See course notes for general material about Macbeth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I continue (post Othello) not to be terribly keen on the tragedies, but liked this more than Othello. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Macbeth encounters three witches who prophesy that he will become Thain of Cawdor and King of Scotland, and that Banquo\u2019s descendants will be kings as well. Shortly thereafter Duncan appoints Macbeth as Thain of Cawdor, but announces that he will appoint his own son as crown prince. Macbeth is ambitious, and toys with the idea of murdering King Duncan. However, he has reservations \u2013 Duncan is his lord, a kinsman, and a guest in his household. However, Lady Macbeth \u2013 who appears to have summoned evil spirits to give her resolve \u2013 shames Macbeth into going forward with the plot. So Macbeth murders Duncan, and pins the murders on drunken watchmen (whom Lady Macbeth has used a potion to put to sleep), and then has them killed, and blames Duncan\u2019s sons for the murder.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Macbeth is crowned, but becomes increasingly unstable (as does Lady Macbeth( and paranoid). He seeks out the witches, who warn him to be wary of MacDuff, but assure him that no man borne of woman can kill him, and the he will not be defeated until Birnam Wood moves to Dunsinane Hill. After this, Macbeth goes on a bit of a killing spree,\u00a0\u00a0arranging the murder of his friend Banquo (to eliminate his descendants the witches said would inherit the throne \u2013 except Banquo\u2019s son escapes) and the family of the nobleman Macduff. Plagued by ominous visions\u2014such as Banquo\u2019s ghost appearing at a royal banquet\u2014Macbeth\u2019s grip on power loosens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, Macduff and Duncan\u2019s heir, Malcolm, raise an army in England and return to overthrow the usurper. Macbeth tries to avoid fighting Malcolm, but upon Malcolm\u2019s pronouncement that he will take Macbeth captive and parade him about, Macbeth fights, and is slain and beheaded. Order and justice is restored.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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See course notes for general material about Macbeth. I continue (post Othello) not to be terribly keen on the tragedies, but liked this more than Othello. Precis of Macbeth Macbeth encounters three witches who prophesy that he will become Thain of Cawdor and King of Scotland, and that Banquo\u2019s descendants will be kings as well. … Continue reading Macbeth<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5417,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"federated","footnotes":""},"categories":[36,47,92],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-notes","category-fiction","category-shakespeare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4573"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4574,"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4573\/revisions\/4574"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}