Macbeth: The Elements of Witchcraft by

Quotes: The Weather

sharp_starkelia — 2024-10-07 14:36:09 UTC

"When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, and in rain? " ( The Witches: Act 1, Scene 1, Lines 1-2)

"Foul is fair and fair is foul, hover throughout the fog and filthy air" The Witches (Act 1, Scene 1, Lines 12- 13)

Quotes: The Dagger

sharp_starkelia — 2024-10-07 15:34:23 UTC

"Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible/ To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but/ A dagger of the mind, a false creation/ Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?" ( Macbeth: Act 2, Scene 1, Lines 48- 51)

The Supernatural

sharp_starkelia — 2024-10-14 00:05:02 UTC

In this video Robert Simpson, an English teacher and art illustrators analyzes how Shakespeare uses the Supernatural Power in Macbeth. He defines the Supernatural as " events, powers, or creatures that cannot be explained through science often related to magic, fortune-telling, casting spells, and speaking with ghost.

There are three elements of the Supernatural presented in Macbeth:

Witches and Witchcraft
Apparitions, Ghosts, and Strange visions
The Disruption of Nature

The Witches or The Wierd Sisters: "Wierd"

sharp_starkelia — 2024-10-14 00:42:56 UTC

1a. The principle, power, or agency by which events are predetermined: fate.

1b. magical power, enchantment

2b. One pretending or supposed to have the power to forsee and to CONTROL future events; a witch or wizard, or a soothsayer.

The History of The Witchcraft Acts

sharp_starkelia — 2024-10-14 01:16:56 UTC

Which Witch( Craft Act) is Which?

In 1541, King Henry VIII, passed an act against the Conjurations, Witchcrafts, Sorcery, and Inchatments, magical practices which were disruptive or caused harm to the realm and its subjects. It was a crime punishable by death.

The 1562 Act against Conjurations, Enchantments, and Witchcrafts amended the terms of punishments of witchcraft between minor and capital offences. The punishment for a minor offence of witchcraft included one year of prison, six hours of confessions to the priest, and public humiliation in the square market.

The Witchcraft Act of 1603, moved witchcraft prosecutions from the church to the commonlaw courts. It also defined the relationship with witchcraft practices to the devil.

sharp_starkelia — 2024-10-14 01:33:58 UTC

King James I wrote Daemonologie in 1597, the book offers an in depth discussion of the origins and practices of witchcraft. The justification of prosecution of witches under the Christian law. It is divided into three parts:

magic and necromancy
witchcraft and sorcery
spirits, ghosts, and spectres

Quotes: Prophecy

sharp_starkelia — 2024-10-14 02:49:38 UTC

"The Devil often tells us half-truths to win us to our harm." Banquo (Act 1, scene 3, line 131)

Quotes: Supernatural

sharp_starkelia — 2024-10-14 03:31:39 UTC

"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. " Lady Macbeth (Act 1, scene 5, lines 47- 50)

sharp_starkelia — 2024-10-14 03:52:44 UTC

Jeremy Cornelius offers an eco-materialist reading of Macbeth with social understandings of witches and witchcraft connection between the conceptions of ecology. He explains how the three witches embodies and controls the weather. Cornelius uses the monologue of the Thane of Ross and the old man accounts of unnatural occurrences to illustrates the downfall of the ecosystem and mankind. For example the night of King Duncan's murder an owl killed a falcon, King Duncan's horses ate each other.

sharp_starkelia — 2024-10-15 17:23:41 UTC

Tabitha Stanmore is a social historian of magic and witchcraft at the University of Exeter. In her novel, "Cunning Folks: Life in the Era of Practical Magic" she tells that most people in the early modern England believed in practical magic. These people were called cunning folk or magical practitioners. They would be your local priest or respectable men and women in the community. They would create healing spells or love potions. They would help people find missing or stolen items, such as cows, spoons, money, and valuable linens.

A person would go to the priest and tell him about an stolen item in the home. The priest would tell the person to leave their window open. The priest would threaten the crowd on Sunday that he would "summon" a demon if the thief would not return the stolen item back. Out of fear, the thief would return the missing item in the person's window. Tadah Magic!

Medieval Scotland

sharp_starkelia — 2024-10-15 17:25:56 UTC

Macbeth is set in 11th century Scotland. In John Martin's interpretation of the witches' meeting with Macbeth and Banquo it shows the landscape as dark, cold, and dreary. The witches appear as supernatural figures from the air. Macbeth and Banquo are isolated and become an target for the witches' manipulation.

The Witches' Prophecies

sharp_starkelia — 2024-10-16 17:41:58 UTC

Macbeth would become the Thane of Cawdor
Banquo's heirs will become kings
Macbeth will become King of Scotland
Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane
"No man born of woman" can harm Macbeth

Hallucinations and Visions:

sharp_starkelia — 2024-10-16 17:46:04 UTC

The bloody dagger pointing at King Duncan's chambers.
Banquo's ghost at the dinner table
Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking and bloody hands

Sleeping as a mechanism of the witches

sharp_starkelia — 2024-10-16 17:50:59 UTC

Brian Chalk's essay explores how the tragedy of the play is surrounded by the present and absence of sleep. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth makes horrible decisions throughout the play during vulnerable sleeping moments of other characters. For example, Lady Macbeth persuades Macbeth to stay awake while others fall asleep to kill King Duncan. She also drugs the chamberlains to induced deep sleep. When King Duncan's body is discovered, Macbeth kills the chamberlains while they are still asleep. When King Macbeth sees visions of Banquo at the celebration dinner, Lady Macbeth insists that he needs sleep to feel better. Last example, Lady Macbeth found at her demise in her bed.

Quotes: Sleep

sharp_starkelia — 2024-10-16 18:46:03 UTC

"Me thought I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep' the innocent sleep."

Macbeth

(Act 2, scene 2, lines 47 - 48)

"Still it cried 'Sleep no more!' to all the house. 'Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor/ Shall sleep no more. Macbeth shall sleep no more.'

Macbeth

(Act 2, scene 2, lines 54 -57)

The voices that Macbeth could have been hearing are the witches?

sharp_starkelia — 2024-10-16 18:51:49 UTC

False Prophecies

sharp_starkelia — 2024-10-17 13:18:09 UTC

Scholar Frank McGuinness believes that the three witches' prophecies are ambiguous. The witches are able to manipulate Macbeth's fate by appealing to his own weaknesses as a human to know more information. The witches feeds on his desire and his eagerness.

McGuinness argues that Macbeth becoming the Thane of Cawdor is a bad omen. It is a military promotion they may have happen without the witches' prediction.