Rationale
For my written task, I want to interview Sir Stanley Wells. Stanley Wells is one of the most influential Shakespeare scholars of the moment. He studied in UCL and has been awarded with numerous prizes for his books and has been knighted for his services to scholarship. I will ask him about the historical context behind Macbeth and how Shakespeare uses literary devices to capture the attention of the audience. I will also talk with him about the stage of English that Shakespeare used and how it was affected by international trade.
I have decided to write an interview to show how well Shakespeare used literary and dramatic devices to capture the attention of the audience throughout the entire play. I also wanted to show the importance of different stages of English and how different factors contributed to the change of the English language and the way English used to sound back in the 16th Century.
I was inspired to do this topic by a documentary called “The Guid Scots Tongue” which is part of a nine-episode documentary series called “The Story of English”. We had to watch one of the nine episodes as homework and I decided to watch the episode on the Scots and Gaelic languages and how they differ from the English language.
After watching the documentary I was fascinated by this topic and did some of my own research. I spent hours researching and I ended up on Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”. Soon after I watched the movie and read some pieces of the play, I was bewitched by Shakespeare’s use of language and how he sustained tension throughout the play. I realized that the written task could be a great way of finding more about Macbeth and the English language.
Written Task
Mr. Kathman is it true that “The Tragedy of Macbeth” is based on a true story?
It is true but to a certain extent. “The Tragedy of Macbeth” is a completely fictional play however it is true that some of the characters did exist during the same period of time. For example, King Duncan did exist during 11th Century Scotland and was king of Scotland for 10 years. In the play King Duncan is depicted as an old man but was 39 years old when he died. The play also tells us that Macbeth kills Duncan in his sleep but history tells us that he died in a punitive expedition against the Kingdom of Moray. Another difference between the play and what really happened
Shakespeare is known for attracting his audience with literary devices, could you tell me a bit more of how he uses them in Macbeth?
Shakespeare uses a big amount of literary devices in Macbeth for example imagery, similes, metaphors and personification but the two most important devices that Shakespeare uses in Macbeth are Paradoxes and a dramatic device called Soliloquy.
A paradox is a statement that is self contradicting but expresses a possible truth. For example, “The beginning of the end.” This statement is self contradicting because beginning and end are antonyms but it is true because you can indeed start the end. Shakespeare uses many paradoxes specially in Act I. He uses paradoxes to create tension and to foreshadow future events of the play. An example of a Paradox in the
play is “When the battle’s lost and won”. This paradox is from the opening scene of the play and if we analyse it we know that it refers to Macbeth. What Shakespeare means by this is that Macbeth wins many battles in order to become king but meanwhile loses many other battles like the life of his wife and his own life. Shakespeare foreshadows events in the play but we don’t realize until we have reached that part of the play.
The other device that Shakespeare uses in Macbeth quite often are soliloquies. A soliloquy is when a character speaks out his innermost thoughts to the audience, one of Shakespeare’s most famous soliloquy is “To be or not to be” from the play Hamlet. He uses soliloquies to allow the audience to empathise with the character and to build up tension throughout the play.
An example of a soliloquy in Macbeth is “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow”. In this soliloquy Macbeth talks about how meaningless life is and how it has no purpose at all because everything we do in life will someday be forgotten. Shakespeare uses this soliloquy to tell the audience that Macbeth is still human. The audience empathises with Macbeth and even feels sorry for him.
Mr. Kathman could you explain the stage of English that “Macbeth” was written on and how different factors affected that stage?
There are many different stages of English but the stage used by Shakespeare on his plays was Early Modern English. Early Modern English was used from the late 15th Century to the 18th Century. Early Modern English was affected by different factors such as the Great Vowel Shift, the English Renaissance and International Trade.
Could you specify on how International Trade affected Early Modern English?
International trade affected the English language by giving the language a wider range of vocabulary. The British Navy increased enormously during the 16th and 17th Century, this allowed Britain to trade goods with many different countries. Some words were absorbed from other trading countries as a result of international trade. A lot of words were absorbed by the English language, an example of this are the words bizarre and garage which were absorbed from the French language. There are countless loanwords from all across the globe like yacht from Dutch, sauna from Finnish and casino from Italian.
The English language has also gained a lot of new words from the writer William Shakespeare, how did he invent new words?
The English language has gained more than 1700 words from William Shakespeare. He created new words by changing nouns to verbs, by connecting words and by adding prefixes and suffixes to already existing words. Most of the words that he created are used in everyday English for example addiction, assassination and uncomfortable. However, some of his words are not used very often in everyday conversations an example of this would be the word hobnob which means to have a friendly and informal chat with someone.
Shakespeare’s plays are known for having Thou instead of you and thy instead of your. Why did we stop using these words and used you instead?
The story behind that is very interesting. You and your were the formal forms of thee, thou, thine and thy, like Sie and du form in German or the tú and ústed in Spanish. It all started in London around the 16th Century when the lower classes were afraid of insulting the upper classes by using the informal form. Everybody in England started using the formal form until the informal form eventually disappeared and was used no more.
That is a very interesting story indeed, thanks for sharing your information with us and I hope you have a nice day.
Thank you for interviewing me and I also hope you have a nice day.