have included in it? Are there any digressions? any places where the action halts? Which scene seems to receive undue emphasis in proportion to what it contributes to plot and character? The scene of the murder of Lady Macduff has been criticized as an unnecessary introduction of brutality. Do you agree with this criticism? Why? or why not? If this scene is omitted, what is lost to the play? The speeches of Hecate and the dialogue connected with them are by some critics attributed to another author than Shakespeare. Is this because of their inferior style? Do you think them structurally necessary to the play? Where is the inciting force of the play? the preliminary exposition? Which scenes comprise the rising action? Where is the climax? Which scenes comprise the falling action? Where is the catastrophe? Point out what each act and scene contributes to plot, character, setting, and theme. What is your judgment of the dramatic structure as a whole? Draw a diagram illustrating the structure of Macbeth.

10. Comment on the beginning of Macbeth, on the use of minor crises, on the plot complications and the way in which they are worked out.

11. Write an essay on the three especially effective devices for securing dramatic emphasis in this play:

a. the use of contrast

b. the use of irony

c. the iteration of certain words, phrases, and ideas

12. Show how the outward and inward (that is, the moral and physical) struggles in this play are inseparable at every point.

13. What is the most impressive moral lesson of the play?

14. Show how the action proceeds out of the characters-that is, it is determined by them, rather than they by it. Is the motivation always natural? (Consider here the flight of Malcolm and Donalbain, and Malcolm's scene with Macduff in England.)

15. Discuss the use of the supernatural in this play.

16. Is the banquet scene inevitable, climactic, strongly emotional, decisive? Discuss each point. (See Chapter V for the qualities of a good climax.)

17. Find in this play scenes used for dramatic emphasis (see Chapter V), for contrast, for relief, for foreshadowing, for conveying information, for establishing character, for suggesting a lapse of time.

18. Discuss the use of subordinate characters in this play. Are

they strikingly or faintly delineated? For what special purposes are these characters used?

Which seem to you more human, Ross, Lenox, Malcolm, and their group, or the less important group consisting of the Gentlewoman, the Doctor, and Lady Macduff? Characterize each of these as well as you can, using quotations. Comment on the naturalness of Lady Macduff's little son. Look up other children in the plays of Shakespeare. Can you distinguish between Ross and Lenox by their outstanding traits? What is Macduff's great scene? Why? Are there any "stock characters" (see Chapter V) in Macbeth?

19. Relate some dramatic scene in the play as you think one of the subordinate characters would tell it. For example, the Gentlewoman describes the sleep walking scene; Lenox tells about the ghost at the banquet; Banquo describes the meeting with the witches to Ross and Angus. In Walter de la Mare's Henry Brocken the Doctor gives his opinions.

20. Discuss the character of Banquo, his motives, reactions, and his moral position in the play. Read what Professor Bradley says about him in Shakespearean Tragedy.

21. Using the characters of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth as examples, show the depth of Shakespeare's insight into human nature. What was the character of each at the beginning of the play? In what respects were they alike? different? Explain how their characters supplement each other. Could either have sinned so irretrievably alone? How were they regarded by others at the beginning? How far right is Lady Macbeth's analysis of her husband's nature? Is she accustomed to chastising him with her tongue? By what motives were they impelled up to the time of the murder? How did the motives of each work upon the other until the deed was done? Contrast the reactions of each immediately after the murder. Is there any indication that here for the first time Lady Macbeth feels that she does not wholly understand her husband? Compare and contrast the development of the two after the second act. Why does Macbeth plunge deeper and deeper into blood? What indications are there of Lady Macbeth's shrinking, of her unwillingness or inability to go to the same lengths? In

what respects is the development of each characteristic? What outstanding traits of each are brought out in the banquet scene? What influences outside his nature impel Macbeth to action? Is there any counterpart to the witches' influence on Macbeth in the case of Lady Macbeth? What characteristic in her takes the place of imagination in Macbeth? By what touches is the tender side of both suggested? Trace the course of Lady Macbeth's dream in the sleep walking scene. Find the source of each of her thoughts. Why is the candle by her bedside pathetic? What do you think happened to her between this scene and her death? Find all the indications of Macbeth's mental, moral, and physical degradation in the last act. What is now his attitude toward life? Is it what you would expect him to have? Are there any traces here of the man he once was? Why is the spectacle of his mental, moral, and physical ruin so impressive?

22. Take Macbeth at what you think is the decisive moment of his career; show what manner of man he was, what his position of life was, and what motives impelled him to action at this crisis. Then trace the result of this decisive action upon his later life and character, showing at each step how all might have been different had he acted differently. Can you make the same study of Lady Macbeth? Was her moment of decision before or after Macbeth's? before or after the beginning of the play? Would she have been less wicked in other circumstances?

23. Read a standard criticism on some special aspect of Macbeth, such as the witches, the atmosphere, the history of the play, the characters, the poetry, etc. Make a report showing exactly how this criticism has added to your understanding or appreciation of the play. What new points of view did it give you? Did you at any point disagree with the critic? Explain in detail your reactions. Here is a list of books from which to choose:

a. Alden: Shakespeare

b. Bradley: Shakespearean Tragedy
c. Brandes: William Shakespeare

d. Chapman: A Glance toward Shakespeare
e. Dowden: Shakespeare, his Mind and Art
f. Hazlitt: Characters in Shakespeare's Plays.
g. Hudson: Lectures on Shakespeare

h. Jameson: Characteristics of Women
i. Masefield: Shakespeare

j. Raleigh: Shakespeare

k. White: Studies in Shakespeare
1. Winter: Shakespeare on the Stage
m. Winter: Shadows of the Stage

N. A study of Macbeth as poetry

1. What great qualities of poetry has Macbeth? (use of blank verse, tone color, rhythm, figurative language, imagery, emotional power, poetic suggestion, pictures, thought translated into pictures, feeling aroused through sound, power to speak for the human race, etc.) Pick out passages remarkable for their poetic power and comment on them. (See Chapter III.) Make a list of the so-called "purple" passages. (See Chapter V.)

2. Study the language of the play. Find dialogue heightened for dramatic effect, dialogue with intrinsic value apart from its connection with the play. Find examples of obscure language, of confused imagery (due to the author's emotions while writing the lines), of simplicity, of power to use sound effectively, of extreme condensation.

3. Find passages where much is expressed in a few words.

4. Make a list of the obscure passages. Paraphrase them. Which obscurities were due to your lack of knowledge of Elizabethan English, which to obscurity in the language (mixed metaphors, extreme condensation, etc.), and which to possible corruptions of the text?

5. Study the vocabulary of the play. Find familiar words in unusual senses and unusual words expressing familiar ideas. Find Latin and Anglo Saxon words effectively combined. What proof is there in this play that Shakespeare had a wide vocabulary and that he made unusual combinations of words? Make your investigations the subject of an essay on Shakespeare's command of language.

6. How is Shakespeare's versatility illustrated in this play? (See Chapter V.) What universal human relationships, motives, feelings, experiences, are expressed here? Make a list of the passages that express things within the range of a great many people's experiences and emotions, for instance Macduff's:

and Macbeth's

I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me";

"Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care";
"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow."

INDEX