Shakespearean Academic Terms
This type of speech reveals a character's deepest thoughts.
What is a soliloquy?
What lie does Macbeth tell Banquo about the weird sisters?
What is that he has not thought of them?
Lady Macbeth realizes her husband is now beyond her influence and control after he plots to kill this character and his son (name both).
Who is Banquo and his son Fleance?
"Fair is foul and foul is fair"
Who are the weird sisters?
Macbeth was written for this monarch.
Who is King James?
Macbeth is a ----- because his overconfidence causes his downfall.
What is a tragic hero or tragic character?
In Act I, we learn that Scotland is being attacked by these two allied countries.
What are Norway and Ireland?
Before murdering Duncan, Macbeth sees an apparition of this.
What is a dagger?
Macbeth sees an apparition of this person at the dinner table.
Who is Banquo?
"Out, damned spot!"
Who is Lady Macbeth?
Most of the play is written in this unit of meter.
What is iambic pentameter?
Macbeth "unseams" this Irish rebel from "the nave to th' chops."
Who is Macdonwald?
Macbeth and his wife frame these characters for Duncan's murder.
Who are the sleeping guards?
Lady Macbeth always has this by her bed when she sleeps.
What is a candle?
"Yet do I fear thy nature; it is too full o' the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way.
Who is Lady Macbeth?
Characters like Banquo, Malcolm, and King Edward of England all serve as this for the character of Macbeth.
What are foils?
After learning of her husband's prophecy, Lady Macbeth calls up evil witches to "unsex [her] here." She asks evil spirits to do this.
What is strip her of her weak feminine traits?
Macbeth brings these bloody things to his wife after murdering Duncan.
What are bloody daggers?
Where Malcolm and Donalbain flee after their father is murdered.
What is England and Ireland?
"He was a gentleman on whom I built an absolute trust."
Who is King Duncan?
This stage direction enables characters to have private conversations on stage.
What are asides?
The witches greet Macbeth with these three titles.
What are Glamis, Cawdor, and king?
This is why Macbeth bumps Banquo before Macbeth goes off to kill King Duncan.
What is Banquo can't sleep and is taking a late night walk?
This is the apparitition the tells Macbeth to "beware Macbeth."
What is a head wearing a helmet?
"Bring forth men-children only, / For thy undaunted mettle should compose / Nothing but males."
Who is Macbeth?
"Fair is foul and foul is fair" is an example of this.
What is a paradox?
The witches give Banquo this prophecy.
What is he will not be king, but his children will be?
This thane is the first to "discover" King Duncan has been murdered.
Who is Macduff?
This person warns Lady Macduff that she and her family are in danger.
Who is the messenger?
"Knock, knock! Never at quiet. What are you? But this / place is too cold for hell."
Who is the porter?
Macbeth is the only play by Shakespeare in which this animal is mentioned.
What is a rhinoceros?
King Duncan grants Malcolm this title.
What is Prince of Cumberland?
The murderer tells Macbeth that Banquo received this many gashes to his head.
What is 20?
This is the apparition that tells Macbeth that no man born of a woman can harm him.
What is a bloody child?
"Thou hast it now—king, Cawdor, Glamis, all / As the Weïrd Women promised, and I fear / Thou played’st most foully for ’t."
Who is Banquo to himself?
This is how Lady Macbeth convinces Macbeth to take action.
What is emasculating him?
This is why Lady Macbeth doesn't kill King Duncan herself.
What is "he looked like her father"?
This is the apparition that tells Macbeth he cannot be defeated until Birnham Wood comes to meet him at Dunsinane Hill.
What is a child wearing a crown and holding a tree in his hand?
"All my pretty ones?"
Who is Macduff?
The sound Macbeth hears that "invites" him to kill King Duncan.
What is a bell ringing?
By murdering Duncan, Macbeth disrupted this hierarchical structure which visually represented everyone’s and everything’s natural order in the world.
What is the Great Chain of Being?
After seeing an apparition (don't say of what!) at the dinner table, Macbeth says that his mind is full of these.
What is scorpions?
"Naught’s had, all’s spent, / Where our desire is got without content. / ’Tis safer to be that which we destroy / Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy."
Who is Lady Macbeth?
This is the "old adage" to which Lady Macbeth refers.
What is the poor cat who wants to eat fish but is afraid to get its feet wet?
After murdering King Duncan, Macbeth says he has this "stuck in his throat."
What is "Amen"?
"If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well/ It were done quickly. If the assassination/ Could trammel up the consequence, and catch/ With his surcease success; that but this blow / Might be the be-all here,/ But here, upon this bank and shoal of time, We'd jump the life to come..." is an example of this type of thinking / argument.
What is equivocation?
This is the purpose of the porter.
What is comic relief?
“I am in this earthly world, where to do harm / Is often laudable, to do good sometime / Accounted dangerous folly.”
Who is Lady Macduff?
What is REGICIDE?