© Pearson Education, Inc., or its affiliates. All rights reserved.essential question: How do our attitudes toward the past and future shape our actions?Challenge: elizabethan Worldview
In Shakespeare’s day, society was rigidly organized. The nobility
occupied the top rung of the social ladder, and the uneducated
peasantry occupied the bottom. Social advancement was difficult,
if not impossible. The ladder of power also existed within families.
Parents made life choices for their children. Within a marriage, the
husband was the master of his wife. Elizabethan people expected
to live shorter, more difficult lives, and they understood the events
of a life to be controlled by fate. They did not believe they had the
power to shape their own destinies as we do today.StrategY
Keep the Elizabethan worldview in
mind as you read. If a character’s
attitude clashes with your own, try
to view the situation through the
character’s eyes. This will help you
understand why he or she is behaving
or speaking in a certain way.Close read the text
Annotating the text as you read can help you tackle the challenges of
Shakespearean language. Here are two sample annotations of an excerpt
from Act I, Scene v, of The Tragedy of Macbeth. In this scene, Lady Macbeth
learns of a prophecy that her husband will become king of Scotland. In this
passage, she reflects on what she has learned.Lady Macbeth. Glamis thou art, and Cawdor,* and shalt be
What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too ful o’ th’ milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great,
Art not without ambition, but without
The illness should attend it. What thou wouldst highly,
That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,
And yet wouldst wrongly win. Thou’dst have, great Glamis,
That which cries “Thus thou must do” if thou have it;
And that which rather thou dost fear to do
Than wishest should be undone. Hie thee hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear,
And chastise with the valor of my tongue
All that impedes thee from the golden round
Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem
To have thee crowned withal.*Glamis and Cawdor are titles of nobility held by Macbeth.ANNOTATE: These phrases
seem sinister.
QUESTION: What makes
these lines so unpleasant?
CONCLUDE: The repeated
“h” and “th” sounds in “Hie
thee hither” create a breathy
hiss, like that of a snake. Lady
Macbeth’s plan to “pour ...
spirits in thine ear” suggests
poisoning or the whispered
temptations of a devil, and
the phrase “valor of my
tongue” suggests a serpent.
All together, these lines
present Lady Macbeth as an
agent of evil.ANNOTATE: These two sentences are similar. Each is made up of two clauses
joined by a semicolon. Both seem to follow a similar logic, too.
QUESTION: How do the structure and logic of these sentences express an
important idea?
CONCLUDE: A modern-day paraphrase of the first sentence might read: “You
want to gain your desires honestly; and yet you wouldn’t mind winning.” The
second sentence might read: “To get what you most want, you must do what you
most fear.” These sentences show a conflict between Macbeth’s desires and his
resolve. The sentences war with each other, as do Macbeth’s tendencies.Literature and Culture 257LIT17_SE12_U03_A1C_WC.indd 257 20/03/16 1:19 AMClose Read the Text
Because some words are no longer in common
use or have evolved to mean something new,
encourage students to refer often to the margin
notes for clarification. These notes, in particular,
will help give meaning to old words and words
with different meanings. Encourage students
to picture the characters and the action in their
minds as they close read the text. In addition to
the tips in the text, point out that Shakespeare
also plays with standard English word order.
When students confront a difficult sentence, they
should annotate the subject and verb and then
determine how other sentence parts fit.CROSS-CURRICULAR PERSPECTIVES
Humanities Because a drama depends on
dialogue, playwrights must find creative
ways to reveal information. Discuss the
following literary elements as students
prepare to read The Tragedy of Macbeth.
• Soliloquy: A soliloquy is a lengthy
speech in which a character—usually
alone on the stage—expresses his or
her true thoughts or feelings.• Internal Conflict and
Characterization: An internal conflict
is a character’s struggle with his or
her own conflicting motivations. In
his soliloquies, Shakespeare turns a
powerful psychological spotlight on
characters’ internal conflicts.
• Imagery: The mind’s power to
make sense of the world is part ofShakespeare’s drama. Imagery, or
visually descriptive language, in the
dialogue shows characters’ minds and
hearts at work.
• Blank Verse: Shakespeare’s characters
often speak in a type of poetry called
blank verse, consisting of unrhymed
lines each containing five stressed
syllables.Whole-Class Learning 257
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