book At Educreation Store
www.educreation.in
Sample Copy. Not For Distribution.
Sample Copy. Not For Distribution.
Top Related