<As I Lay Dying> essay

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English 1B – Course Reader – Spring 2019 Course Syllabus 2 A Sample Formatting Page 6 Formatting Requirements 7 Plagiarism Policy 7 Revision Process 8 Sample Process Letter 9

Essay One (Poetry Explication) – Length 3-5 pages (50 pts.) Page “Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Robert Frost (You Cannot Write About this Poem) 10 “Fire and Ice by Robert Frost” (You Cannot Write About this Poem) 10 Essay Prompt 11 “God’s Grandeur” by Gerard Manley Hopkins 12 “The Snow Man” by Wallace Stevens 12 “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost 13 “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost 13 “Quai d’Orleans” by Elizabeth Bishop 14 “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop 15 “Blackberry Picking” by Seamus Heaney 17 “Blackberry Eating” by Galway Kinnell 17 “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver 18 “The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver 18 “To Autumn” by John Keats 19 Some General Rules for Writing a Poetry Explication 20 “Traveling through the Dark” by William Stafford (You Cannot Write About this Poem) 23 A Sample Poetry Explication #1 24 A Sample Poetry Explication #2 26

Essay Two (Macbeth Soliloquies) – Length 5-7 pages (100 pts.) Page Essay Prompt 28 Macbeth Notes 31 “Macbeth: The Torture of the Mind” by Bernard Mc Elroy 34 “Lecture IX: Macbeth” by A. C. Bradley 47 “Lecture X: Macbeth” by A. C. Bradley 59

Essay Three (Short Stories Essay) – Length 5-7 pages (100 pts.) Page Essay Prompt 72 “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez 73 “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe 75 “Araby” by James Joyce 78 “Pee on Water” by Rachel B. Glasser 81

Essay Four (As I Lay Dying Essay) -- Length 8-10 pages (200 pts.) Page Essay Prompt 85 List of Characters in the Book (A Who’s Who) 86 Vocabulary for As I Lay Dying 87 Some Literary Terms relevant to this Course 97

MLA Documentation Page CITING SOURCES IN-TEXT - Contextualizing Sources 100 THE MECHANICS OF IN-TEXT CITATIONS 104 Citing Sources in Your Essay as You Move Between Different Sources 107 Punctuation When Using Quotation Marks 108 Italicizing Sources versus using “Quotation Marks” 108 Formatting a Works Cited Page 109

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English 1B (CRN 34718) — Spring 2019 Wednesday Evenings 6:10 pm – 9 pm (Art 217)

Instructor: Nathan Wirth | Phone: 415.239.3199 (best to use email) | Email: [email protected] | Office: Art 213

Office Hours: Mondays and Wednesdays 5 pm to 6 pm and By Appointment Prerequisite for the course: ENGL 1A or ENG 96 / 1A

Class Website: http://ccsf.instructure.com

Important Dates Last Day to Drop: Feb 1 | Last Day to Withdraw: Apr 11 | Final Exam Date: May 22

Holidays (No Class Meetings): March 27 Required Texts & Materials A Reliable Internet connection for Canvas Course Reader (Download for free from Canvas and Print and Bring to Each and Every Class Meeting) Other Course Materials available on Canvas As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner (not available at the bookstore) Macbeth (The Bedford Edition) by William Shakespeare (not available at the bookstore) Links to buy both books are available on Canvas Major Learning Outcomes

• Outcome 1: Compose coherent expository and argumentative essays about literary texts. • Outcome 2: Synthesize critical reading, academic research, and cultural contexts in writing about

literature. • Outcome 3: Analyze and evaluate literature by means of close textual reading, identifying central themes

and key literary elements. • Outcome 4: Distinguish between literal and figurative language and assess how these figures of speech

help generate themes. Course Description During the semester we will be exploring a novel, a variety of poems, a play, and several short stories – all of which some of you might, at first, find bewildering and difficult – but as you carefully read through the material at home and discuss it in groups and in class, the thin veils of mystery will fall and you will be face to face with writers who are tuned in to various veins of the human experience. As we carefully consider these works, we will also discuss the what, the why, and the how of writing about literature academically. In addition, we will also consider (a) responding to critical sources, (b) citing sources, and (c) various stylistic approaches to constructing sentences. After you have completed this course, you will (a) understand the various genres of literature, (b) be able to read them carefully (c) draw inferences from them (d) be able to assess critical responses and (e) cultivate and craft your own responses. By this time I expect you to already know how to organize a sentence, a paragraph and an essay, so I will not be covering such writing issues extensively in this class. If you still need extensive help/work with these issues then you will need to spend some extra time working in the writing lab this semester. I am available to help during office hours as well. Logging into Canvas • Log into Canvas from MyCCSF: https://www.ccsf.edu/en/myccsf.html • Username: Your CCSF ID (example W12345678, @12345678, or D12345678) • Password: Your RAMID password In order to take this class, you must have reliable access to the Internet. All homework-related assignments and essays must be uploaded to Canvas, so if you do not have access to the site, you will not be able to submit your work. You must download and print the course reader, which contains all of the assignments and handouts for the semester, by the second class meeting. You are required to bring the course reader to every class. It can be found on Canvas

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Essays/Written Work/Assignments/ Formatting Requirements: The formatting requirements for your essays are explained, very clearly, in the course reader. Make sure that you review them each time before you submit an essay to Canvas. Failure to follow the correct formatting guidelines will result in me not reading your essay until you have fixed them. If this happens, your essay will be considered late and, as a result, cannot be revised, will receive no comments, and will be graded when I am able to get to it. Process Letters: For each formal essay, you are required to include a brief letter that outlines the difficulties and successes you experienced while working on your essay. Your letter should be a short reflection (a) about your experience writing your essay. What did you struggle with? What problems did you encounter? How did you overcome them? What do you feel satisfied about? Any concerns that you want me to address when I read your essay? The pedagogy behind this is to allow each student the opportunity to actually think about his / her writing process and to reflect on what each student does or does not do when writing. You can find a sample in the course reader. Revisions: You have the option to rewrite the first two essays (unless you receive an A). For your rewrite, you must include a detailed analysis of the changes that you made (e.g. what was the mistake? what did you do to change it?). Each rewrite, if done well, can earn up to a full grade; however, in order to earn that many points, your rewrite must be significantly improved and include detailed notes about the changes you made. Rewrites and error logs must be typed. Specific details are available in the course reader and will be discussed in class.

 If your first two essays do not meet the standards and requirements for a passing essay, then you will not receive a grade until you have addressed the necessary issues. You will have to meet me during an office hour to discuss strategies for fixing those issues. Failure to rewrite the essay within three weeks after I return the essay will result in a failing grade for that essay (which means that you will not be able to pass the course).

Plagiarism: Here is the official CCSF policy on plagiarism: "Plagiarism is defined as the unauthorized use of the language and thought of another author and representing them as your own." Plagiarism is a violation of the rules of student conduct, and discipline may include, but is not limited to," a failing grade in an assignment, test, or class in proven cases of cheating or plagiarism or other academic dishonesty.”

 My official policy is that you will receive a failing grade for the assignment (0 points for the assignment). At my discretion, I sometimes offer a plagiarizer the opportunity to rewrite the essay for an F with points (e.g. 55/100). If you should plagiarize a second time, then you will receive a failing grade for the essay and, as a result, for the class.

 My official thoughts about Plagiarism: I feel that plagiarizing is exceptionally lame. Why bother going to school if you have no intention of doing your own work? If you are stressed out about your writing, just come talk to me and we can discuss your situation.

Staying on Task: It is essential that you read the essay and assignment prompts carefully. Any essays that do not follow what the prompt specifically asks for will be returned ungraded. I will read them after you revise them, but they will be considered late. That said— the essays are designed to allow you the opportunity to develop exactly how you wish to address the questions posed, so you can still express your individuality. Late Work: I will accept late essays. If your essay is late, I will provide no comments and return it at my convenience (which might take a while). You are NOT allowed to rewrite late essays. All late essays must be turned in no later than two weeks after the due date. Requirements for Passing the Class: All of the essays must be completed with a passing grade or you cannot pass the course. No exceptions. Help: I will gladly comment on thesis statements, outlines, or a paragraph or two from your essays via email or during office appointments-- but not on entire essays. Make sure that you have specific questions about specific things before you email me or come to an office appointment. Quizzes: Reading quizzes for novel and play.

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Bring the course reader to each and every class. Check the course schedule on Canvas before each class to see what we will be covering and make sure that you bring the necessary materials to class (and to see when to bring your copies of Macbeth and As I Lay Dying). Attendance/Participation/Class Discussion Attendance: Let me make this as obvious as possible. Your presence is important both to me and for your success in the course. If you have made vacation plans, have work obligations, can’t attend the final class, and/or have no intention of showing up regularly, then I would not recommend taking this course. Even if you find me and/or the material boring, you still have to come to class; however, if that is how you feel, I would strongly recommend that you find a teacher and/or class more to your liking and schedule.

• For a night class you are allowed one unexcused absence (no questions asked and no consequences for that absence), but I reserve the right to reduce your participation grade by five points for each subsequent absence. Please note that this is not an invitation to miss a class.

• If you miss three or more classes in a row before the final withdrawal date -- and do not contact me to let me know if you are still in the class— I will drop/withdraw you from the course.

• If you miss a total of five class meetings before the final withdrawal date — I will drop/withdraw you from the course. There comes a point when you are just not really taking the course-- and this, as far as I am concerned, is pretty much when you have arrived at that point.

• You are expected to arrive to class on time and to bring the proper materials (course reader, assignments ... check Canvas for details). If you are late then YOU have to let me know, or you will remain marked absent. Three "lates / tardies" equal one absence.

• Please note that if you miss a class, you are still responsible for all material/assignments covered in class. • I recommend that you exchange email addresses with at least a couple of students so that you can keep

up with anything you might miss in class. Though I will be as helpful as I can, do not rely on me to keep you up to date. I will not respond to emails that ask me what was covered in class. Check Canvas for the latest schedule / due dates / required reading, etc. EVERYTHING is there.

• If life deals one of those many unfortunate situations that we all dread but have to deal with, and, as a result, you have to be absent for a few classes, then please have the courtesy to let me know. I will drop or withdraw you from the class if I have not heard from you after two weeks. Don’t just vanish! Keep in touch and let me know what is going on.

Participation Grade: I base your participation grade on attendance, class participation, and completing the lab work (25 pts). Most students, when attendance is good, receive 21 or 22 points. To get more points you need to participate in discussions. Talking during class while others are speaking (whether it be me or your fellow classmates) will result in a reduced participation grade as well. Class Discussion: This class is built around a lot of class discussion and interaction; therefore, it is important that you take part in class discussions—which means that you must put your best effort towards reading the material and thinking about it. Consistent lack of participation will result in a lower participation score. General Class Rules Eating & Drinking in Class: Official school rules prohibit eating in class, so if you spill something, clean up after yourself. Smart Phones & Laptops in Class: I am beginning to accept that some students use their smart phones to access information during class, but I am not entirely convinced yet. Let me say this: if you are far more interested in your smart phone than the class, you should seriously ask yourself why you are bothering to take this course. Do not disrupt the class. If you do, I will ask you to leave and then mark you absent.

• You are adults and I expect you to act responsibly/accordingly. • DO NOT TALK TO YOUR FELLOW CLASSMATES DURING LECTURES OR CLASS DISCUSSIONS! • Do not sleep or do homework during class. If you feel the class is boring and/or stupid, I encourage you to

drop the course and find one that is more interesting to you.

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Other Concerns  Email Addresses: Make sure that you check the email the school has provided you. You can forward your

school email to your regular email account (and that way you won’t miss anything the school sends you). This is the email that I am provided and my only way of contacting you. All mail related to Canvas is delivered to your school email as well.

 This class is rated “R.” From time to time strong language and discussion of adult themes and situations may occur. If these kinds of things offend you, you should consider taking a different course.

 Accommodations: If you need classroom or testing accommodations because of a disability, or have any other special needs, please give me your DSPS form or make an appointment with me as soon as possible. Disabled Students Programs and Services (DSPS) is located in Room 323 of the Rosenberg Library, phone (415) 452 5481

Grade Breakdown (subject to change)

Essays = 70% Essay 1 Poetry Explication 3-5 pages 50 pts.

Essay 2 Macbeth 5-7 pages 100 pts Essay 3 Short Stories 5-7 pages 100 pts

Essay 4 As I Lay Dying 8-10 pages 200 pts

Other Stuff = 20% Quizzes (Various pts. – Check Canvas for dates)

In-class Essay 25 pts

Participation= 10% Attendance & Participation = 25 pts

Poetry Presentation

The Complete and Detailed Schedule for the Class Is on Canvas.

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William Fitzgerald A Sample Formatting Page

English 1B Times New Roman / 12 pt. Font

Poetry Explication Double Spaced / No Large Gaps Between Paragraphs

“My Only Swerving”: An Explication of William Stafford’s “Traveling Through the Dark”

In his blank verse poem “Traveling through the Dark,” William Stafford writes about a

traveler who, while driving at night, encounters a pregnant deer which has been killed by a passing

car. He faces a difficult choice— should he (a) leave the dead deer on the side of the road or (b) roll

her over the edge? — two choices that will result in the unborn fawn dying. The opening stanza sets

this scene as if the poem is a simple story, the speaker telling us he came upon a dead deer while

driving at night on Wilson River Road (which is in rural Oregon, where Stafford lived most of his

adult life). The name of the road, and the reference to the canyon, clearly indicates that the road

follows the same path as a river down below. This is an important detail because this is how he will

be able to move the deer so that others do not have to suddenly swerve to get out of the carcass’s

way and, as result, possibly die themselves:

It is usually best to roll them into the canyon: example of a blockquote

that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead (3-4).

The matter of fact tone of “usually best” suggests he has had many similar experiences before (and,

after all, hitting a deer at night out in the country is not an uncommon occurrence). The road is

narrow, so there would be little room for swerving out of the way and not much time to stop (one

might even imagine that the poet himself had to stop suddenly). No large gaps between Paragraphs!

The fact he has taken the time to stop in the middle of the night— especially when he was

not the one who had hit the deer— reflects a sense of responsibility. This responsibility is further

reflected by his decision to have pulled the car in front of the dead animal and then turned down his

lights (later indicated in line 13: the “car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights). He observes the

scene by the “glow of the tail-light” (5) after he has “stumbled back of the car” (5) likely because it

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Formatting Requirements If you don't follow the proper formatting, I will ask you to revise the essay and fix the formatting errors. Your paper will then be considered late. It is essential that you meet the minimum required page limit. If you do not, then points will be deducted from your essay. You are always welcome to write more than the minimum. Here are the basic requirements for all essays (including the Multitasking Letter). • Double space • Times New Roman 12pt Font • 1-inch margins all around • Pages must be numbered. • No Large Gaps Between Paragraphs • Include your name at the top of the page (you may also include the course, assignment, and date) • Include a title. • Underline your thesis statement (Note: There is no formal thesis for the Multitasking Letter) • Include a works cited page

Plagiarism Here is the official CCSF policy on plagiarism: "Plagiarism is defined as the unauthorized use of the language and thought of another author and representing them as your own." Plagiarism is a violation of the rules of student conduct, and discipline may include, but is not limited to," a failing grade in an assignment, test, or class in proven cases of cheating or plagiarism or other academic dishonesty." My official policy is that you will receive a failing grade for the assignment (0 points for the assignment). If you should plagiarize a second time, then you will receive a failing grade for the class.

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Revision Process This exercise in revision is not just a process of fixing the corrections or responding to the comments I made. Treat this as a revision of the essay as a whole. Think about how you can improve or tighten up your points/writing. In other words, this is a revision of the whole essay. As you revise your essay keep notes about the changes you have made to your essay. I need to know why you make any and all of your changes. Note: Because Mr. Wirth marked it/told me to is not an acceptable reason. If I asked you a question or commented about something you wrote, I expect you to address what I said and tell me how and why you fixed it. I want to know what your reasoning is for every change you make. I also expect you to look for other areas to revise and improve. After you print your newly revised draft, use a pencil or pen and explain what you changed. Please write directly on the essay in the area where you made the change. Underline / circle the section you have changed in your revised essay and then explain the nature of the problem, how you fixed it, and why your fix has taken care of the problem. The amount of points you are awarded will be based on how detailed your explanations are. If you are going to only make minor changes and / or spend no time explaining this, then do not bother revising the essay. The amount of points that you are rewarded will reflect the quality of your rewrite and how detailed your explanations are. If you do not explain the changes you made, then you will receive no points. If you only explain a few changes, then you will receive very little points. In general, most students, if they complete the assignment correctly, increase their grade anywhere from a half grade (C+ to a B- / B+ to A-) to a full grade (C+ to B+). Please Note  If you received an A- or better, then you cannot rewrite the essay.  Only the first two essays can be revised.  If you receive a NG / Rewrite Required. Disregard this process. You have to meet with me in person so that we can discuss your rewrite.  If you do not follow these requirements, I will not read your revised essay. If I am not requiring you to rewrite / revise your essay, then don’t bother with this unless you really want

to rewrite your essay and learn something from the process. Anything less will receive no points.

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Process Letter For each take-home essay (including the Multitasking Letter), you must include a brief letter that outlines the difficulties and successes you experienced while working on your essay. Your letter should be a short reflection (at least three paragraphs) about your experience writing your essay. What did you struggle with? What problems did you encounter? How did you overcome them? What do you feel satisfied about? Any concerns that you want me to address when I read your essay? If you do not include your letter, then I reserve the option to reduce your overall essay score by up to five points. Please make the letter the first page of your upload (process letter + essay). Please keep in mind that the process letter does not count as one of the required pages.

SAMPLE PROCESS LETTER (for Essay One)

Dear Nathan,

Overall, I feel like I understand the task and completed it well; however, I struggled with my introduction and

my conclusion. I know that they are supposed to be like the bookends of the essay and tie together my overall

points/thesis, but I don’t feel like I fully introduce my essay and I am not certain if the introduction relates to my thesis.

I wish I had taken more time with it. I feel confident about my body paragraphs. I worked very hard on trying to write

good transitions between paragraphs and I think most of them are very effective, but I also think a few of them are a

bit too formulaic. I have a good understanding of the poems, but I think I struggled at times with finding the best ways

to word that understanding—particularly my explication of “Desert Places.” I fear that I might not have evenly

balanced my discussions of the poems, giving much less time to “Desert Places” than I gave to the other two Frost

poems.

I wish I had taken a little more time to revise the essay. I feel good about the writing overall, but I know that I

could have cleaned up and better focused some of the sentences. I’d greatly appreciate it if you would comment on

the conclusion and let me know if you think I successfully tied together all the elements of my body paragraphs and my

thesis. I also fear that I may not have actually come to a conclusion about how all three poems ultimately deal with

solitude.

Thanks!

Fergie

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Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost (1923) Nature's first green is gold a Her hardest hue to hold. a Her early leaf's a flower; b But only so an hour. b Then leaf subsides to leaf. c So Eden sank to grief, c So dawn goes down to day. d Nothing gold can stay. d End Rhyme: A rhyme occurring in the terminating word or syllable of one line of poetry with that of another line Metaphor: a figure of speech in which two dissimilar things are compared. ("Nature’s first green is gold” “Her early leaf’s a flower”) Personification: the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form (nature cannot hold anything, Eden (a place) cannot feel grief) Allusion: a figure of speech that makes a reference to, or a representation of, people, places, events, literary work, myths, or works of art, either directly or by implication. Eden is an allusion to the Garden of Eden story in the Bible. Alliteration: repetition of initial consonant sounds (Her hardest hue to hold … dawn goes down to day Assonance: repetition of vowel sounds (Eden sank to grief)

Please Note That You Cannot Write about This Poem for Your Poetry Explication Fire and Ice by Robert Frost (1920) Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To know that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice. Symbol: A symbol works two ways: It is something itself, and it also suggests “something else.” In this poem, fire and ice are exactly what fire and ice are but they also relate to other things. In the case of this poem, we see fire being linked to desire and ice being linked to hate. They, however, are NOT being compared to these things (as we see in a metaphor). Understatement: The presentation of a thing with underemphasis in order to achieve a greater effect (that ice, whose destructive elements are great would be sufficient enough to end the world) Paradox: A statement or situation containing apparently contradictory or incompatible elements, but on closer inspection may be true (the world cannot perish twice) Irony: a figure of speech in which words are used in such a way that their intended meaning is different from the actual meaning of the words.

Please Note That You Cannot Write about This Poem for Your Poetry Explication

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Poetry Explication (50 points) Length: 3-5 pages Due Date: Check Canvas Task: Explicate one of the following poems: “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” “The Road Not Taken,” “Quai d’Orleans,” “One Art,” “Blackberry-Picking,” “Blackberry Eating,” “God’s Grandeur,” “To Autumn,” “The Snow Man,” “Wild Geese,” or “Summer Day.” Note: You cannot write about the other poems. DO NOT USE “I” OR “YOU” FOR THIS ESSAY.  WHEN YOU REFER TO THE POEM IN YOUR ESSAY, PLACE QUOTATION MARKS AROUND THE TITLE  Refer to the following sections in the course reader: (1) the notes about the poems in the course reader (2) “Some General Rules for Writing a Poetry Explication,” (3) Some Literary Terms relevant to this Course, (4) CITING SOURCES IN-TEXT - Contextualizing Sources, (5) and THE MECHANICS OF IN-TEXT CITATIONS. An explication is part interpretation, part analysis, and part explanation. Focus on the language of the poem!! To Prepare: To help you better prepare for the essay, I want you, before you begin, to print out a copy of the poem you are writing about and then, in the margins, summarize, word for word, what the poet is describing/discussing. I’d also like you to write down your initial reflections and analyses about what you might infer from the language of the poem. This way, before you begin writing, you will have engaged the poem closely enough to provide you with enough material to shape your initial writing direction. Note: your writing task will be much easier if you take the time to read the poem many times so that you will be very familiar with what happens in it. What Should I Be Explicating? In general, when explicating, one explores the text of the poem— specifically such things as the poet's use of metaphor, simile, symbols, personification, paradox, hyperbole, imagery, form/structure, and music (alliteration, assonance, consonance, end rhyme, internal rhyme). Keep in mind, however, that one does not need to cover all of these things (nor does each poem utilize every one of these devices). It is not your job to offer a shopping list of every figurative or musical device in a poem but, instead, to closely examine those that are most relevant to the poem. I do not, for example, want you to write something like the following:

In the poem "Design," Robert Frost uses a variation of the Italian sonnet form. The poem has the following rhyme scheme: ABBAABBA CDCCDD. Frost uses personification and symbols as well as similes. In the first eight lines of the sonnet, what is called an octave, Frost tells the reader about a white spider on a white heal- all that he encounters. In the last six lines, which are called a sestet, Frost asks several questions.

Each "item" on this list is most certainly relevant, but instead of just listing items, you need to explore each facet on its own and show your reader its relevance. For example, the discussion of the sonnet form is very useful if you are demonstrating how the poet uses the conventions of that structure to explore (a) the questions theme brought up in the poem and/or (b) how the poet addresses them. Audience: When writing about a poem, many students struggle with choosing what to say and what not to say and what to cover in the poem and what not to cover. One can reduce the difficulties of such choices by considering who the audience for one's paper will be. For our purposes, I want you to write as if you are writing to your fellow classmates— which means that you will be writing for an audience who is familiar with the poem. DO NOT USE “I” OR “YOU” FOR THIS ESSAY. Structure: For this essay, and this essay only, do not provide a formal introduction and a thesis statement placed at the beginning of your essay-- just jump right in and explicate the poem. State your thesis in your conclusion. This way you will have argued towards your conclusion / thesis. Citation: Since you will be writing about a single poem— and you will be providing the title of the poem and the author's name in your introduction— you only need to cite the line number each time you quote from the poem you have chosen to explicate. EX: As the poem begins, Frost encounters "a dimpled spider, fat and white" on a white heal-all (1). Use the following for your works cited requirement (please note EXACTLY how it is formatted) Poet’s Last Name, Poet’s First Name. “Title of Poem.” English 1B Course Reader. Edited by Nathan Wirth,

Nathan’s Mind Inc., 2019.

Outside Sources: I do not want you to reference any outside sources. Upload to Canvas: (1) A letter that discusses your difficulties and/or successes writing the essay (2) Your Final Draft. Please make the first page of the document your process letter (sample process letter in this course reader). Formatting: Check the course reader for formatting rules (and look at “A Sample Poetry Explication #1”)

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The Poems You Can Choose to Write About God's Grandeur by Gerard Manly Hopkins (1877) The world is charged with the grandeur of God. a It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; b It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil b Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? a Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; a And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; b And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil b Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. a And for all this, nature is never spent; c There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; d And though the last lights off the black West went c Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs— d Because the Holy Ghost over the bent c World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings. d  An Italian Sonnet is a fourteen-line poem divided, by end rhyme, into a major group of 8 lines (the octave= abba /abba) followed by a minor group of 6 lines (the sestet = some combination of cd or cde). The sestet looks back and comments on the octave (the ninth line, which is the first line of the sestet, is called "the turn").  Alliteration: The repetition of an initial consonant sound, as in "dearest freshness deep down things.”  Consonance: The repetition of final consonant sounds: “The world is charged with the Grandeur of God”  Assonance: The repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds in neighboring words. "Why do men then now not reck his rod” End Rhyme = the rhyming pattern of the final word of each line in the poem  Internal Rhyme: a rhyme created by two or more words in the same line of verse “seared with trade; bleared, smeared”  Simile: a comparison between two dissimilar things, using like or as. “It will flame out, like shining from shook foil”  Caesura: a break in a verse where one phrase ends and the following phrase begins. It may be a comma, a tick, or two slashed line. “And for all this, nature is never spent”

The Snow Man by Wallace Stevens (published in 1921) One must have a mind of winter To regard the frost and the boughs Of the pine-trees crusted with snow; And have been cold a long time To behold the junipers shagged with ice, The spruces rough in the distant glitter Of the January sun; and not to think Of any misery in the sound of the wind, In the sound of a few leaves, Which is the sound of the land Full of the same wind That is blowing in the same bare place For the listener, who listens in the snow, And, nothing himself, beholds Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

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Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost (1923) Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound's the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost (1916) Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth. Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same. And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

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"Bishop’s second and last trip to France in 1937 became linked with a horrifying car accident involving her friend Margaret Miller. Bishop had been traveling in Burgundy with Louise Crane (the driver) and Miller when they were forced off the road. As a result of the accident, Margaret lost her arm. This dismemberment caused Bishop major psychological grief (she would try to write a poem from the point of the view of the arm for many years): her guilt (unwarranted as it was) perhaps made the lost arm synechdochal for Bishop’s earlier traumas oloss (and connection), in particular her loss of her mother to madness."

-- from Susan McCabe's “‘Facing the Wrong Way’: Elizabeth Bishop and the French Connection” –

photograph of the Quai d’Orleans in France

quai = A riverside street on the left bank of the Seine in Paris Quai d’Orleans by Elizabeth Bishop (published in 1946) for Margaret Miller Each barge on the river easily tows a mighty wake, a giant oak-leaf of gray lights on duller gray; and behind it real leaves are floating by, down to the sea. mercury-vines on the giant leaves, the ripples, make for the sides of the quai, to extinguish themselves against the walls as softly as falling-stars come to their ends at a point in the sky. And throngs of small leaves, real leaves, trailing them, go drifting by to disappear as modestly, down the sea’s dissolving halls. We stand as still as stones to watch the leaves and ripples while light and nervous water hold their interview. “If what we see could forget us half as easily,” I want to tell you, “as it does itself—but for life we’ll not be rid of the leaves’ fossils.” Simile: a figure of speech in which two dissimilar things are compared using “like” or “as”. “to extinguish themselves / against the walls / as softly as falling-stars come to their ends / at a point in the sky.” The water from the wake spreading out and dissipating is being compared to “shooting stars” The giant oak leaf is a metaphor– the wake (the water left behind by the barges on the water) is being compared to a giant oak leaf).

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Biographical Note for “One Art” “There is no doubt that the crisis behind [“One Art”] was the apparent loss to Bishop of Alice Methfessel, the companion, caretaker, secretary, and great love of the last eight years of her life. Although its method is the description of the accumulation of losses in the poet's life, its occasion is the loss of Alice.” Source: Millier, Brett Candlish. "Elusive Mastery: The Drafts of Elizabeth Bishop's 'One Art.'" Elizabeth Bishop: The Geography of Gender. Ed. Marilyn May Lombardi. Charlottesville, VA: Virginia UP, 1993. Print. One Art by Elizabeth Bishop (1976) The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster, Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three beloved houses went. The art of losing isn't hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster. -- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster. NOTE: MAKE SURE YOU LOOK AT THE NEXT PAGE, WHERE THE FORM OF THE VILLANELLE IS EXPLAINED This will help you to understand the specific form of this poem, which you need to know about in order to fully grasp the poem.

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Villanelle: a villanelle carries a pattern of only two rhymes, and is marked most distinctively by its alternating refrain, which appears initially in the first and third lines of the opening tercet. In all, it comprises five tercets (three line stanzas) and a concluding quatrain. One Art by Elizabeth Bishop The art of losing isn't hard to master; [this line is repeated in the 2nd and 4th tercets as well as the final quatrain] so many things seem filled with the intent [the ent sound is found in the second line of all the tercets and the final quatrain] to be lost that their loss is no disaster, [a variation of the idea of it not being a disaster is found in the 3rd and 5th tercets and the final quatrain] Lose something every day. Accept the fluster [fluster/master is a slant rhyme] of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or [last or /master is a slant rhyme] next-to-last, of three beloved houses went. The art of losing isn't hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster. -- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture [gesture/master is a slant rhyme] I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master [note that Bishop alters the line here] though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster. [note that Bishop must use the word disaster here to complete the form of the villanelle] Slant Rhyme: a rhyme in which either the vowels or the consonants of stressed syllables are identical, as in eyes / light; years / yours.

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Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney (published in 1966) Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots. Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills We trekked and picked until the cans were full, Until the tinkling bottom had been covered With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's. We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre. But when the bath was filled we found a fur, A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache. The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour. I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot. Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not. Blackberry Eating by Galway Kinnell (published in 1980). I love to go out in late September among the fat, overripe, icy, black blackberries to eat blackberries for breakfast, the stalks very prickly, a penalty they earn for knowing the black art of blackberry-making; and as I stand among them lifting the stalks to my mouth, the ripest berries fall almost unbidden to my tongue, as words sometimes do, certain peculiar words like strengths or squinched, many-lettered, one-syllabled lumps, which I squeeze, squinch open, and splurge well in the silent, startled, icy, black language of blackberry -- eating in late September.

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Wild Geese by Mary Oliver (1986) You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -- over and over announcing your place in the family of things. The Summer Day by Mary Oliver (1990) Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean- the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down- who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

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To Autumn by John Keats (1819) 1. SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells. 2. Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep, Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook; Or by a cyder-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours. 3. Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,— While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

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Some General Rules for Writing a Poetry Explication 1. Enclose the title of the poem in quotation marks (unless they are book length titles).

• “One Art” “Blackberry Eating" “The Road Not Taken”

2. Make sure you introduce us to the author and the title of the poem in the first paragraph of your essay. Make sure you correctly spell the poet’s name and correctly write and spell the poem title. • Robert Frost begins his poem “The Road Not Taken” by explaining that two “roads diverged in a

yellow wood” (1).

3. The first time you refer to the poet, use his or her full name. For the rest of the essay only use his or her last name. Do not do the following: • Incorrect: Robert stops by the woods and watches them fill up with snow. • Correct: Frost stops by the woods and watches them fill up with snow.

4. Explicate the poem using the following terms: lines, stanzas, quatrains (four lines) • Do not use the following: sentences, paragraphs, pages

5. Use the present tense when discussing the poem: • Incorrect: The traveler felt the woods “were lovely, dark and deep” (16). • Correct: The traveler feels the woods “were lovely, dark and deep” (16).

6. Once you have told us the title of the poem in your introduction, do not state it again. You do not need to keep reminding the reader over and over you are discussing a poem.

7. Do not keep repeating: “In the poem” throughout the explication. Once you state the title, we will know you are talking about that poem for the rest of your explication.

8. You do not need to keep telling your reader where you are in the poem (In line one, in line two, in line three).

9. Do not tell us the poet says things that he or she does not actually say. If you wish to analyze a line— or suggest what you think it implies— then first state what the poet says and then show us how we can understand it. o Absolutely Incorrect: Frost tells us that “nature’s first green is gold” (1) because he wants to tell

us that nature is like piles of gold, and since we all love gold, he is telling us that we are greedy and that we want to keep all nature to ourselves and not share it with anyone. Frost knows that climate change is destroying the world, so he wants to tell us that we need to stop treating the world like it is just a pile of gold we can take for ourselves.

o Correct: Frost begins with the assertion that “nature’s first green is gold” (1), a metaphor that

asks a reader to ponder the value of this first green, a green that presumably places one in the first days of spring that have followed the cold days of winter. The metaphor compares that initial green to gold, which is both a color and a metal, one that is precious, valuable, desirable, and beautiful, all qualities which suggest that this first green is something wonderful, something important, something humans covet.

This is an example of “showing” your reader how the poem works, instead of just “telling” your reader something. An explication is VERY MUCH about “showing.”

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10. Avoid hypothesizing about something in terms of what it might mean if it had been different than what it is. • “The Road Not Taken” would have been much less effective if it were titled “Regretting the

Choice Not Chosen”

11. Avoid weak and wishy-washy, vague statements like: o The poem seems to be saying … This line could mean … This might mean but I’m not sure … Note: Even if you have doubt, don’t admit it. Try instead: o The poet implies … The poet suggests

12. Don’t refer to quotations as quotations: Fire, as the quotation indicates, is linked to desire. • Try instead: Frost links fire to desire because of what he has “tasted” of it.

13. When referring to poetic terms, you do not need to offer a definition of the poetic term. • For example, there is no need to write the following: When Donne writes “death thou shalt

die” (14), he uses a paradox, a statement or situation that contains apparent contradictory elements which also reveals something truthful.

• Try writing instead: The paradox found in Donne’s final words of “Holy Sonnet X” suggests faith

in salvation is so mighty it kills death itself. Death, after all, cannot die, so how can we understand such a claim? The answer to the contradiction can be found in salvation—through which one’s soul lives on for an eternity after the body dies.

This is also an example of “showing” your reader how the poem works, instead of just “telling” your reader something. An explication is VERY MUCH about “showing.”

14. When writing about poetry (or any literature) use the present tense. • Wrong: Frost’s poem explored philosophical questions about nature's design and, by

implication, a designer. • Correct: Frost’s poem explores philosophical questions about nature's design and, by

implication, a designer.

15. Don’t forget to cite the line(s) of the poem you are quoting. • Hopkins then asks: if the world is so charged with this grandeur, then “why do men then now

not reck his rod?” (4). • Frost knows he must leave the woods even though they are “lovely, dark and deep” (13)

because he has “promises to keep” (14). Note how both the examples above integrate the line of the poem into the words of the sentence. Try to do this as seamlessly as possible. You only need to use the ellipses if you are cutting something out of the middle of the line and the bracket if you are adding or changing a word: • The soldiers are “bent double … knock kneed [and] coughing like hags” (1-2). And you could do it even more seamlessly like this: • The soldiers are “bent double” (1), “knock kneed” (2), and “coughing like hags”(2).

16. When quoting 2-3 lines of a poem use a / to indicate the break in the lines: • For example: The poet replies to his friend: “Why, if it’s dancing you would be, / There’s brisker

pipes than poetry” (15-16).

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17. When quoting four or more lines. block the quote by indenting both sides 8-10 spaces • When you blockquote, do not use quotation marks unless they are part of the poem. • Use a full sentence that provides context for the quotation—and then add a colon. • Do not start a new paragraph until you have addressed the blockquote Whatever we make of it, we need to be sure that we recognize how contradictory this progression is—especially since, in the final stanza, Frost shifts to what he claims he will someday say in the future:  full sentence with context that sets up blockquote followed by a colon

I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— Indent blockquoute 8-10 spaces on both sides I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference (18-20).

How exactly should we read the first two lines of this stanza—and, more importantly, what is the antecedent of the pronoun this? Does this refer to the story we have been given in the first three stanzas or does it refer to what he will be saying at a future date? Or does this refer to both what he has told us already and what he will be saying in the future? The third choice strikes me as the best possibility because it more fully embraces the fact that he is saying that someday he will be telling something, with a sigh, that is quite different from what he has just told us.

It is never enough to just insert a quotation into your essay. You must always discuss/explain its significance. Remember—you are analyzing a poem, so you will need to quote much of it in order to explain how the poem works. 18. Avoid colloquial and slang. Use clear, honest, and exact language.

• This poet has got the similes that are hella sick because people talked like they were whack back in the day.

19. Avoid psychobabble.

• It is obvious that Emily Dickinson is in a state of denial. Maybe if her parents had loved her more as a child, she would not have been so obsessed with death.

20. Avoid clichés, platitudes and personal observations about your own life. Do not refer to your life at

all or discuss what you feel about the poem. While there is certainly great value in considering the ways that poetry helps us understand our personal experiences, there is no room for those kinds of observations in this kind of writing assignment.

21. Do not use “I” or “you” for this essay.

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Traveling Through The Dark by William Stafford Traveling through the dark I found a deer dead on the edge of the Wilson River road. It is usually best to roll them into the canyon: that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead. By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing; she had stiffened already, almost cold. I dragged her off; she was large in the belly. My fingers touching her side brought me the reason— her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting, alive, still, never to be born. Beside that mountain road I hesitated. The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights; under the hood purred the steady engine. I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red; around our group I could hear the wilderness listen. I thought hard for us all—my only swerving—, then pushed her over the edge into the river. Please Note That You Cannot Write about This Poem for Your Poetry Explication

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William Fitzgerald A Sample Poetry Explication #1 English 1B Poetry Explication

“My Only Swerving”: An Explication of William Stafford’s “Traveling Through the Dark”

In his blank verse poem “Traveling through the Dark,” William Stafford writes about a traveler who, while driving at night, encounters a pregnant deer which has been killed by a passing car. He faces a difficult choice— should he (a) leave the dead deer on the side of the road or (b) roll her over the edge? — two choices that will result in the unborn fawn dying. The opening stanza sets this scene as if the poem is a simple story, the speaker telling us he came upon a dead deer while driving at night on Wilson River Road (which is in rural Oregon, where Stafford lived most of his adult life). The name of the road, and the reference to the canyon, clearly indicates that the road follows the same path as a river down below. This is an important detail because this is how he will be able to move the deer so that others do not have to suddenly swerve to get out of the carcass’s way and, as result, possibly die themselves:

It is usually best to roll them into the canyon: that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead (3-4). The matter of fact tone of “usually best” suggests he has had many similar experiences before (and, after all, hitting a deer at night out in the country is not an uncommon occurrence). The road is narrow, so there would be little room for swerving out of the way and not much time to stop (one might even imagine that the poet himself had to stop suddenly).

The fact he has taken the time to stop in the middle of the night— especially when he was not the one who had hit the deer— reflects a sense of responsibility. This responsibility is further reflected by his decision to have pulled the car in front of the dead animal and then turned down his lights (later indicated in line 13: the “car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights). He observes the scene by the “glow of the tail-light” (5) after he has “stumbled back of the car” (5) likely because it is dark and difficult to see at night with only that pale reddish light to illuminate the scene. He describes the doe as a “heap,” a choice of words which brings to mind a pile of parts left on the side of a road, indicating an animal who is now just a pile of stuff and no longer a living creature. There are many hard consonants in the first two stanzas—the d’s, c’s, b’s slowing the reading and making the moment seem a bit cold: “deer,” “dead,” “best,” “canyon,” “car,” “doe,” “cold,” “dragged,” “belly,” “stumbled,” “road,” “stiffened,” “already,” “found.” And, through this language, he knows she has been killed recently because even though she has “stiffened already” (7) she is, at that time “almost cold” (7).

But then the language warms up in the next stanza with the l’s, w’s, r’s, and s’s found in the words: “side,” “reason,” “warm,” “fawn,” “waiting,” “alive,” “still,” and “hesitated.” And, then, as he begins to drag her body, he realizes “she was large in belly” (8), the poem now shifting into a deeper significance for both the “almost cold” and the “large in belly.” He soon realizes the doe, though dead, is pregnant and her fawn is alive: “her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting, / alive, still, never to be born” (10-11). The warmth of her belly, which clearly indicates the life of the unborn fawn is contrasted against the “almost cold” of the dead mother— and this contrast is deepened even further by the fact that the deer will never be born even if, in a sense, it is still “waiting.” The poet’s choice of “still” can be read in several different ways. First, the doe still remains alive; i.e. it simply has not yet died. Secondly, the doe is still, i.e. not moving, and lies motionless but not dead in the womb of its dead mother. Thirdly, the distance between “still” and “born” in the line is not far and one might, as a result, put the two words together and end up with stillborn. Even though this word clearly denotes being dead before born, which is not the case here, the poet has clearly stated that the fawn is laying there “never to be born.” In other words, it might as well be dead because it is never going to live. And herein lies the crux of the moral ambiguity for the speaker of this poem. He is clearly not going to deliver this fawn. After all, he cannot perform a caesarian on the doe (nor could he likely

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mother the fawn). His choices are to either push the doe (and thus the unborn fawn) over the side of the road to the river canyon below or to leave them on the side of the narrow road, potentially endangering the lives of other motorists. The speaker is a thoughtful person, one who take his time to think things over, and so he hesitates. As he does so, he observes the “lowered parking lights” (13) of his car (which further illustrates how responsible he is) and listens to the “purring” of his “steady engine” (14), the red from the taillights making the exhaust flowing from the tailpipe glow red. This eerie glow can easily echo the red blood that is likely present on the deer as well as the soon to be spilled blood of the fawn who will never be born. Following this description, he refers to “our group” (16), whose members include himself, the deer (and its unborn fawn), and the car all bound together in that moment as the wilderness listens (“around our group I could hear the wilderness listen”).

This is a strange line, for even if one considers that the poet is personifying the wild, the wilderness truly cannot listen— yet when one is alone in the dark, in the silence, one can sometimes feel as if something is listening. But what then might the wilderness be listening for? Before any answer can be arrived at, one needs to first ponder the immediate contrast between the “wilderness”— the river, the canyon, nature itself— and the “group” formed by himself, the car and the dead doe with its unborn fawn. This contrast is also echoed by the paved road he has stopped on, the road where the deer met its demise. Reading further into this line, one might conclude that the road serves as a representation of man’s attempt to adapt nature to his needs. The river that the road follows can serve as a representation of the wilderness. In doing so, we can see a contrast between the world of the wild, which the deer and its unborn fawn belong to, and the world of civilization.

Such a reading yields a contrast that further emphasizes the moral ambiguity of the situation. Nature is not concerned about life and death. It is not sentient. It is not moral. But the speaker, and, potentially, all humans are. This road that follows the direction of the river can represent how humankind lives between the world of wilderness and civilization and, sometimes, even on the edge between the two—and, at this border, on this evening in the dark, while traveling in the dark, the poet has encountered a moment when the machines of civilization have encroached on the wilderness and resulted in the death of both the deer and soon its unborn fawn. As a result, his moral dilemma comes with the added complexity of not being one who will at least save the fawn, and, therefore, the wilderness, then, might be “listening” for his reaction or, perhaps, for his next action, his decision about what to do.

The couplet, which ends the poem, might remind one of the ways a couplet ends a Shakespearean sonnet, viz., a final two lines that look back and reflect on the rest of the poem. Once again, we see that the poet is a responsible, thoughtful individual: “I thought hard for us all” (17). Who exactly is this “all”? Certainly, it could be the “group” that he has pondered in this poem— particularly the doe and the unborn fawn. But his other concerns are for the safety of others who might drive down this road that evening and the dangers that could befall them. Indeed, he explains that his thinking is “my only swerving” (17), a choice of words that invokes both the swerving of a car in the road, done last second to avoid hitting the carcass, and the swerving of his thoughts. Perhaps there is some part of his thinking in which he wishes to save the fawn, to not simply toss it over the side of the road and sealing its fate, and, thus, his swerving is a switching and moving in-between the choice of doing nothing further and leaving the deer on the side of the road or pushing it over—which is what he, ultimately, does.

Overall, the tone of the poem is often very matter of fact, more of a narrative than a deep exploration of an ethical dilemma, but, nonetheless, contained in that narrative is a moral quandary. The poet never suggests that his choice is cruel or selfish. In the larger picture of human existence in the modern world, the poet does not point a finger at the destructive forces of civilization and its machines even though one could easily argue that the deer, and eventually the fawn, died because a human driving a car hit them. One could easily argue that fewer deer (and fawns) would be killed if we did not drive our machines through “nature” in the night, that technology comes at a cost, but the speaker does does not suggest that nature is more important than man nor does he say that man is more important than nature. Simply, the choice he makes protects other humans from any potential accidents. The deer and its fawn have died because of man, but he will not let another man die because of that accident— and, quite likely, he regrets that the fawn will die (and would have probably died no matter what choice he makes). He has made the decision that will prevent further injury and death. So, ultimately, while his

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thoughts have “swerved,” it is not because of his indecision but because of his sensitivity, his sense of responsibility, and his thoughtfulness.

William Fitzgerald A Sample Poetry Explication #2 Essay One – Poetry Explication English 1B

The Fleeting Nature of Being

Robert Frost begins this short eight-line poem, “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” with the assertion that “nature’s first green is gold” (1) a metaphor that asks a reader to ponder the value of this first green, a green that presumably places one in the first days of spring that have followed the cold days of winter. The metaphor compares that initial green to gold, which is both a color and a metal, one that is precious, valuable, desirable, and beautiful, all qualities which suggest that this first green is something wonderful, something important, something humans covet. One might also consider the fact that, botanically speaking, the first leaves of the spring are often a yellowish green, a point that suggests the reader should recognize the value of this moment as both a botanical reality and a metaphor that reminds one of how precious and beautiful this new growth, this new life, this new cycle is. Frost continues with the observation that this precious green, this golden moment, does not last; indeed, it is nature’s “hardest hue to hold” (2). Frost’s choice of “hardest” suggests a struggle, but certainly nature is not consciously concerned with this struggle. By personifying this line, Frost shows nature through human eyes, through human concerns. Humans are the ones who find this preciousness of golden color in the first leaves, the ones who want to hold this precious hue of golden green, but, inevitably it passes regardless of our desire for its continuation.

Building on the value of this “new green,” as well as its fleeting nature, Frost next asks hs readers to consider that spring’s “early leaf’s a flower” (3). On the one hand, this metaphor suggests that the leaf bud opens like a flower, but, on the other, it also refers to those magnificent moments when fruit trees flower in full glory—the branches brimming over with radiant whites, reds or pinks— before any new leaves bud. Flowers, like gold, are also precious, beautiful and desirable— qualities that, like the previous lines suggest, are “hard to hold,” or, only last as Frost indicates in the line that follows, “but only so an hour” (4). Certainly the golden yellow of first leaves and the beauty of these early spring flowers last far more than an hour, but Frost’s use of hyperbole illustrates both just how quickly these things pass in the larger scheme of time’s passage and how brief that time in which they come and go feels to those who experience them. Such conclusions easily link back to the previous two metaphors, which reveal just how precious such things are in the face of such transience and impermanence. After this brief “hour” of precious beauty passes, “leaf subsides to leaf” (5), an observation that recognizes that the season continues its progression through time after these particularly wonderful moments have passed. This is a very important point to recognize because it reminds one that, up to now, Frost has only been thinking about this fleeting “hour” in terms of nature. He does not connect his observations about early spring with humanity until he writes “so Eden sank to grief” (6), a line that links man’s fall from grace in paradise to the passage of time. Indeed, Frost’s use of “so” establishes a conditional relationship with spring’s brevity and mankind’s awareness of the passage of time. After all, nature is not concerned with time— time being a human construct created, in part, to mark the passing of seconds, minutes, days, months and years in our lives. Frost alludes to Biblical story from Genesis, in which Eve and Adam eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, after which God banishes them from the paradisal garden, telling them that they will have to labor for their food and feel the pains of childbirth. Thus, for man, begins the seasons of life and death.

In this context, one can now consider the previous lines in light of the brevity and preciousness of human life. By extension, because of the previous focus on the early days of spring, one might also conclude that Frost is also speaking about such things as the brevity of youth, the quickness of beauty, the shortness of that vitality humanity possesses when young— all things that are “hard to hold” and seem to pass in an “hour.” In the line that follows, Frost links man’s fall from grace, humankind’s fall into

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time, with the passing of days by suggesting “so dawn goes down to day” (7). Frost again uses “so” as a condition to link the ideas from one line to another, this time implying that dawn going down to day is a consequence of man’s sinking to grief after he is cast out of Eden. We should also note that Frost says, “dawn goes down,” not dawn goes up and then, later, down into sunset— a choice of wording that further supports his observations about how quickly time passes. Indeed, in this light, the day begins by descending— indicating, once again, how brief the experience of the passage of time feels.

Frost’s final observation that “nothing gold can stay” (8) links the end of the poem to its beginning. In eight brief lines, the poet considers (a) the first days of spring, which are precious and beautiful like gold, a hue that does not last and (b) the beauty of the new leaf opening as if a flower but only lasting for an “hour” and then links these observations about the fleeting “hour” of nature to the human condition by suggesting that the passage of this season, and time itself, is a result of man’s fall from grace. The final claim that “nothing gold can stay” leaves his readers with the final observation that nothing precious and beautiful stays, that everything passes, that nothing lasts. On the one hand, this is a simple observation. After a certain amount of time humans simply cease to be. But, on the other hand, this new life, this new vitality, is precious and wonderful, whether it be leaves or flowers or, by extension, such things as youth and physical beauty. As a result, the poem also implies that humanity wants to cling to these precious things because of their aesthetic and physical value— a poignant reminder that makes their brevity and eventual demise all the more poignant, all the more powerful, all the more meaningful.

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Macbeth Soliloquies Essay (100 points) Length: 5-7 pages Due Date: Check Canvas Task: (1) Choose one of the four soliloquies provided on the next two pages of this course reader below. Your task is to (a) analyze the language of the soliloquies, (b) discuss the importance of that soliloquy in the context of the entire play, and (c) incorporate two of the three critical sources from this course reader (see the specific directions below). DO NOT USE “I” OR “YOU” FOR THIS ESSAY.  When you refer to the title of the play, italicize the name  Macbeth is a Shakespearean tragedy.  When you refer to the character, do not italicize the name Macbeth appears shocked by the prophecies.  Place quotation marks around the titles of the literary sources: “Macbeth. The Torture of the Mind”  Refer to the “Citing Sources in Your Essay as You Move Between Different Sources” section for how to correctly cite in-text as you move between sources.  Refer to the “Formatting a Works Cited Page (Bibliography)” section for how to format your works cited page. Textual Analysis: Make sure that you analyze the text. Do not skip any of the language of the soliloquy. You must, as you explain what the language signifies, also talk about how what the character considers, says, and realizes relates to the rest of the play (your critical sources will help you with this task). Refer to your notes from the class lectures and discussions to help you incorporate some of the bigger themes and questions of the play. Critical Sources: I have provided you three critical sources in the course reader: (1) “Macbeth. The Torture of the Mind” by Bernard Mc Elroy (2) “Lecture IX: Macbeth” by A. C. Bradley (3) “Lecture X: Macbeth” by A. C. Bradley For your essay, you must incorporate at least two of these sources. You MUST use “Macbeth. The Torture of the Mind” by Bernard Mc Elroy. You can choose between the two Bradley sources (“Lecture IX” or “Lecture X”)— and you can, of course, use both. of three critical outside sources. One of those critical sources must be one of the two Bradley essays in the course reader. You must clearly and specifically incorporate these sources into your essay by directly quoting, paraphrasing or summarizing them. Make sure that you set them up with specific and relevant context and thoroughly and meaningfully explain their relevance to your analysis of the soliloquies. See the course reader for details about setting up and introducing quotes and properly formatting your in-text citations and works cited page. You are expected and required to follow proper MLA formatting. Audience: Your audience is very familiar with the play, so you do not need to be concerned with telling us the entire plot of the play (though you might want to explain some specific plot points relevant to your soliloquy such as events that have led to the soliloquy, events that happen between the soliloquies, or events that follow the soliloquy and, while you do so, also look closely at some of the language from those other parts of the play). Your task is to break down the language of what either Macbeth or Lady Macbeth are actually saying and how it fits thematically with the rest of the play. You need to explicate all of the language of each soliloquy. The critical sources will help you to support your ideas and / or provide a rhetorical strategy for introducing analysis, points, and observations. To Prepare: To help you better prepare for the essay, I want you, before you begin, to print out copies of the soliloquies you are writing about and then, in the margins, summarize, word for word, what the character is describing/discussing. I’d also like you to write down your initial reflections and analyses about what you might infer from the language of the soliloquies. DO NOT submit this to me or Canvas. Structure: For this essay, begin with a formal introduction that (a) establishes the nature of the play, (b) briefly introduces the nature of the soliloquy, and (c) provides a thesis that specifically asserts the importance of the soliloquy in the play. Your body paragraphs must be both (a) an explication of all the language of the poem and (b) how it fits into the themes and events of the overall play. Your conclusion must be a conclusion that comes from the explication of the poem and your discussion of how it relates to themes and events of the play and then specifically concludes what the importances of the soliloquy are. Citation: For each line or lines that you quote use the following format— Act.scene.line number(s)— V.vi.17-28 or 5.6.17-28 (choose one or the other) For the outside critical sources, follow all MLA formatting rules (see the MLA section in this course reader for those formatting rules. For your works cited page, include the Bedford edition of Macbeth and for the critical articles, use this course reader as your source.

Bradley, A. C.. “Lecture IX: Macbeth.” English 1B Course Reader. Edited by Nathan Wirth, Nathan’s Mind Inc., 2019.

Outside Sources: I do not want you to reference any outside sources OTHER than the ones I have provided. Upload to Canvas: (1) A letter that discusses your difficulties and/or successes writing the essay (2) Your Final Draft. Please make the first page of the document your process letter. You can find a sample process letter in this course reader. Formatting: Check the course reader for formatting rules.

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Option One Lady Macbeth Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full 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. ---------------------------------------- The raven himself is hoarse That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements. 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. Stop up the access and passage to remorse, That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between The effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts, And take my milk for gall, you murd'ring ministers, Wherever in your sightless substances You wait on nature’s mischief. Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark To cry “Hold, hold!”

Option Two Macbeth 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 and the end-all here, But here, upon this bank and shoal of time, We’d jump the life to come. But in these cases We still have judgment here, that we but teach Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return To plague th' inventor: this even-handed justice Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice To our own lips. He’s here in double trust: First, as I am his kinsman and his subject, Strong both against the deed; then, as his host, Who should against his murderer shut the door, Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been So clear in his great office, that his virtues Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against The deep damnation of his taking-off; And pity, like a naked newborn babe, Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubim, horsed Upon the sightless couriers of the air, Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself And falls on th' other. Option Three Macbeth She should have died hereafter; There would have been a time for such a word. To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. Option Four on the Next Page 

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Option Four Macbeth Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. 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-oppressèd brain? I see thee yet, in form as palpable As this which now I draw. Thou marshall’st me the way that I was going, And such an instrument I was to use. Mine eyes are made the fools o' th' other senses, Or else worth all the rest. I see thee still, And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood, Which was not so before. There’s no such thing. It is the bloody business which informs Thus to mine eyes. Now o'er the one half-world Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse The curtained sleep. Witchcraft celebrates Pale Hecate’s offerings, and withered murder, Alarumed by his sentinel, the wolf, Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace, With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth, Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear Thy very stones prate of my whereabout, And take the present horror from the time, Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives. Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives. I go, and it is done. The bell invites me. Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell That summons thee to heaven or to hell.

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Macbeth Notes Tragedy (Rooted in Greek Tragedy and the New Testament) In Shakespeare’s tragedies, comedies, history plays, and the later romances, society is threatened or, more often, completely unraveled by the moral weaknesses and or choices, actions, desires of a character or characters. o In the Comedies, everything is saved by a play’s end because the various lovers and all of the ensuing

complications are brought together in marriage before the eyes of God and the State. o The History Plays end in triumph or catastrophe but the main concern is centered on the health /

preservation of the state. o In the Romances, what begins in tragedy is solved through redemption. o Tragedies end in catastrophe … and the death of the hero (and often a list of other characters).

1. One must assume that a tragic hero falls from a great height … that this fall is a consequence of the hero’s choices / actions. The tragic hero is a person of greatness. But that greatness can be evil/terrible.

2. Some may call it a tragic flaw, but such a distinction misses the gravitas of the hero’s fall. It suggests that one singular flaw undoes him. Better to think of it as a moral weakness—which can be tied to a variety of flaws.

3. The hero must nevertheless have in him something which outweighs his defects, something that interests us so that we care about what happens to him as hos world and the world around him unravels.

4. This becomes for us our cathartic moment … 5. The play takes place in world of order … and the tragic hero’s choices / actions undo that order … it is

an order defined by the divine (and sometimes its seeming absence). Justice is determined by that divine presence (and not always fair/answered).

What, then, makes Macbeth great? (Great does not have to equate with goodness). He becomes a tyrant and falls from that height … we relate to him. We see in him something about ourselves-- our own ambitions; our own temptations; our own weaknesses. The Play Overarching Questions to Consider in the Play  What makes Macbeth great and how does he evolve/change throughout the play?  How does the theme of “Fair is Foul, Foul is Fair” echo throughout the play?  What is the role of the witches and the supernatural in the play?  What role / purpose does Lady Macbeth play and how does she evolve/change throughout the play? Act One  Play begins on the Heath. The witches plan to meet Macbeth.  One of Many Themes in the Play: “Fair is foul, foul is fair”  Equivocation: using double meaning in language to deceive others …  What role do the witches play in the drama?  Are they tricksters who deceive because they can?  Are they prophetic harbingers of Macbeth’s doomed fate?  The possible answers are linked to questions of freedom versus fate.  The play unravels with a Christian sense of justice / consequence for evil actions.  We know (via dramatic irony) that Macbeth will become Thane of Cawdor (in scene II)  We first hear about Macbeth from the sergeant who explains to Duncan how brave and noble Macbeth has fought.  Should we be surprised that a warrior of this kind would choose to kill Duncan?

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 After all, he is fighting off the Scottish traitors who have allied themselves with Norway.  Next, Macbeth and Banquo encounter the witches who offer the first three part prophecy.  Is Macbeth fated by prophecy to kill the king and then later descend into evil?  Macbeth hears that he will be the Thane of Cawdor (which, again, we already know)

 Macbeth is mortified by his thoughts of how he could become king and fulfill the prophecy (via a soliloquy). This reveals that Macbeth is profoundly aware that it would be wrong to kill Duncan.

 In the next scene, Macbeth learns that Malcom will be the successor to the throne.  Macbeth decides that he will need to do something about this if he would be king – but still knows how wrong it would be for him to act on such things  (Stars, hide your fires; / Let not light see my black and deep desires: / The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be, / Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.) Theme of darkness / hiding in it (most of the play steeped in darkness) Act Two  Lady Macbeth receives a letter from Macbeth and knows that he is too full of the “milk of human kindness” to do what must be done.  She wishes to be unsexed and filled with cruelty in order to carry out the actions necessary. Ready to plan … Macbeth arrives and shows hesitance. They will speak of it later.  Macbeth realizes that killing Duncan would have consequences … in this lifetime and the next. Decides he will not do it. The soliloquy reveals even further how well he knows that killing Duncan is wrong …  Tells Lady Macbeth they will no longer speak of this business …  She calls him a coward … offers him a plan … this excites him.  As he walks to kill Duncan, a vision of a dagger leads him … Hallucination? Supernatural presence? How does one’s understanding of the play change if one looks at each one? A play is performed … could one make choices to focus on one or the other?  Macbeth returns from the murder. He is horrified by his actions. Lady Macbeth offers “damage control”  Macbeth thinks that the blood from his hands would redden all the oceans of the world – Lady M says, after returning, “A little water washes us of this deed.”

 In Act Five, she sleepwalks, and says, “Out, out damned spot.” Look for echoes from this scene and Lady M’s sleepwalking scene in Act Five.

 Macbeth thinks he has murdered sleep and will never sleep again. Act Three  Macbeth worries about Banquo—he has killed only to let Banquo’s line eventually be kings …  He is growing used to what he has done … but this does not necessarily suggest that he has lost sight of the evil of his actions.  Plans to have Banquo and Fleance killed … Banquo killed / Fleance escapes.  Macbeth sees the ghost of Banquo … hallucination (no one else sees it) … supernatural?  Lady M explains that her husband is ill (she is still doing “damage control”)  Macbeth cannot believe that the dead will come back (resonates with theme of consequences he must face)  Macbeth decides that he will go talk to the witches. Act Four  Witches give Macbeth four prophecies which emerge from the bubbling cauldron.

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 Beware Macfuff

 For none of woman born / Shall harm Macbeth.  Not to worry unless Birnam woods move  The line of kings from Banquo  Macbeth is downright selective of what he chooses to follow.  Decides that from now on he will no longer let reason guide him / he will follow his heart / emotions Act Five  Lady M spills everything as she sleepwalks  Their separate paths have crossed and switched  Macbeth is again the warrior he once was – but his words reflect a mind not entirely in control of the situation  Lady M kills herself (presumably)  Macbeth realizes the uselessness of everything in the Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow soliloquy  The woods “move” on the castle (attacking force cuts down branches for camouflage)  Macbeth meets them head on in the battlefield and then encounters MacDuff, who it ends up, was not born of woman (not a vaginal birth – ripped from stomach of mother at birth).  Macbeth does not yield … strongly implies he is and has always been aware that what he has done goes against the “order of things”  He also knows that the witches have tricked him … he does not complain … he accepts it … he fights …  MacDuff Kills him … where are the witches? What has been there role in the play?

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Macbeth: The Torture of the Mind by Bernard McElroy (from Shakespeare’s Mature Tragedies)

IN Macbeth, Shakespeare focuses his attention fully upon a problem he had dealt with peripherally in Hamlet and Measure for Measure: that of the criminal who is deeply aware of his own criminality, is repulsed by it, but is driven by internal and external pressures ever further into crime. What differentiates such villains as Claudius, Angelo, and Macbeth from Richard III, Iago, and Edmund is that the former fully admit the validity and worth of the moral laws they violate, while the latter dismiss the ethical standards of the world as so much folly and delusion. The latter three relish their superiority over their victims, while the former judge themselves from the same ethical perspectives as their victims. The descendants of the Vice believe in what they do, while the conscience-stricken criminals are in the agonizing position of being committed by their actions to one set of values while committed by their beliefs to quite another. Macbeth dramatizes this predicament as experienced by a man who possesses the fundamental qualities of the Shakespearean tragic hero.

For all its emphasis upon blood and violence, Macbeth is the most completely internal of all Shakespeare's tragedies. It presents us with a man who has a clear conception of the universe and his own proper place in it. But, when confronted with the possibility of committing a daring though criminal act, he willfully deceives himself for a short time and em-braces an opposite view of the world. In the aftermath of an irrevocable act, he finds himself irrevocably committed to a world-view in which he does not believe. The key to his savagery, and, even more, to the soul-sickness that elevates him to tragedy, is that he must proceed as if the self-delusion were true, when in his mind and heart he knows that it is not. This constant lying to himself, and the discrepancy be- tween his beliefs and the world that he has chosen for him- self, produce the self-loathing and the numbing sense of loss that are the essence of his tragedy.

The Macbeth-world is one of the most distinctive Shakespeare ever created, having an atmosphere very much its own, upon which almost all extensive commentaries have remarked. Like the Hamlet-world, the world of Macbeth can be divided into three spheres or loci— the court over which Macbeth gains bloody sway, the world outside that court from which the forces of retribution issue, and a metaphysical sphere which intrudes physically upon the action. But the Macbeth world has none of Hamlet’s variegation; it is all very much of a piece, and the same nightmarish qualities of violence, fear, equivocation, and diabolism permeate every corner of it. The metaphysical realm seems scarcely more than an exten-sion of the dark recesses of the hero's mind, a projection of his own inner promptings and fears. The consistency and intensity of the Macbeth-world have given rise to the widespread impression that this play is the most unified product of Shakespeare's art, that it issued as if a single breath from the most profoundly disturbing recesses of his imagination.1 The world Macbeth sees corresponds in striking detail to the world that the play presents us. Indeed, when the Thane describes his microcosm on the eve of the murder, he presents us with a most haunting delineation of the macrocosm, the world of the play:

Now o'er the one half-world Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse The curtained sleep. Witchcraft celebrates Pale Hecate's offerings; and withered murder, Alarumed by his sentinel, the wolf, Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace, With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design Moves like a ghost. (II.i.49-56)

1 Knight gives a particularly good account of this view on p. 155. Paul A. Jorgensen’s fine study, Our Naked Frailties (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 1971), appeared too late to be of use to me in writing this chapter. The similarities and ultimate differences between his thinking on this play and my own will be apparent to anyone familiar with his book.

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Because of this coalescence between the macrocosm and the microcosm, Macbeth's own words provide us with the most useful index to the salient qualities of the Macbeth-world.

Nature seems dead. In the world of Macbeth, the inverted and the unnatural constitute the normal state of affairs. Paradox, antithesis, and equivocation are the characteristic idiom of the play.2 The word "strange" and its derivatives appear twenty times, far more often than in any other tragedy by Shakespeare, and more often than in any other of his plays except The Tempest. All the characters, young and old, good and bad, are troubled by a sense of being estranged from the ''natural touch," of being surrounded by conditions which are "'gainst nature still." Disruptions in the natural order occur everywhere, from the firmament to the stables, "even like the deed that's done." Darkness at noon, predatory animals, night's black agents, murdering ministers, crying orphans, weeping widows, and innumerable other large and small touches all combine to delineate a macrocosm which, like the microcosm of the hero, has suffered the death of nature. As if to underscore the ubiquitousness of the strange, the weird, and the inverted in Macbeth's Scotland, the one presentation of the beneficent face of nature occurs in a con- text of extreme irony. The temple-haunting martlet may seem to approve by his loved mansionry that the heavens' breath smells wooingly around Macbeth's castle, yet we know from the previous scene that it is the raven, not the martlet, which croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan under those grim battlements.

Wicked dreams abuse the curtained sleep. The Macbeth world is predominantly nocturnal, and the aberrations that can occur in sleep are central to the play. Though this has been amply pointed out, what has not received sufficient attention is the nightmarish quality of the Macbeth-world itself. Like The Winter's Tale, Cymbeline, and The Tempest, Macbeth is in a sense a dream-play; that is, its world is informed by the same meaningful distortions which, in universal human experience, characterize the world seen in dreams— the same combination of the real and the unreal, the logical and the absurd, the probable and the fantastic, the frightening and the grotesque.3 Like a dream, the play seems both to rush forward with inexorable speed and yet to move with the agonizing slowness of stupor. The two main characters engage in swift, violent action, yet their lives wind down to absolute stasis, the frozen horror of Lady Macbeth's night- mares and the bedrock of Macbeth's despair. The Macbeth- world is a projection of Macbeth's mind in exactly the way the world seen in dreams is a projection of the mind of the dreamer. Like a dream-world, the Macbeth- world is filled with symbols, both obvious and obscure, which portray to Macbeth's mind the essential qualities of his thoughts and acts. Like the world of nightmare, the Macbeth-world is oppressive, airless, and claustrophobic, a quality suggested by "curtained sleep," and made explicit by Macbeth's feeling of being "cabined, cribbed, confined." Memories are filled with rooted sorrows, the stuffed bosom is fraught with perilous stuff which weighs upon the heart, and the imagination quails before nameless terrors. Even the good characters describe their native country in terms which, like the world of nightmare, embody at once distortion and reality, exaggeration and absolute conviction:

Where signs and groans, and shrieks that rent the air, Are made, not marked; where violent sorrow seems A modem ecstasy. The dead man's knell Is there scarce asked for who, and good men's lives Expire before the flowers in their caps, Dying or ere they sicken. (IV.iii.168-173)

As in the world of dreams, the boundaries between what is and what is not are thin and flexible. That the witches are real seems pretty clear, since Banquo sees them, but, like the contingent "realities" of dreams, they are as insubstantial as breath or bubbles, and they can melt into the wind, leaving their astonished interlocutors wondering, "Were such things here?" There has been no unanimity in either the theater or in criticism about whether Banquo's ghost, the air-drawn dagger, and the disembodied voices that haunt Macbeth are strictly the products of his imagination or manifestations of the supernaturalism of the Macbeth-world. Shakespeare seems to have left the matter purposely vague; Macbeth is tortured by both 2 1 For detailed analysis see Margaret Burrell, "Macbeth; A Study In Paradox," Shakespeare /ahrbuch , 90 (1954), 167-190. Also George Duthie, "Antithesis in Macbeth," Shakespeare Survey, 19 (1966), 25-32. 3 "He is living in an unreal world, a fantastic mockery, a ghoulish dream: he strives to make this single nightmare to rule the outward things of his nation. He would make all Scotland a nightmare thing of dripping blood" (Knight, p. 170).

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external and internal "sights," symbolic manifestations both in the macrocosm and the microcosm, and it is not always possible for him to say where one leaves off and the other begins.

'Twere best not know myself. In the Macbeth-world, char-acters are constantly turning their eyes toward the innermost recesses of nature, especially their own natures, and they are invariably appalled by what they find there. Macbeth, in his first appearance, is horrified by his own propensities, and, as the play progresses, an unstintingly negative appraisal of himself and of life in general becomes the substance of his tragedy. But he is not the only one who is repulsed by what he sees within himself. The discreet Banquo can keep his mind under control when he is awake but is shaken by nameless "cursed thoughts" that nature gives way to in repose. Lady Macbeth, too, can cope with the waking world by embracing the worst she sees there with ferocious assent and enthusiasm. But in sleep, with her defenses— her rationalizations and ruthless will— in abeyance, she is brought to a horrified recognition of herself. Watching her, the Doctor cries, "God, God forgive us all!" (v.i.70), which could well serve as an epigraph for the play. Both the young Lennox and the Old Man are appalled by natural aberrations and the deeds which initiate them. Ross delivers the nightmare description of Scotland quoted above. The Porter sees Macbeth's courtyard as the entrance to hell. Both Lady Macduff and her son paint a glum picture of the relation of innocence and experience, a picture that proves all too accurate in their case. Even Malcolm recites a whole catalog of fictitious vices of which he is supposedly guilty. The constant discernment of evil supports the play's overall impression that both micro-cosm and macrocosm are vast repositories of the unspeak-able, that the serpent lurks beneath every innocent flower, readily apparent to anyone who has the nerve or misfortune to look.

Witchcraft celebrates. Whatever one may make of the reality of Banquo's ghost, the witches most certainly have a more vivid dramatic reality than Banquo living. The problem that their presence poses is central to the tragedy, for it involves the degree of freedom Macbeth exercises in committing his succession of crimes. If the witches can accurately foresee the future in the instant, then the future must be fixed. If the future is fixed, had Macbeth any real choice? If he had no choice, what becomes of the moral significance of his actions? The quest for a solution has run the gamut from the venerable Kittredge, who saw the sisters as Norns who could not only see the future but could determine it, to Stoll, for whom the problem scarcely existed, since the witches are primarily devices intended to sustain an illusion.4 Walter Clyde Curry attempted to steer a middle course, pointing out that in the mainstream of theology in Shakespeare's England, evil was both subjective and objective, existing both in the mind of man as a result of the Fall, and also in a whole realm of devils, imps, and spirits, whose existence was in no way dependent upon the human mind.5 The degree of their influence upon human actions, he tells us, depended largely upon how a given individual was disposed at the time of temptation. The critic suggests that Macbeth had free will to begin with, but appears to have forfeited it after the crime. "We have a passage from strict indeterminism to apparent determinism" (p. 105). The insight is valuable insofar as Macbeth, as he himself realizes, does drastically circumscribe his range of possible choices after he commits regicide. Yet, when Curry attributes to the witches "a dignity, a dark grandeur, and a terror-inspiring aspect" (p. 77), he commits the same error Kittredge had before him, placing more confidence in ex-haustive research among arcane books on witchcraft than in the witches Shakespeare has given us in the play. Far from being awesome demons or implacable Norns, they are filthy old hags who possess very little grandeur of any kind; when not trifling with the destiny of kings, they seem to derive equal pleasure from killing swine, cadging chestnuts, collecting thumbs, and gathering from ditch and gibbet the loath-some ingredients of their brew.6

Besides, to attempt a cogent theological explanation of Macbeth is almost as grave an error as to seek one for Hamlet. For one thing, the doctrine of free will itself has always been a particularly controversial and ambiguous one in Christian theology, resting upon the essentially paradoxical formulation that God's foreknowledge of the future, even though infallible and at one with His omnipotent will, is not the cause of the future.7 Ultimately, the whole matter was usually presented as a mystery beyond the full understanding of the finite intellect, a seeming contradiction which had to be accepted on faith. Shakespeare, for the purposes of this play, seems to have accepted it on exactly those terms. The sisters can indeed look into the seeds of time, and their predictions are always right. The play accepts a central paradox 4 George Lyman Kittredge, ed., Macbeth (Boston: Ginn, 1939), pp. xviii-xx; Elmer Edgar Stoll, Art and Artifice in Shakespeare (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1933), pp. 87-88. 5 Shakespeare's Philosophical Patterns, p. 58. 6 See Robert Reed, The Occult on the Tudor and Stuart Stage (Boston: Christopher, 1965), pp. 168-171.) 7 See Roland M. Frye, Shakespeare and Christian Doctrine (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1963), pp. 147-148, 157-165.

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of Christian thought; though the future is foreknown, it is not fixed. Macbeth himself alternately trusts the prophecies com-pletely and ignores them entirely; more precisely, he attempts to skirt around those prophecies he does not want to believe, as when he plans the murders of Banquo and Fleance so that the prediction about Banquo's issue will never come true. Shakespeare, in contrast to Milton, does not even explore the problem of foreknowledge and free will directly; he takes it for granted and goes on to those aspects of man and evil that interested him more.8

The witches are not instruments of a power that causes destruction and suffering; they are instruments of a power that enjoys destruction and suffering. They go about their work with gusto and enthusiasm, inverting values, reporting their exploits, and gleefully anticipating fresh trouble. Their principal function in the drama is to embody a supernatural order which desires suffering and evil, does what it can to promote them, and finally exults in the destruction that follows. As such, they have more to do with the tone and atmosphere of the work than with the metaphysics of the Macbeth-world. Shakespeare could have chosen to omit them entirely and still have written essentially the same kind of play about the same characters. What would have been lost, however, is the haunting sense that the center of the universe depicted in Macbeth is not heaven but hell. They serve not so much to tempt Macbeth as to tantalize him; they do not so much impel his deed as insure that it will be as bitter as possible to him. When they first encounter him, they whet his appetite for the crown, but then in the next breath predict that Banquo's issue, not his own, will be the ultimate beneficiaries of disruption in the royal line. More prudent tempters might wish to conceal this, for it could deter Macbeth from regicide. But, characteristically, Macbeth defers recognition of all that does not immediately suit his bent of mind. It is only after he has killed the king that he turns to the second prophecy, and then the prospect of Banquo's heirs enjoying his spoils becomes the source of unbearable torment to him, torment which the sisters increase by showing him Banquo's successors triumphantly crowned. So, too, they produce spirits to instill in him a false sense of confidence, and the bursting of that bubble of imagined security is Macbeth's final agony. The witches, then, are not on hand to make wounds, but to rub salt in them and relish the howls that follow. They do not cause Macbeth's fall; they do not even contribute much to it; rather, their most characteristic function is to exacerbate it, to revel in it, and profanely celebrate it: "Show his eyes, and grieve his heart! / Come like shadows, so depart!" (IV.i.110-111).

This even-handed justice. Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about the Macbeth-world is that it contains a strong, effective principle of retributive justice in operation through- out the play. This is not something which our experience with the worlds of Shakespeare's tragedies would lead us to expect. In Hamlet, to be sure, there is a heavenly inclination toward justice, but, like all things in the Hamlet-world, it works in obscure and devious ways. In Othello, there is only that justice which the characters can make for themselves— too late. In King Lear, tragedy occurs finally because there is no justice, no way to make ethics and experience congruent. But in Macbeth, the title character describes a verifiable phenomenon when he observes:

But in these cases We still have judgment here, that we but teach Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return To plague th' inventor. This even-handed justice Commends th' ingredience of our poisoned chalice To our own lips. (I.vii.7-12)

Paradoxically, it is the presence rather than the absence of justice in the Macbeth-world that gives the tragedy its particularly grim and futile outlook. The forces of conventional good triumph completely, but their triumph is strangely hollow, almost devoid of any power to mitigate the reality of evil or reconcile humanity to its condition. Justice in the Macbeth-world gives the impression of being less real and significant than the problems it successfully confronts.9 That evil exists is the essential fact in the world of

8 Wilbur Sanders, in The Dramatist and the Received Idea (Cam-bridge, Eng.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1968), pp. 280-281, analyzes Macbeth's complex reaction to the prophecies. 9 See Sanders, p. 275.

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the play; that, in the face of its existence, there is nothing to do but punish it is the essential futility. It is at the moment of justice's complete triumph that the most famous statement of futility echoes sepulchrally from the depths of Macbeth's world and from the Macbeth-world itself. It will not do to say that "tomorrow and tomorrow" are the embittered words of a man who has lost his humanity, for they carry far more weight within the context of the play than does anything spoken by the lackluster defenders of right. Justice is necessary, and we greet its reestablishment with a sigh of relief; but to say that justice is necessary is not the same as to say it is meaningful. When Macbeth commits his crime, he seems to embody a dimension of mankind left quite untouched by Macduff's and Malcolm's vengeance upon the individual man. It is almost as if Shakespeare were taking the most-optimistic theological explanation of the operation of divine justice and demonstrating that it, too, contains the seeds of tragedy.

No other Shakespearean hero faces so pallid an array of antagonists. Hamlet must deal with the cunning and capable Claudius; Othello faces the super-subtle Iago; and Lear is pitted against a conspiracy of no less than four ruthless and determined predators. But whom does Macbeth face? Banquo, Malcolm, and Macduff. Bradley's futile attempt to build a character for the first shows effectively how little the progenitor of kings is fleshed out, while Wilbur Sanders has effectively refuted those who would make a heroic, saintly king figure out of Malcolm.10 Macduff is more sympathetic and impressive than the other two, but, by the time he becomes a significant figure, his motivation rests more upon personal grief and thirst for vengeance than upon the desire to reestablish justice:

If thou beest slain and with no stroke of mine, My wife and children's ghosts will haunt me still. I cannot strike at wretched kerns, whose arms Are hired to bear their staves. Either thou, Macbeth, Or else my sword with an unbattered edge I sheathe again undeeded. ( V.vii.15-20)

Macduff's grief does not animate the new order which is established at the end of the play; Malcolm's cautious politics do, and they loom much smaller in our imagination than the bloody criminal whom they supplant. By pitting Macbeth against a combination of forces whose sum total is so much less compelling than himself, Shakespeare emphasizes that in this play, the protagonist is his own most formidable adversary. As I say, Macbeth is the most private and internal of Shakespeare's tragedies, and the tragic suffering that occurs is the torture of the mind that goes on within the hero and heroine. But, further, the comparatively pallid nature of the hero's opponents is essential to the complementary tension of the play, a tension that accounts for the deep ambivalence of feeling which the tragedy prompts toward its title character.11 The central question to which almost all critics have addressed themselves is, "How can anyone who does what Macbeth does command not only our interest but our awe and empathy throughout the play? How can a man who violates his humanity tell us so much about what humanity is?" There is no doubt that Macbeth is wrong, but in his mammoth wrongness he completely overshadows the pint-size rightness of Malcolm and is much closer to realizing the outer limits of human potential than the even-handed characters who remain cautiously in the center. Like many tragic protagonists from Oedipus and Orestes to Kurtz and Raskolnikov, he is a lone voyager into the forbidden, who severs his ties with the comfort and security of the community. Such mythic figures do not merely circumvent conventional moral judgment; they pass through and beyond it. Throughout the play, Macbeth is surrounded by men who accept the limitations imposed upon them by the world, and he, too, initially considers his extraordinary powers to be "children and servants" to his king. He transgresses all the bounds that others accept, and in doing so he becomes evil and must be destroyed. But at the same time, in transgressing, fully aware of the enormity of his transgression, he assumes awe-

10 Bradley, pp. 379-387; Sanders, pp. 258-263. Nevil Coghill, who brings to the play the experience of both critic and director, also finds Malcolm a lightweight: "Listening to Shakespeare,” in Stratford Papers on Shakespeare, 1962, ed. B. W. Jackson (Toronto: Gage, 1963), pp. 25-32. On the matter of Banquo, see Kirschbaum, Character and Charcterization, 52-58. 11 Willard Farnham, in Shakespeare's Tragic Frontier, p. 10, notes the duality of feeling Macbeth prompts, and makes that duality the basis of his study (pp. 79-137). Sanders also analyzes "the essential ambivalence of our reaction to the 'criminal' Macbeth," on pp. 292ff. Sanders seems to have arrived independently and almost simultaneously at a reading of the play somewhat similar to Rabkin's idea of complementarity in Shakespeare and the Common Understanding. Cf. Sanders, p. 299; Rabkin, pp. 12-13.

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inspiring dimensions quite beyond Duncan, Malcolm, Banquo, and Macduff. Humanity as Macbeth is terrible, but humanity as Malcolm is merely insipid.

Over the years, a theatrical tradition has sprung up, encouraged by much of the critical commentary, which casts Macbeth as a gruff, burly character of no mental prowess, one who is distinguished from other roughnecks only by his hyperactive imagination.12 Such an interpretation, I feel certain, falls far short of the intricate characterization Shakespeare created. Macbeth's imagination is fired by a mind of considerable power and discernment; his imagination is the violent instrument by which his intellect attempts to make itself heard over the all but indomitable voice of his will. No other Shakespearean hero has so firm and correct a sense of self-knowledge, nor so fully developed a concept of the universe and his place in it. Macbeth has a unique ability to foresee both the practical and the ethical outcome of his actions.13 Lear, in contrast, starts off with a completely mistaken notion of who he is and what the world is like; he blindly pulls down tragedy upon his own head and is shocked and outraged when disaster strikes. Othello, because of his predisposition, convinces himself of a falsehood upon virtually no evidence. Hamlet, for all his mercurial brilliance, is hopelessly inept at foreseeing the logical outcome of his actions. But Macbeth suffers from none of these perceptual shortcomings. The most terrible thing about his tragedy is that he goes to it with his eyes wide open, his vision unclouded, his moral judgment still in perfect working order. He willfully disregards his own best perceptions and intuitions, but he is never rid of them. More than any other Shakespearean hero, he has a perfectly clear concept of who he is and where he stands-and it is exactly this perception that torments and spiritually destroys him.

In the opening scenes, Macbeth's mind is already under that kind of tension which we have seen to be so characteristic of mature Shakespearean tragedy, the tension that precedes the collapse of the personal world. The opposites are basic and the opposition is total. Macbeth is the most honored peer in the realm, but his honor is based upon incongruous and irreconcilable qualities; on the one hand, he is able and willing to dare anything and fear nothing, but, on the other, he accepts limits and boundaries which cannot under any circumstances be transgressed. Gory descriptions of his individual fearless deeds alternate with praise of him as a loyal subject who curbs the lavish spirits of those who dare to rise against their king. The tension of Macbeth's position in the macrocosm is reflected by a corresponding tension in the microcosm, the tension between a deeply moral intellect and an utterly amoral will.14

The service and the loyalty I owe, In doing pays itself. Your Highness' part Is to receive our duties, and our duties Are to your throne and state children and servants, Which do but what they should by doing everything Safe toward your love and honor. (I.iv.22-27)

These are not the oily words of a political intriguer.15 Macbeth really believes this version of his position in life, or at least a part of him believes it. But another part is impelled with terrible force to the ruthless action of the man for whom bounds do not exist, the man who dares to do anything.16

In many respects, Macbeth is, right from the beginning, a poor candidate for the job of political assassin. For one thing, he is not really ambitious in the usual sense of the word. In the scenes leading up to the murder, he scarcely mentions the crown; he has none of his wife's sanguine anticipation of a golden round or nights and days of solely sovereign sway and masterdom. Unlike Tamburlane, he does not find king- ship a sort of apotheosis of the human condition, and, unlike Richard of Gloucester, he is not driven by a compulsive need to command, to check, and to o'erbear such as are of better person than himself. In conventionally ambitious men, anticipation of the fruits of crime blunts the sensibilities to the crime itself. But Macbeth is just the opposite of this; he scarcely gives a thought to the spoils that will proceed from the 12 See esp. Bradley, pp. 352-358; and J. Q. Adams, ed., Macbeth (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1931), p. 135. 13 Robert Pack, "Macbeth: The Anatomy of Loss," Yale Review, 45 (1956), 536-537. 14 14 Robert Heilman, "' 'Twere Best Not Know Myself': Othello, Lear, Macbeth," in Shakespeare 400, ed. James McManaway (New York: Holt, 1964), p. 94: "When a protagonist 'knows' that his course is morally intolerable, but strains frantically against that knowledge lest it impair his obsessive pursuit of the course, the tension between knowing and willing may itself destroy him." 15 William Rosen, in Shakespeare and the Craft of Tragedy (Cam-bridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1960), p. 68, notes that only in retrospect is the speech ironic. 16 George Duthie, "Shakespeare's Macbeth: A Study in Tragic Absurdity," in English Studies Today, ed. G. A. Bonnard (Bern: Franke, 1961), pp. 121-128, analyzes the division in Macbeth's mind before and after the murder.

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act and keeps his attention unwaveringly upon the act itself; and his attitude toward the object of his fixation is mixed attraction and repulsion. His repulsion springs from the deeply moral side of his nature. No other character is so acutely aware of himself as living in the eye of heaven. When he looks into himself and finds there inclinations that are anything but celestial, he is frightened and revolted, and he extends his abhorrence of his own instinct to heaven nature:

Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires. The eye wink at the hand. (I.iv.50-52)

Yet on the heels of this can come a reassertion of the impulse to terrible and forbidden action: "yet let that be / Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see" (52-53). It is the very fearfulness of the deed that seems to exert the strongest at- traction for him, since it calls for a degree of resolution and daring quite beyond the slaying of rebels. For Macbeth, action is self-definition; he is revolted by the act, but tantalized by the possibility of doing exactly that which is most expressly forbidden by all laws, sacred and humane. He dares to kill his king not so much to become king himself as to become the man who dared to do it.17 In such a frame of mind-revolted by his own inner promptings, but drawn to them nonetheless-he goes home to his wife. Much of the commentary on the play has centered upon how well Lady Macbeth knows her man, perfectly or not at all. The answer, I believe, is that she has an unfailing instinct for his weaknesses and fixes them precisely, though his strengths come as a complete surprise to her. Her mis- understanding of him is the reverse of her misunderstanding of herself: she has perfect confidence in her strengths; but her weaknesses, when they declare themselves, catch her defenseless and unaware. Throughout the play, she is most self-assured in those moments when Macbeth's nerve is failing, but her own nerve fails in those scenes where he is most independent and ruthless.

Macbeth and his lady have the makings of one murderer between them. She is capable of contemplating the crime with something that borders upon exaltation, but is not, it turns out, capable of dealing the fatal stroke herself. He is quite capable of doing that, but cannot even think of the moral quality of the act without horror and aversion. He would, no doubt, be capable of resisting the temptation to strike were it not for the devastating attack she launches against the foundation of his world-view, his concept of what it means to be a man.18 Thus, the great confrontation between them in Act 1, scene vii, presents the disconcerting picture of two people inciting each other to crime, for the presence of each makes crime possible for the other. Macbeth's soliloquy at the opening of the scene gives us our first full view of the hero's subjective world; it is a world in which action is a continuum, an ongoing process of cause and effect, act and consequence, a world in which retributive justice is not merely possible but certain. It is also a world of relatedness, a world in which duties and obligations are well defined and divinely sanctioned.19 In such a world, vaulting ambition, far from being heroic self-assertion, is unconscionable overreaching, a violation of the sacrosanct bonds that define one's humanity. By the end of the soliloquy, Macbeth has decided to abandon all thoughts of regicide, for in such a world, to proceed would be not only appalling, but positively suicidal. When he announces his decision to his wife, the reason he gives, the "golden opinions" his valor has just won from all sorts of people, is an evasion. He cannot explain his real reasons-retribution from heaven, the sacred bonds of obligation-because she simply would not comprehend them, would, in fact, heap scorn upon them.20 But his stated reason is a significant and characteristic evasion; the golden opinions epitomize his position as a valorous subject who is content to accept the status of subject and live as an honored member of the community.

Lady Macbeth is able to undermine his resolution so quickly not simply because she calls his virility into question, and not simply because she exerts enormous personal power over their relationship; Macbeth

17 A. P. Rossiter, in Angel with Horns and Other Shakespearean Lectures, ed. Graham Storey (London: Longmans, 1961), pp. 210-211, also rejects conventional ambition as Macbeth's motive. See also Stewart, Character and Motive in Shakespeare, p. 93. 18 Both Charlton, in Shakespearean Tragedy, p. 147, and Eugene Waith, in "Manhood and Valor in Two Shakespearean Tragedies," ELH, 17 (1950), 265-266, discuss Macbeth's divided mind on the concept of manhood. 19 L. C. Knights, in Some Shakespearean Themes (1959: rpt. Stan- ford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1960), p. 134, notes the special emphasis in this play upon words that name familial and social relationships (children, servant, cousin, etc.). 20 Adams makes a similar point on p. 156 of his edition.

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is quite capable of with- standing such pressures. She finally achieves her purposes by suggesting to him that his whole apprehension of reality is mistaken, that action is not an open-ended continuum, but is final and conclusive, and that the essence of humanity is not living within the limits of an assigned place, but daring to do anything. Her attack on Macbeth is the same as Goneril's attack upon Albany; because he is moral, he is a coward and a fool who deceives himself about the way the world really operates.21 But her arguments are far more effective than Goneril's because she is not telling her husband anything new, but reiterating things he had already told himself. Like Hamlet and Othello, Macbeth has a divided mind about some of the most fundamental issues of existence; Lady Macbeth is the voice of one side of it.

However, she makes not one but two false beginnings, first taunting him with the "hope" he has of being king, and then trying to use love to blackmail him. These tactics elicit no reaction whatsoever; Macbeth usually stays out of trouble as long as he can keep his mouth shut. But then she puts her finger squarely on the central paradox of his present position:

Wouldst thou have that Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life, And live a coward in thine own esteem, Letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,' Like the poor cat i' th' adage? (I. vii.41-45)

The ornament of life, his present position as first peer of the realm, is contingent upon his willingness to accept one limitation, not to dare to rise up against his king. She tantalizes him with his own self-image as a man who dares anything, for whom no limits of any kind exist. This line of argument draws an immediate reaction, not because he can- not stand her taunts of cowardice, but because she has touched upon a deep ambivalence in his own mind about what it is to be a man. He counters with a reassertion of the idea that to be a man is to live within human limits, and she responds with an assertion of the opposite:

MACBETH: I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none. (46-47) LADY [MACBETH]: When you durst do it, then you were a man; And to be more than what you were, you would Be so much more the man. (49-51)

But this pro and contra is getting nowhere. Clearly, she needs something to break the deadlock, and her instinct leads her surely to the clincher: her version of the world and of man was once his version too. She undermines his confidence in the vision of the soliloquy by pointing out that he does not fully believe in it himself. At one time he had been more than willing to kill the king if only the opportunity would present itself. "If we should fail?" (59). This, Macbeth's last attempt at resistance, has been widely misunderstood. As the soliloquy showed, he is not in the least worried about the practical possibility of executing the murder: if that were all there were to it, he would proceed at once. But the failure Macbeth fears is the long-range failure in a world of relatedness, where action is a continuum and justice is certain— to be cut off forever from the rest of humanity, to be hated and cursed by all men, and finally to be hounded down by inexorable retribu-tion. It is the long-range failure he had pictured in harrowing detail, and it is, in fact, exactly what happens. Lady Macbeth, however, misunderstands him completely; she thinks he is worried about the practicability of getting away with the crime in the short run, and so she reassures him that her plan is foolproof. We come now to the most crucial moment of the tragedy, when Macbeth changes his mind for the second time and commits himself to murdering the king. He is not really persuaded; rather, as at several other junctures in the play, he willfully disregards his own better judgment, pushing to the back of his mind all his best perceptions and most passionately held beliefs, and substitutes in their place the shallow, faulty rationalizations for which his wife has been spokesman.22 First of all, he unequivocally accepts the idea that the essence of manhood is unbounded action:

21 The parallel is also drawn by D. W. Harding, "Women's Fantasy of Manhood: A Shakespearean Theme," Shakespeare Quarterly, 20 (1969), 250-251. 22 Sanders discusses Macbeth's "manifest will to self-deception" on p. 284 of The Dramatist and the Received Idea.

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Bring forth men-children only;

For thy undaunted mettle should compose Nothing but males. (72-74)

There is gruesome irony in his praising her fitness to bear sons, since she has just declared that she would kill her own child without compunction were it necessary to vindicate her will. But far more important, Macbeth accepts the notion that action is final and conclusive, that accomplishment of the deed is tantamount to success, that the consequences of an action may be circumvented:

Will it not be received, When we have marked with blood those sleepy two Of his own chamber and used _their very daggers, That they have done't? (74-77)

Like Othello's "And yet, how nature erring from itself—," it is the point of no return, for it signals not simply a change of mind, but a movement from one world-view to another. The seeds of Macbeth's tragedy are planted here, not only because he dedicates himself to the first of many brutal crimes, but even more because he does not really believe in a world in which a man may dare anything, in which action is final and conclusive. He wants to believe in it, for such a world poses no impediments to action. His ruthless will scores a temporary victory over his own best perceptions.23 But the shallowness and patent self-deception of this speech contrast sharply with the intense and passionate conviction of the soliloquy. From this point on, Macbeth is in the position of having to insist with all the vigor of his will upon the truth of something which, in his own mind, he does not really believe. His method of insistence will be action, and the result will be tragedy.

The undermining of the subjective world is different in Macbeth's case from the undermining of the world-views of the other three heroes. They all found, for one reason or an- other, that their most fundamental assumptions about the world and themselves were erroneous: he, on the other hand, finds himself irremediably estranged by his actions from his most fundamental beliefs, an estrangement which deepens until he finds the absolute bedrock of the final soliloquy.24 For the remainder of the play, Macbeth sees himself as being in fundamental conflict with the world itself, with his indomitable will pitted against its moral order, its communal obligations, its immutable and inescapable ethical laws. Like all the Shakespearean tragic heroes, he sees his own actions in cosmic terms; but after the dreadful finality of "I am resolved," he is positively obsessed by the notion of being at the center of a universe which is fundamentally opposed to what he is doing. Like Hamlet, he declares total, all-out war upon the world of the play, but his attack is not against duplicity and corruption, but against humane feeling and divine justice.

In the famous dagger speech, Macbeth animates and vivifies the elements themselves, endowing them with a moral attitude toward his actions. Nature itself is atrophied by the enormity of what he is about to do; the darkest and most sinister powers have usurped the primacy of nature and, like himself, hover breathlessly on the brink of an abyss. The night seems full of sentient beings all watching what he is about to do, and the very stones of the earth are ready to cry out. It is the same vision he had seen in the first soliloquy, but now charged and animated, for the action is no longer hypothetical, but is about to become an actuality. Having thus projected his own emotional state onto the world, he turns from this harrowing vision and forces to the front of his mind the simple imperative of action; action and only action has value, action is the very substance of life itself: "Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives. / I go, and it is done" (II.i.61-62).

Yet in the very commission of his act, he is still haunted by the conviction that the entire universe is opposed to his breech of nature, as, in the Macbeth-world, it clearly is. His hysteria after the crime reflects not merely fear of real and imagined horrors; the purport of all his speeches after the murder is a sense of 23 Francis Fergusson, "Macbeth as the Imitation of an Action," in The Human Image in Dramatic Literature (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor, 1957), p. 117, has suggested: "It is the phrase 'to outrun the pauser reason,' which seems to me to describe the action, or motive, of the play as a whole." See also the same author’s Shakespeare, The Pattern in His Carpet, pp. 241-242. 24 Sanders has brilliantly analyzed Macbeth's estrangement from himself and the "construction of a new 'self whose premise is murder" (p. 290).

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incalculable loss, panic-stricken realization of his estrangement from all that had formerly constituted his life, from his subjective world itself. First of all, he is cut off from the metaphysical order that is one of the givens of the Macbeth-world:

But wherefore could not I pronounce 'Amen'? I had most need of blessing, and 'Amen' Stuck in my throat. (II.ii.30-32)

He is cut off from the normal, life-sustaining processes of nature:

—the innocent sleep, Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care, The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, Chief nourisher in life's feast. (35-39)

The self-delusion that action is final and conclusive crumbles before the realization that the consequences of his deed will last as long as his life: "Macbeth shall sleep no more" (42). He is fully aware that he can never by any means get back to the bank and shoal of time from which he has so precipitously leaped; nothing can change or mitigate the consequences of his act:

Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather The multitudinous seas incarnadine, Making the green one red. (59-62)

But most of all, his crime destroys his capacity to respect or even to tolerate himself. For the remainder of the play, the vantage point from which he judges himself is the world-view from which he is hopelessly estranged. His own hands are unrecognizable to him, savage, hangman's hands that would pluck out his eyes. But, in fact, they do not obliterate his vision; he must continue staring at them and at the self they epitomize. The primary purpose of his act had been to define his manhood. Ironically, it does, but the definition is one he cannot contemplate without horror and revulsion: "To know my deed, 'twere best not know myself” (72). This line sets the tone for the remainder of the tragedy. He is his deed in his own eyes, and in his own eyes his deed is appalling. Hence, he faces the characteristic problem of the Shakespearean tragic hero, how to endure what is, for him, simply unendurable. I do not read Macbeth as a tragedy of ambition, nor as a tragedy of fear. It is above all a tragedy of self-loathing, of self-horror that leads to spiritual paralysis, the tragedy of a man who comes to condemn all that is in him for being there. Macbeth is indeed terror-stricken in this scene, but what strikes him full of terror is not the deed itself, and still less the fear of being caught, but rather a full realization of what his action has done to him. He has cut himself off from the world he believes in and has committed himself to its antithesis, a world in which man is a predatory animal. The commitment is irrevocable, and all he can do is follow it remorselessly to its conclusion. It is as if by insisting vehemently enough on such a world-view, Macbeth believes he can validate it, can establish its reality by sheer force of will. It is the desperate need to validate the world-view to which he is committed, his determination to win a battle of wills with the macrocosm itself, that plunges him into steadily deepening cruelty in Acts III and IV. Where before he had refused to return to the chamber and look upon what he had done, he now rushes in without hesitation, feigning astonishment and grief. Where before the stirring and muttering of the sleeping grooms had all but paralyzed him, he is now capable of killing them without compunction. But despite the increasing vigor and brutality of his actions, he is never able to rid himself of his former vision of a world of relatedness and justice; rather, it becomes a kind of waking nightmare, forcing him to con- template what he has lost and what he has become. The tension between the two world-views is clearly evident in his next soliloquy.

Macbeth had known all along that the prophecies in which he places such confidence decreed that Banquo's issue would ultimately come to the throne. Indeed, just a few minutes before the murder, he had

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discussed the weird sisters with Banquo, but did not for an instant allow the fact that his own posterity would benefit nothing from his crime to deter him. Characteristically, he pushed it out of his mind and willfully ignored it until after he had committed the act toward which he was so strongly impelled. His soliloquy now is animated not so much by fear of Banquo as by intense envy of him, for Banquo is incumbent in exactly the position Macbeth himself has lost, that of a loyal peer whose daring and valor are exercised within the prescribed, acceptable limits:25

'Tis much he dares; And to that dauntless temper of his mind He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valor To act in safety. (III.i.51-54)

Moreover, Macbeth, as in the scene immediately following the murder, is acutely aware of his own enormous loss: he has filed his mind, put rancors in the vessel of his peace, slain a gracious king, and delivered up his soul to eternal damnation. It is a terrible self-awareness with which to live, and the knowledge that he has sacrificed everything to gain "nothing" makes it intolerable. Macbeth's solution, as at every crisis in the play, is ruthless, unrestrained action, the action of self-assertion, action based upon a world-view which makes of man a predatory hunter. Many critics have observed that, in the scene with the murderers, Macbeth uses the same line of argument that Lady Macbeth had used upon him. This is not because he has been learning tactics from his wife, but because he is now speaking from the same point of vantage as she had spoken from previously, attempting to validate the idea of manhood that underlies all his crimes. The hired assassins are to prove that their station in the file is not in the worst rank of manhood by ambushing a lone man and a boy. "Your spirits shine through you," Macbeth lauds them as soon as they agree (III.i.128).

The next scene displays even more vividly Macbeth's determination to impose, by sheer force of will, the version of reality to which he is committed upon the macrocosm itself:

But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer, Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep In the affliction of these terrible dreams That shake us nightly. (III.ii.16-19)

But the affliction and the fears, like his own judgment of himself, arise from that other world-view where his emotions are really engaged, a world which demands his destruction for having violated its most basic laws. "Treason has done his worst" Macbeth reflects, thinking of Duncan's peaceful sleep (24); there is a terrible self-indictment implied in the line. His image of his own mind as a rack upon which he lies being tortured is most apt and precise, for it is the torture of tension, of being tom between irreconcilable opposites. When Macbeth undertook his crime, he undertook living with its aftermath, and now the most abhorrent aspect of that aftermath is the need to be a hypocrite, to give mouth- honor to a man whom at that very moment he is causing to be treacherously struck down:26

Unsafe the while, that we must lave Our honors in these flattering streams And make our faces vizards to our hearts, Disguising what they are. (32-35)

Like the other Shakespearean tragic heroes, Macbeth is constitutionally incapable of tolerating false appearances, especially evil masquerading as good. What his heart is is bad enough in his eyes, but the realization that he must mask it under false magnanimity elicits from him one of the most anguished

25 Kirschbaum, in Character and Characterization, p. 59, takes a similar view. 26 Knight (p. 171) suggests that the need to play the hypocrite is the worst element in Macbeth's suffering. Cleanth Brooks, "The Naked Babe and the Cloak of Manliness," in The Well-Wrought Urn (New York: Reynal and Hitchcock, 1947), p. 32, sees Macbeth's hatred of hypocrisy as central to the clothing imagery of the play.

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outbursts in Shakespeare: "O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!" (36). Yet is seems to me that this is the only point in the scene at which the two protagonists are in emotional touch with each other. Throughout the rest of the encounter, she is trying desperately to bridge the gulf between them and he is consciously trying to widen it. Just as she had not foreseen her own failure of nerve in the aftermath of the murder, so she had not foreseen the emergence of a ruthless and completely independent will in her husband. She can no longer pour her spirits in his ear or chastise him with the valor of her tongue, and this signals a complete breakdown of their relationship, a breakdown which is at least as responsible as pangs of conscience for her own psychic disintegration. Over half her famous sleepwalking scene will be addressed to him, and will recreate exactly those moments when she was sustaining him through a crisis. But at this present juncture, all she can do is stare in astonishment and apprehension at the man he has, at her urgent insistence, become: "Come on. / Gentle my lord, sleek o'er your rugged looks" (26-27). But his struggle is with himself; it has very little to do with her: "Thou marvell'st at my words, but hold thee still; / Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill" (54-55). The last line is significant in two senses: first, it reasserts Macbeth's determination to validate by force of will the worldview to which he is committed, and, second, it implies that having embarked upon his course, he can now steel himself to commit further crimes. He no longer needs her to do it for him.

Of course, this does not prove to be the case, at least not all the time. In the banquet scene, Macbeth completely loses his nerve, and, just as suddenly, she finds hers again. His weakness is an absolute prerequisite for her strength. In assuming that the murder of Banquo and Fleance would set his mind at rest, Macbeth was once again willfully deluding himself, pretending that, if he insisted vehemently enough upon something, and put that insistence into act, then the thing would be true. But even if Fleance had shared his father's fate, it would be difficult to imagine a Macbeth who was not cabined, cribbed, and confined; his prison, his torture chamber, is not the macrocosm but the microcosm, and the death of one man or of thousands is incapable of setting things to rights there. But the escape of Fleance once again makes him see that the murder of Duncan was not a final or definitive act. It will go on through a continuum of cause and effect to produce consequences completely be- yond his control. When he confronts the shade of Banquo (or the evil spirit sent by the witches in Banquo's shape, or the product of his own haunted imagination— there is no way of telling which, and no need to tell), he gives voice, even in his hysteria, to the basic rift in his own subjective world. On the one hand there is the world of infinite daring, but, on the other, there is the world of swift and terrible justice, in which dead victims rise again to push murderers from their stools. On the one hand there is the primitive world of the olden time when blood was shed in perfect impunity without compunction, but there is also the later order, in which humane statute has purged the gentle weal. Lady Macbeth tries once again to shame him into manhood, but he will have none of it. The visible emblem of what he has done terrifies him more than any consequences he may have to face as a result of revealing his guilt.

In the aftermath of his great feast, Macbeth is more convinced than ever that he is living in a macrocosm which implacably requires his destruction:

It will have blood, they say: blood will have blood. Stones have been known to move and trees to speak; Augures and understood relations have By maggot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth The secret'st man of blood. (III.iv.122-126)

Yet, far from impeding him from further action, his convic-tion only impels him to ever more ruthless action; his insistence upon the world to which he is committed is now fired by desperation. In the face of his implacable will, all causes shall give way. His image of himself is not simply of a man with bloody, hangman's hands, but of a man inundated in blood, bathed in it from head to foot, literally into it over his head. But the total estrangement from all his previous values confers upon Macbeth, as it has upon other Shakespearean heroes, a terrible, lonely freedom. The man who has lost positively everything he cherishes is the freest of all possible men; he has nothing further to lose and nothing to worry about salvaging.

By the time he reaches the witches' abode, the naked force of his will has reached apocalyptic proportions reminiscent of the third act of King Lear. Macbeth thinks he has come to learn by the worst

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means the worst, for to know the worst is to lose a large part of fear of the worst. But the witches want Macbeth to struggle and hope, for they know that struggle is futile and hope groundless, and therefore torture.27 Thus, they tell him what appears to be better news than he had expected to hear. He greets the prophecies so eagerly not primarily because they promise him apparent invulnerability, but more because they confirm him in his chosen course, urge him to become exactly the kind of man he has been trying desperately to become: "Be bloody, bold, and resolute! Laugh to scorn/ The power of man” (IV.i.79- 80); "Be lion-mettled, proud, and take no care" (90). But if one side of Macbeth is impelled to mindless violence, another side knows that actions have consequences, and he must discover what the consequences of his initial crime will be. The parade of kings is far more than merely a salute to Shakespeare's royal patron, and productions that cut it err seriously; for the sight of Banquo's crowned progeny enjoying the fruits for which he himself has lost everything of real importance to him forces Macbeth to confront the futility of all his actions, past, present, and future. In the face of this, paradoxically, his will to act is increased to almost manic intensity:

The flighty purpose never is o'ertook Unless the deed go with it. From this moment The very firstlings of my heart shall be The firstlings of my hand. (145-148)

The more aware he becomes of his estrangement from the real world, the more vehemently he must insist upon the validity of the world he has embraced-even when he does not believe in its validity himself. This conflict between vehement action and conviction of the futility of action rages through his mind for the rest of the play. In the great scenes at Dunsinane, boasting speeches of furious resolve alternate with the most soul-sick contemplations ever written.

By far the most usual interpretation of the last act is that Macbeth has completely lost his humanity, has become the monster he set out to be, and though we continue to have grudging admiration for his animal courage, we rejoice with the followers of Malcolm when the tyrant and his fiend-like queen are overthrown. Rather, it seems to me that we are so absorbed in Macbeth's private conflict that his death and the triumph of unimpressive right is almost incidental to the tragedy. Moreover, Macbeth does not lose his humanity because he cannot lose his humanity no matter how hard he tries; that is exactly what makes him a tragic hero.28 His case is in one way analogous to Othello's: the Moor repeatedly resolves to cast away all love for Desdemona, but he simply cannot do it. His love remains, coexistent with his belief she has betrayed him, and the result is excruciating inner torture. Macbeth's humanity is vested in that world-view he unfolded in bis first major soliloquy, and, though his most vigorous efforts throughout the play have been to rid himself of that vision, he has never even come close to doing so. It remains as a vantage point from which he must assess all that he has done, all that he has lost, all that he has become: "I am sick at heart, / When I behold-" (V.iii.19-20). The thought is left uncompleted, but clearly what Macbeth beholds all through these scenes is himself:

I have lived long enough. My way of life Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf, And that which should accompany old age, As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends, I must not look to have. (22-26)

Honor, love, obedience, and troops of friends are the values of the limited, structured world he had abandoned; in the predatory world he embraced, they should have no importance whatsoever. "To be tender-minded / Does not become a sword," Edmund had observed. But those values are terribly important to Macbeth, and only his loss of them has made him realize how important they are. Alfred Harbage has observed that "no voice in literature has sounded with greater sadness" than Macbeth's in the above

27 See Fergusson, Shakespeare, The Pattern in His Carpet, pp. 244-245. 28 R. A. Foakes also differs from the majority view about Macbeth's lost humanity, in "Macbeth," in Stratford Papers on Shakespeare, 1962, p. 161.

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speech.29 To have a passionately held, demonstrably valid vision of the world, and yet to be cut off from it by one's own actions, to be hated and cursed by all humanity, to have to struggle against one's own most deeply felt emotions, and to be aware of all this with perfect, unblinking clarity, is surely the most harrowing vision of human isolation that has ever been realized in drama. It is perhaps the degree of his self- awareness that most differentiates him from other Shakespearean malefactors: he sees his own situation unflinchingly and refuses either to soften it or to be sentimental about himself. He drains the ingredients of his poisoned chalice to the last bitter dregs. Self-awareness is one of the hallmarks of the Shakespearean tragic hero, and in Macbeth's case, it is the very essence of his tragedy. Also, like the other three, he has a desperate need to have his actions in consonance with a broader scheme of reality, including the rest of humanity and the metaphysical order. But, as Macbeth fully realizes, such con- sonance is impossible for him because he is so utterly cut off from the only world he believes in or values. In self-recognition and self- horror he realizes he has lost even the capacity to feel fear, and a moment later he cannot feel normal hu- man grief at the death of his wife. Above all, he realizes he has committed himself to action and yet he believes action to be futile, full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing.

That the vision of life offered in Macbeth's final soliloquy is not Shakespeare's ultimate or only significant pronouncement upon the human condition we need only our experience with the canon, including the other tragedies, to attest. Besides, Macbeth does not "make a statement" any more than Lear did. What Shakespeare was dramatizing was a potentiality of the human condition, in this case a most grim potentiality, but as true in its context as any other embodied in his dramas. It is realized with exceptional conviction and power, and to shrug it off as the observation of a man who has lost his humanity may make the play easier to live with, but undermines its imaginative vigor and ruthless integrity. Macbeth's pronouncement is the only pronouncement on life in the Macbeth-world; nothing of comparable weight is there to counterbalance it, and it draws its power not only from the greatness of the verse but also from its dramatic context. And here, I think, is the center of the problem, for is not its context a world which finally is moral, surely the most thoroughly just world Shakespeare created for a tragedy? The Macbeth-world is a moral world founded upon a moral incongruity, for while evil seems to issue spontaneously and irrepressibly from its very core, its most basic law is that evil is evil and must be destroyed. The same incongruity is re- peated in the microcosm; Macbeth is strongly impelled to evil, but he is no less strongly impelled to abhor evil. Hence, he comes to abhor himself. If the world is basically inclined to evil, as the Macbeth-world is, then justice becomes little more than a tragic necessity. Its pyrrhic victory is retributive but not redemptive.

The play, then, explores dialectically the complementary tension between proneness to evil and abhorrence of evil in both the macrocosm and the microcosm. Macbeth is not a tragic hero in spite of his criminality but because of his criminality. Had he been able to resist his own inclinations and the promptings of his wife, he would be of no more interest than any other successful general. Had he been able to kill without compunction, he would be simply one of our rarer monsters. But he is caught in the tension between his action and his reaction, the primary tension of the Macbeth-world, and in his struggle and his failure to reconcile irreconcilable conflicts, he assumes tragic dimensions.

LECTURE IX: MACBETH by A.C. Bradley Macbeth, it is probable, was the last-written of the four great tragedies, and immediately preceded Antony and Cleopatra. In that play Shakespeare's final style appears for the first time completely formed, and the transition to this style is much more decidedly visible in Macbeth than in King Lear. Yet in certain respects Macbeth recalls Hamlet rather than Othello or King Lear. In the heroes of both plays the passage from thought to a critical resolution and action is difficult, and excites the keenest interest. In neither play, as in Othello and King Lear, is painful pathos one of the main effects. Evil, again, though it shows in Macbeth a prodigious energy, is not the icy or stony inhumanity of Iago or Goneril; and, as in Hamlet, it is pursued by remorse. Finally, Shakespeare no longer restricts the action to purely human agencies, as in the two preceding tragedies; portents once more fill the heavens, ghosts rise from their graves, an unearthly light flickers about the head of the doomed man. The special popularity of Hamlet and Macbeth is due in part to some of these common characteristics, notably to the fascination of the supernatural, the absence of the spectacle of extreme

29 Ed., Macbeth, in The Complete Pelican Shakespeare, p. 1108.

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undeserved suffering, the absence of characters which horrify and repel and yet are destitute of grandeur. The reader who looks unwillingly at Iago gazes at Lady Macbeth in awe, because though she is dreadful she is also sublime. The whole tragedy is sublime. In this, however, and in other respects, Macbeth makes an impression quite different from that of Hamlet. The dimensions of the principal characters, the rate of movement in the action, the supernatural effect, the style, the versification, are all changed; and they are all changed in much the same manner. In many parts of Macbeth there is in the language a peculiar compression, pregnancy, energy, even violence; the harmonious grace and even flow, often conspicuous in Hamlet, have almost disappeared. The chief characters, built on a scale at least as large as that of Othello, seem to attain at times an almost superhuman stature. The diction has in places a huge and rugged grandeur, which degenerates here and there into tumidity. The solemn majesty of the royal Ghost in Hamlet, appearing in armour and standing silent in the moonlight, is exchanged for shapes of horror, dimly seen in the murky air or revealed by the glare of the cauldron fire in a dark cavern, or for the ghastly face of Banquo badged with blood and staring with blank eyes. The other three tragedies all open with conversations which lead into the action: here the action bursts into wild life amidst the sounds of a thunderstorm and the echoes of a distant battle. It hurries through seven very brief scenes of mounting suspense to a terrible crisis, which is reached, in the murder of Duncan, at the beginning of the Second Act. Pausing a moment and changing its shape, it hastes again with scarcely diminished speed to fresh horrors. And even when the speed of the outward action is slackened, the same effect is continued in another form: we are shown a soul tortured by an agony which admits not a moment's repose, and rushing in frenzy towards its doom. Macbeth is very much shorter than the other three tragedies, but our experience in traversing it is so crowded and intense that it leaves an impression not of brevity but of speed. It is the most vehement, the most concentrated, perhaps we may say the most tremendous, of the tragedies. 1 A Shakespearean tragedy, as a rule, has a special tone or atmosphere of its own, quite perceptible, however difficult to describe. The effect of this atmosphere is marked with unusual strength in Macbeth. It is due to a variety of influences which combine with those just noticed, so that, acting and reacting, they form a whole; and the desolation of the blasted heath, the design of the Witches, the guilt in the hero's soul, the darkness of the night, seem to emanate from one and the same source. This effect is strengthened by a multitude of small touches, which at the moment may be little noticed but still leave their mark on the imagination. We may approach the consideration of the characters and the action by distinguishing some of the ingredients of this general effect. Darkness, we may even say blackness, broods over this tragedy. It is remarkable that almost all the scenes which at once recur to memory take place either at night or in some dark spot. The vision of the dagger, the murder of Duncan, the murder of Banquo, the sleep-walking of Lady Macbeth, all come in night-scenes. The Witches dance in the thick air of a storm, or, 'black and midnight hags,' receive Macbeth in a cavern. The blackness of night is to the hero a thing of fear, even of horror; and that which he feels becomes the spirit of the play. The faint glimmerings of the western sky at twilight are here menacing: it is the hour when the traveller hastens to reach safety in his inn, and when Banquo rides homeward to meet his assassins; the hour when 'light thickens,' when 'night's black agents to their prey do rouse,' when the wolf begins to howl, and the owl to scream, and withered murder steals forth to his work. Macbeth bids the stars hide their fires that his 'black' desires may be concealed; Lady Macbeth calls on thick night to come, palled in the dunnest smoke of hell. The moon is down and no stars shine when Banquo, dreading the dreams of the coming night, goes unwillingly to bed, and leaves Macbeth to wait for the summons of the little bell. When the next day should dawn, its light is 'strangled,' and 'darkness does the face of earth entomb.' In the whole drama the sun seems to shine only twice: first, in the beautiful but ironical passage where Duncan sees the swallows flitting round the castle of death; and, afterwards, when at the close the avenging army gathers to rid the earth of its shame. Of the many slighter touches which deepen this effect I notice only one. The failure of nature in Lady Macbeth is marked by her fear of darkness; 'she has light by her continually.' And in the one phrase of fear that escapes her lips even in sleep, it is of the darkness of the place of torment that she speaks. The atmosphere of Macbeth, however, is not that of unrelieved blackness. On the contrary, as compared with King Lear and its cold dim gloom, Macbeth leaves a decided impression of colour; it is really the impression of a black night broken by flashes of light and colour, sometimes vivid and even glaring. They are the lights and colours of the thunderstorm in the first scene; of the dagger hanging before Macbeth's eyes and glittering alone in the midnight air; of the torch borne by the servant when he and his lord come upon Banquo crossing the castle-court to his room; of the torch, again, which Fleance carried to light his father to death, and which was

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dashed out by one of the murderers; of the torches that flared in the hall on the face of the Ghost and the blanched cheeks of Macbeth; of the flames beneath the boiling cauldron from which the apparitions in the cavern rose; of the taper which showed to the Doctor and Gentlewoman the wasted face and blank eyes of Lady Macbeth. And, above all, the colour is the colour of blood. It cannot be an accident that the image of blood is forced upon us continually, not merely by the events themselves, but by full descriptions, and even by reiteration of the word in unlikely parts of the dialogue. The Witches, after their first wild appearance, have hardly quitted the stage when there staggers on to it a 'bloody man,' gashed with wounds. His tale is of a hero whose 'brandished steel smoked with bloody execution,' 'carved out a passage' to his enemy, and 'unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps.' And then he tells of a second battle so bloody that the combatants seemed as if they 'meant to bathe in reeking wounds.' What metaphors! What a dreadful image is that with which Lady Macbeth greets us almost as she enters, when she prays the spirits of cruelty so to thicken her blood that pity cannot flow along her veins! What pictures are those of the murderer appearing at the door of the banquet-room with Banquo's 'blood upon his face'; of Banquo himself 'with twenty trenched gashes on his head,' or 'blood-bolter'd' and smiling in derision at his murderer; of Macbeth, gazing at his hand, and watching it dye the whole green ocean red; of Lady Macbeth, gazing at hers, and stretching it away from her face to escape the smell of blood that all the perfumes of Arabia will not subdue! The most horrible lines in the whole tragedy are those of her shuddering cry, 'Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?' And it is not only at such moments that these images occur. Even in the quiet conversation of Malcolm and Macduff, Macbeth is imagined as holding a bloody sceptre, and Scotland as a country bleeding and receiving every day a new gash added to her wounds. It is as if the poet saw the whole story through an ensanguined mist, and as if it stained the very blackness of the night. When Macbeth, before Banquo's murder, invokes night to scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day, and to tear in pieces the great bond that keeps him pale, even the invisible hand that is to tear the bond is imagined as covered with blood. Let us observe another point. The vividness, magnitude, and violence of the imagery in some of these passages are characteristic of Macbeth almost throughout; and their influence contributes to form its atmosphere. Images like those of the babe torn smiling from the breast and dashed to death; of pouring the sweet milk of concord into hell; of the earth shaking in fever; of the frame of things disjointed; of sorrows striking heaven on the face, so that it resounds and yells out like syllables of dolor; of the mind lying in restless ecstasy on a rack; of the mind full of scorpions; of the tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury; -- all keep the imagination moving on a 'wild and violent sea,' while it is scarcely for a moment permitted to dwell on thoughts of peace and beauty. In its language, as in its action, the drama is full of tumult and storm. Whenever the Witches are present we see and hear a thunderstorm: when they are absent we hear of ship-wrecking storms and direful thunders; of tempests that blow down trees and churches, castles, palaces and pyramids; of the frightful hurricane of the night when Duncan was murdered; of the blast on which pity rides like a new-born babe, or on which heaven's cherubim are horsed. There is thus something magnificently appropriate in the cry 'Blow, wind! Come, wrack!' with which Macbeth, turning from the sight of the moving wood of Birnam, bursts from his castle. He was borne to his throne on a whirlwind, and the fate he goes to meet comes on the wings of storm. Now all these agencies -- darkness, the lights and colours that illuminate it, the storm that rushes through it, the violent and gigantic images -- conspire with the appearances of the Witches and the Ghost to awaken horror, and in some degree also a supernatural dread. And to this effect other influences contribute. The pictures called up by the mere words of the Witches stir the same feelings -- those, for example, of the spell-bound sailor driven tempest-tost for nine times nine weary weeks, and never visited by sleep night or day; of the drop of poisonous foam that forms on the moon, and, falling to earth, is collected for pernicious ends; of the sweltering venom of the toad, the finger of the babe killed at its birth by its own mother, the tricklings from the murderer's gibbet. In Nature, again, something is felt to be at work, sympathetic with human guilt and supernatural malice. She labours with portents.

Lamentings heard in the air, strange screams of death, And prophesying with accents terrible,

burst from her. The owl clamours all through the night; Duncan's horses devour each other in frenzy; the dawn comes, but no light with it. Common sights and sounds, the crying of crickets, the croak of the raven, the light thickening after sunset, the homecoming of the rooks, are all ominous. Then, as if to deepen these impressions, Shakespeare has concentrated attention on the obscurer regions of man's being, on phenomena which make it seem that he is in the power of secret forces lurking below, and independent of his consciousness and will: such as the relapse of Macbeth from conversation into a reverie, during which he gazes fascinated at the image of murder drawing closer and closer; the writing on his face of strange things he never meant to show; the pressure

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of imagination heightening into illusion, like the vision of a dagger in the air, at first bright, then suddenly splashed with blood, or the sound of a voice that cried 'Sleep no more' and would not be silenced. To these are added other, and constant, allusions to sleep, man's strange half-conscious life; to the misery of its withholding; to the terrible dreams of remorse, to the cursed thoughts from which Banquo is free by day, but which tempt him in his sleep: and again to abnormal disturbances of sleep; in the two men, of whom one during the murder of Duncan laughed in his sleep, and the other raised a cry of murder; and in Lady Macbeth, who rises to re-enact in somnambulism those scenes the memory of which is pushing her on to madness or suicide. All this has one effect, to excite supernatural alarm and, even more, a dread of the presence of evil not only in its recognized seat but all through and around our mysterious nature. Perhaps there is no other work equal to Macbeth in the production of this effect.2 It is enhanced -- to take a last point -- by the use of a literary expedient. Not even in Richard III., which in this, as in other respects, has resemblances to Macbeth, is there so much of Irony. I do not refer to irony in the ordinary sense; to speeches, for example, where the speaker is intentionally ironical, like that of Lennox in III. vi. I refer to irony on the part of the author himself, to ironical juxtapositions of persons and events, and especially to the 'Sophoclean irony' by which a speaker is made to use words bearing to the audience, in addition to his own meaning, a further and ominous sense, hidden from himself and, usually, from the other persons on the stage. The very first words uttered by Macbeth,

So foul and fair a day I have not seen, are an example to which attention has often been drawn; for they startle the reader by recalling the words of the Witches in the first scene,

Fair is foul, and foul is fair. When Macbeth, emerging from his murderous reverie, turns to the nobles saying, 'Let us toward the King,' his words are innocent, but to the reader have a double meaning. Duncan's comment on the treachery of Cawdor,

There's no art To find the mind's construction in the face: He was a gentleman on whom I built An absolute trust,

is interrupted1 by the entrance of the traitor Macbeth, who is greeted with effusive gratitude and a like 'absolute trust.' I have already referred to the ironical effect of the beautiful lines in which Duncan and Banquo describe the castle they are about to enter. To the reader Lady Macbeth's light words,

A little water clears us of this deed: How easy is it then,

summon up the picture of the sleep-walking scene. The idea of the Porter's speech, in which he imagines himself the keeper of hell-gate, shows the same irony. So does the contrast between the obvious and the hidden meanings of the apparitions of the armed head, the bloody child, and the child with the tree in his hand. It would be easy to add further examples. Perhaps the most striking is the answer which Banquo, as he rides away, never to return alive, gives to Macbeth's reminder, 'Fail not our feast.' 'My lord, I will not,' he replies, and he keeps his promise. It cannot be by accident that Shakespeare so frequently in this play uses a device which contributes to excite the vague fear of hidden forces operating on minds unconscious of their influence. 2 But of course he had for this purpose an agency more potent than any yet considered. It would be almost an impertinence to attempt to describe anew the influence of the Witch-scenes on the imagination of the reader. Nor do I believe that among different readers this influence differs greatly except in degree. But when critics begin to analyse the imaginative effect, and still more when, going behind it, they try to determine the truth which lay for Shakespeare or lies for us in these creations, they too often offer us results which, either through perversion or through inadequacy, fail to correspond with that effect. This happens in opposite ways. On the one hand the Witches, whose contribution to the 'atmosphere' of Macbeth can hardly be exaggerated, are credited with far too great an influence upon the action; sometimes they are described as goddesses, or even as fates, whom Macbeth is powerless to resist. And this is perversion. On the other hand, we are told that, great as is their

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influence on the action, it is so because they are merely symbolic representations of the unconscious or half- conscious guilt in Macbeth himself. And this is inadequate. The few remarks I have to make may take the form of a criticism on these views. (1) As to the former, Shakespeare took, as material for his purposes, the ideas about witchcraft that he found existing in people around him and in books like Reginald Scot's Discovery (1584). And he used these ideas without changing their substance at all. He selected and improved, avoiding the merely ridiculous, dismissing (unlike Middleton) the sexually loathsome or stimulating, rehandling and heightening whatever could touch the imagination with fear, horror, and mysterious attraction. The Witches that is to say, are not goddesses, or fates, or, in any way whatever, supernatural beings. They are old women, poor and ragged, skinny and hideous, full of vulgar spite, occupied in killing their neighbours' swine or revenging themselves on sailors' wives who have refused them chestnuts. If Banquo considers their beards a proof that they are not women, that only shows his ignorance: Sir Hugh Evans would have known better. There is not a syllable in Macbeth to imply that they are anything but women. But, again in accordance with the popular ideas, they have received from evil spirits certain supernatural powers. They can 'raise haile, tempests, and hurtfull weather; as lightening, thunder' etc. They can 'passe from place to place in the aire invisible.' They can 'keepe divels and spirits in the likenesse of todes and cats,' Paddock or Gray-malkin. They can 'transferre corne in the blade from one place to another.' They can 'manifest unto others things hidden and lost, and foreshew things to come, and see them as though they were present.' The reader will apply these phrases and sentences at once to passages in Macbeth. They are all taken from Scot's first chapter, where he is retailing the current superstitions of his time; and, in regard to the Witches, Shakespeare mentions scarcely anything, if anything, that was not to be found, of course in a more prosaic shape, either in Scot or in some other easily accessible authority. He read, to be sure, in Holinshed, his main source for the story of Macbeth, that, according to the common opinion, the 'women' who met Macbeth 'were eyther the weird sisters, that is (as ye would say) ye Goddesses of destinee, or els some Nimphes or Feiries.' But what does that matter? What he read in his authority was absolutely nothing to his audience, and remains nothing to us, unless he used what he read. And he did not use this idea. He used nothing but the phrase 'weird sisters,' which certainly no more suggested to a London audience the Parcae of one mythology or the Norns of another than it does today. His Witches owe all their power to the spirits; they are instruments of darkness'; the spirits are their 'masters' (IV. i. 63). Fancy the fates having masters! Even if the passages where Hecate appears are Shakespeare's, that will not help the Witches; for they are subject to Hecate, who is herself a goddess or superior devil, not a fate. Next, while the influence of the Witches' prophecies on Macbeth is very great, it is quite clearly shown to be an influence and nothing more. There is no sign whatever in the play that Shakespeare meant the actions of Macbeth to be forced on him by an external power, whether that of the Witches, or of their 'masters,' or of Hecate. It is needless therefore to insist that such a conception would be in contradiction with his whole tragic practice. The prophecies of the Witches are presented simply as dangerous circumstances with which Macbeth has to deal: they are dramatically on the same level as the story of the Ghost in Hamlet, or the falsehoods told by Iago to Othello. Macbeth is, in the ordinary sense, perfectly free in regard to them: and if we speak of degrees of freedom, he is even more free than Hamlet, who was crippled by melancholy when the Ghost appeared to him. That the influence of the first prophecies upon him came as much from himself as from them, is made abundantly clear by the obviously intentional contrast between him and Banquo. Banquo, ambitious but perfectly honest, is scarcely even startled by them, and he remains throughout the scene indifferent to them. But when Macbeth heard them he was not an innocent man. Precisely how far his mind was guilty may be a question; but no innocent man would have started, as he did, with a start of fear at the mere prophecy of a crown, or have conceived thereupon immediately the thought of murder. Either this thought was not new to him, or he had cherished at least some vaguer dishonourable dream, the instantaneous recurrence of which, at the moment of his hearing the prophecy, revealed to him an inward and terrifying guilt. In either case not only was he free to accept or resist the temptation, but the temptation was already within him. We are admitting too much, therefore, when we compare him with Othello, for Othello's mind was perfectly free from suspicion when his temptation came to him. And we are admitting, again, too much when we use the word 'temptation' in reference to the first prophecies of the Witches. Speaking strictly we must affirm that he was tempted only by himself. He speaks indeed of their 'supernatural soliciting'; but in fact they did not solicit. They merely announced events: they hailed him as Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor, and King hereafter. No connection of these announcements with any action of his was even hinted by them. For all that appears, the natural death of an old man might have fulfilled the prophecy any day. In any case, the idea of fulfilling it by murder was entirely his own. When Macbeth sees the Witches again, after the murders of Duncan and Banquo, we observe, however, a striking change. They no longer need to go and meet him; he seeks them out. He has committed himself to his

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course of evil. Now accordingly they do 'solicit.' They prophesy, but they also give advice: they bid him be bloody, bold, and secure. We have no hope that he will reject their advice; but so far are they from having, even now, any power to compel him to accept it, that they make careful preparations to deceive him into doing so. And, almost as though to intimate how entirely the responsibility for his deeds still lies with Macbeth, Shakespeare makes his first act after this interview one for which his tempters gave him not a hint -- the slaughter of Macduff's wife and children. To all this we must add that Macbeth himself nowhere betrays a suspicion that his action is, or has been, thrust on him by an external power. He curses the Witches for deceiving him, but he never attempts to shift to them the burden of his guilt. Neither has Shakespeare placed in the mouth of any other character in this play such fatalistic expressions as may be found in King Lear and occasionally elsewhere. He appears actually to have taken pains to make the natural psychological genesis of Macbeth's crimes perfectly clear, and it was a most unfortunate notion of Schlegel's that the Witches were required because natural agencies would have seemed too weak to drive such a man as Macbeth to his first murder. 'Still,' it may be said, 'the Witches did foreknow Macbeth's future; and what is foreknown is fixed; and how can a man be responsible when his future is fixed?' With this question, as a speculative one, we have no concern here; but, in so far as it relates to the play, I answer, first, that not one of the things foreknown is an action. This is just as true of the later prophecies as of the first. That Macbeth will be harmed by none of woman born, and will never be vanquished till Birnam Wood shall come against him, involves (so far as we are informed) no action of his. It may be doubted, indeed, whether Shakespeare would have introduced prophecies of Macbeth's deeds, even if it had been convenient to do so; he would probably have felt that to do so would interfere with the interest of the inward struggle and suffering. And, in the second place, Macbeth was not written for students of metaphysics or theology, but for people at large; and, however it may be with prophecies of actions, prophecies of mere events do not suggest to people at large any sort of difficulty about responsibility. Many people, perhaps most, habitually think of their 'future' as something fixed, and of themselves as 'free.' The Witches nowadays take a room in Bond Street and charge a guinea; and when the victim enters they hail him the possessor £1,000 a year, or prophesy to him of journeys, wives, and children. But though he is struck dumb by their prescience, it does not even cross his mind that he is going to lose his glorious 'freedom' -- not though journeys and marriages imply much more agency on his part than anything foretold to Macbeth. This whole difficulty is undramatic; and I may add that Shakespeare nowhere shows, like Chaucer, any interest in speculative problems concerning foreknowledge, predestination and freedom. (2) We may deal more briefly with the opposite interpretation. According to it the Witches and their prophecies are to be taken merely as symbolical representations of thoughts and desires which have slumbered in Macbeth's breast and now rise into consciousness and confront him. With this idea, which springs from the wish to get rid of a mere external supernaturalism, and to find a psy chological and spiritual meaning in that which the groundlings probably received as hard facts, one may feel sympathy. But it is evident that it is rather a 'philosophy' of the Witches than an immediate dramatic apprehension of them; and even so it will be found both incomplete and, in other respects, inadequate. It is incomplete because it cannot possibly be applied to all the facts. Let us grant that it will apply to the most important prophecy, that of the crown; and that the later warning which Macbeth receives, to beware of Macduff, also answers to something in his own breast and 'harps his fear aright.' But there we have to stop. Macbeth had evidently no suspicion of that treachery in Cawdor through which he himself became Thane; and who will suggest that he had any idea, however subconscious, about Birnam Wood or the man not born of woman? It may be held -- and rightly, I think -- that the prophecies which answer to nothing inward, the prophecies which are merely supernatural, produce, now at any rate, much less imaginative effect than the others -- even that they are in Macbeth an element which was of an age and not for all time; but still they are there, and they are essential to the plot. And as the theory under consideration will not apply to them at all, it is not likely that it gives an adequate account even of those prophecies to which it can in some measure be applied. It is inadequate here chiefly because it is much too narrow. The Witches and their prophecies, if they are to be rationalized or taken symbolically, must represent not only the evil slumbering in the hero's soul, but all those obscurer influences of the evil around him in the world which aid his own ambition and the incitements of his wife. Such influences, even if we put aside all belief in evil 'spirits,' are as certain, momentous, and terrifying facts as the presence of inchoate evil in the soul itself; and if we exclude all reference to these facts from our idea of the Witches, it will be greatly impoverished and will certainly fail to correspond with the imaginative effect. The union of the outward and inward here may be compared with something of the same kind in Greek poetry. In the first Book of the Iliad we are told that, when Agamemnon threatened to take Briseis from Achilles, 'grief came upon Peleus' son, and his heart within his shaggy breast was divided in counsel, whether to draw his keen blade

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from his thigh and set the company aside and so slay Atreides, or to assuage his anger and curb his soul. While yet he doubted thereof in heart and soul, and was drawing his great sword from his sheath, Athene came to him from heaven, sent forth of the white-armed goddess Hera, whose heart loved both alike and had care for them. She stood behind Peleus' son and caught him by his golden hair, to him only visible, and of the rest no man beheld her.' And at her bidding he mastered his wrath, 'and stayed his heavy hand on the silver hilt, and thrust the great sword back into the sheath, and was not disobedient to the saying of Athene.' The succour of the goddess here only strengthens an inward movement in the mind of Achilles, but we should lose something besides a poetic effect if for that reason we struck her out of the account. We should lose the idea that the inward powers of the soul answer in their essence to vaster powers without, which support them and assure the effect of their exertion. So it is in Macbeth. The words of the Witches are fatal to the hero only because there is in him something which leaps into light at the sound of them; but they are at the same time the witness of forces which never cease to work in the world around him, and, on the instant of his surrender to them, entangle him inextricably in the web of Fate. If the inward connection is once realised (and Shakespeare has left us no excuse for missing it), we need not fear, and indeed shall scarcely be able, to exaggerate the effect of the Witch-scenes in heightening and deepening the sense of fear, horror, and mystery which pervades the atmosphere of the tragedy. 3 From this murky background stand out the two great terrible figures, who dwarf all the remaining characters of the drama. Both are sublime, and both inspire, far more than the other tragic heroes, the feeling of awe. They are never detached in imagination from the atmosphere which surrounds them and adds to their grandeur and terror. It is, as it were, continued into their souls. For within them is all that we felt without -- the darkness of night, lit with the flame of tempest and the hues of blood, and haunted by wild and direful shapes, 'murdering ministers,' spirits of remorse, and maddening visions of peace lost and judgment to come. The way to be untrue to Shakespeare here, as always, is to relax the tension of imagination, to conventionalize, to conceive Macbeth, for example, as a half-hearted cowardly criminal, and Lady Macbeth as a whole-hearted fiend. These two characters are fired by one and the same passion of ambition; and to a considerable extent they are alike. The disposition of each is high, proud, and commanding. They are born to rule, if not to reign. They are peremptory or contemptuous to their inferiors. They are not children of light, like Brutus and Hamlet; they are of the world. We observe in them no love of country, and no interest in the welfare of anyone outside their family. Their habitual thoughts and aims are, and, we imagine, long have been, all of station and power. And though in both there is something, and in one much, of what is higher -- honour, conscience, humanity -- they do not live consciously in the light of these things or speak their language. Not that they are egoists, like Iago; or, if they are egoists, theirs is an egoïsme à deux. They have no separate ambitions. They support and love one another. They suffer together. And if, as time goes on, they drift a little apart, they are not vulgar souls, to be alienated and recriminate when they experience the fruitlessness of their ambition. They remain to the end tragic, even grand. So far there is much likeness between them. Otherwise they are contrasted, and the action is built upon this contrast. Their attitudes towards the projected murder of Duncan are quite different; and it produces in them equally different effects. In consequence, they appear in the earlier part of the play as of equal importance, if indeed Lady Macbeth does not overshadow her husband; but afterwards she retires more and more into the background, and he becomes unmistakably the leading figure. His is indeed far the more complex character: and I will speak of it first. Macbeth, the cousin of a King mild, just, and beloved, but now too old to lead his army, is introduced to us as a general of extraordinary prowess, who has covered himself with glory in putting down a rebellion and repelling the invasion of a foreign army. In these conflicts he showed great personal courage, a quality which he continues to display throughout the drama in regard to all plain dangers. It is difficult to be sure of his customary demeanour, for in the play we see him either in what appears to be an exceptional relation to his wife, or else in the throes of remorse and desperation; but from his behaviour during his journey home after the war, from his later conversations with Lady Macbeth, and from his language to the murderers of Banquo and to others, we imagine him as a great warrior, somewhat masterful, rough, and abrupt, a man to inspire some fear and much admiration. He was thought 'honest,' or honourable; he was trusted, apparently, by everyone; Macduff, a man of the highest integrity, 'loved him well.' And there was, in fact, much good in him. We have no warrant, I think, for describing him, with many writers, as of a 'noble' nature, like Hamlet or Othello; but he had a keen sense both of honour and of the worth of a good name. The phrase, again, 'too much of the milk of human kindness,' is applied to him in impatience by his wife, who did not fully understand him; but certainly he was far from devoid of humanity and pity.

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At the same time he was exceedingly ambitious. He must have been so by temper. The tendency must have been greatly strengthened by his marriage. When we see him, it has been further stimulated by his remarkable success and by the consciousness of exceptional powers and merit. It becomes a passion. The course of action suggested by it is extremely perilous: it sets his good name, his position, and even his life on the hazard. It is also abhorrent to his better feelings. Their defeat in the struggle with ambition leaves him utterly wretched, and would have kept him so, however complete had been his outward success and security. On the other hand, his passion for power and his instinct of self-assertion are so vehement that no inward misery could persuade him to relinquish the fruits of crime, or to advance from remorse to repentance. In the character as so far sketched there is nothing very peculiar, though the strength of the forces contending in it is unusual. But there is in Macbeth one marked peculiarity, the true apprehension of which is the key to Shakespeare's conception. This bold ambitious man of action has, within certain limits, the imagination of a poet - - an imagination on the one hand extremely sensitive to impressions of a certain kind, and, on the other, productive of violent disturbance both of mind and body. Through it he is kept in contact with supernatural impressions and is liable to supernatural fears. And through it, especially, come to him the intimations of conscience and honour. Macbeth's better nature -- to put the matter for clearness' sake too broadly -- instead of speaking to him in the overt language of moral ideas, commands and prohibitions, incorporates itself in images which alarm and horrify. His imagination is thus the best of him, something usually deeper and higher than his conscious thoughts; and if he had obeyed it he would have been safe. But his wife quite misunderstands it, and he himself understands it only in part. The terrifying images which deter him from crime and follow its commission, and which are really the protest of his deepest self, seem to his wife the creations of mere nervous fear, and are sometimes referred by himself to the dread of vengeance or the restlessness of insecurity. His conscious or reflective mind, that is, moves chiefly among considerations of outward success and failure, while his inner being is convulsed by conscience. And his inability to understand himself is repeated and exaggerated in the interpretations of actors and critics, who represent him as a coward, cold-blooded, calculating, and pitiless, who shrinks from crime simply because it is dangerous, and suffers afterwards simply because he is not safe. In reality his courage is frightful. He strides from crime to crime, though his soul never ceases to bar his advance with shapes of terror, or to clamour in his ears that he is murdering his peace and casting away his 'eternal jewel.' It is of the first importance to realize the strength, and also (what has not been so clearly recognized) the limits, of Macbeth's imagination. It is not the universal meditative imagination of Hamlet. He came to see in man, as Hamlet sometimes did, the 'quintessence of dust'; but he must always have been incapable of Hamlet's reflections on man's noble reason and infinite faculty, or of seeing with Hamlet's eyes 'this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire.' Nor could he feel, like Othello, the romance of war or the infinity of love. He shows no sign of any unusual sensitiveness to the glory or beauty in the world or the soul; and it is partly for this reason that we have no inclination to love him, and that we regard him with more of awe than of pity. His imagination is excitable and intense, but narrow. That which stimulates it is, almost solely, that which thrills with sudden, startling, and often supernatural fear. There is a famous passage late in the play (V. v. 10) which is here very significant, because it refers to a time before his conscience was burdened, and so shows his native disposition:

The time has been, my senses would have cool'd To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair Would at a dismal treatise rise and stir As life were in't.

This 'time' must have been in his youth, or at least before we see him. And, in the drama, everything which terrifies him is of this character, only it has now a deeper and a moral significance. Palpable dangers leave him unmoved or fill him with fire. He does himself mere justice when he asserts he 'dare do all that may become a man,' or when he exclaims to Banquo's ghost,

What man dare, I dare: Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear, The arm'd rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger; Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves Shall never tremble.

What appals him is always the image of his own guilty heart or bloody deed, or some image which derives from them its terror or gloom. These, when they arise, hold him spellbound and possess him wholly, like a hypnotic

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trance which is at the same time the ecstasy of a poet. As the first 'horrid image' of Duncan's murder -- of himself murdering Duncan -- rises from unconsciousness and confronts him, his hair stands on end and the outward scene vanishes from his eyes. Why? For fear of 'consequences'? The idea is ridiculous. Or because the deed is bloody? The man who with his 'smoking' steel 'carved out his passage' to the rebel leader, and 'unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps,' would hardly be frightened by blood. How could fear of consequences make the dagger he is to use hang suddenly glittering before him in the air, and then as suddenly dash it with gouts of blood? Even when he talks of consequences, and declares that if he were safe against them he would 'jump the life to come,' his imagination bears witness against him, and shows us that what really holds him back is the hideous vileness of the deed:

He's here in double trust; First, as I am his kinsman and his subject, Strong both against the deed; then, as his host, Who should against his murderer shut the door, Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been So clear in his great office, that his virtues Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against The deep damnation of his taking-off; And pity, like a naked new-born babe, Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed Upon the sightless couriers of the air, Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, That tears shall drown the wind.

It may be said that he is here thinking of the horror that others will feel at the deed -- thinking therefore of consequences. Yes, but could he realize thus how horrible the deed would look to others if it were not equally horrible to himself? It is the same when the murder is done. He is well-nigh mad with horror, but it is not the horror of detection. It is not he who thinks of washing his hands or getting his nightgown on. He has brought away the daggers he should have left on the pillows of the grooms, but what does he care for that? What he thinks of is that, when he heard one of the men awaked from sleep say 'God bless us,' he could not say 'Amen'; for his imagination presents to him the parching of his throat as an immediate judgment from heaven. His wife heard the owl scream and the crickets cry; but what he heard was the voice that first cried 'Macbeth doth murder sleep,' and then, a minute later, with a change of tense, denounced on him, as if his three names gave him three personalities to suffer in, the doom of sleeplessness:

Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor Shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more.

There comes a sound of knocking. It should be perfectly familiar to him; but he knows not whence, or from what world, it comes. He looks down at his hands, and starts violently: 'What hands are here?' For they seem alive, they move, they mean to pluck out his eyes. He looks at one of them again; it does not move; but the blood upon it is enough to dye the whole ocean red. What has all this to do with fear of 'consequences'? It is his soul speaking in the only shape in which it can speak freely, that of imagination. So long as Macbeth's imagination is active, we watch him fascinated; we feel suspense, horror, awe; in which are latent, also, admiration and sympathy. But so soon as it is quiescent these feelings vanish. He is no longer 'infirm of purpose': he becomes domineering, even brutal, or he becomes a cool pitiless hypocrite. He is generally said to be a very bad actor, but this is not wholly true. Whenever his imagination stirs, he acts badly. It so possesses him, and is so much stronger than his reason, that his face betrays him, and his voice utters the most improbable untruths or the most artificial rhetoric. But when it is asleep he is firm, self-controlled and practical, as in the conversation where he skillfully elicits from Banquo that information about his movements which is required for the successful arrangement of his murder. Here he is hateful; and so he is in the conversation with the murderers, who are not professional cut-throats but old soldiers, and whom, without a vestige of remorse, he beguiles with calumnies against Banquo and with such appeals as his wife had used to him. On the other hand, we feel much pity as well as anxiety in the scene (I. vii.) where she overcomes his opposition to the murder; and

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we feel it (though his imagination is not specially active) because this scene shows us how little he understands himself. This is his great misfortune here. Not that he fails to realize in reflection the baseness of the deed (the soliloquy with which the scene opens shows that he does not). But he has never, to put it pedantically, accepted as the principle of his conduct the morality which takes shape in his imaginative fears. Had he done so, and said plainly to his wife, 'The thing is vile, and, however much I have sworn to do it, I will not,' she would have been helpless; for all her arguments proceed on the assumption that there is for them no such point of view. Macbeth does approach this position once, when, resenting the accusation of cowardice, he answers,

I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none.

She feels in an instant that everything is at stake, and, ignoring the point, overwhelms him with indignant and contemptuous personal reproach. But he yields to it because he is himself half-ashamed of that answer of his, and because, for want of habit, the simple idea which it expresses has no hold on him comparable to the force it acquires when it becomes incarnate in visionary fears and warnings. Yet these were so insistent, and they offered to his ambition a resistance so strong, that it is impossible to regard him as falling through the blindness or delusion of passion. On the contrary, he himself feels with such intensity the enormity of his purpose that, it seems clear, neither his ambition nor yet the prophecy of the Witches would ever without the aid of Lady Macbeth have overcome this feeling. As it is, the deed is done in horror and without the faintest desire or sense of glory done, one may almost say, as if it were an appalling duty; and, the instant it is finished, its futility is revealed to Macbeth as clearly as its vileness had been revealed beforehand. As he staggers from the scene he mutters in despair,

Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou could'st.

When, half an hour later, he returns with Lennox from the room of the murder, he breaks out:

Had I but died an hour before this chance, I had lived a blessed time; for from this instant There's nothing serious in mortality: All is but toys: renown and grace is dead; The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees Is left this vault to brag of.

This is no mere acting. The language here has none of the false rhetoric of his merely hypocritical speeches. It is meant to deceive, but it utters at the same time his profoundest feeling. And this he can henceforth never hide from himself for long. However he may try to drown it in further enormities, he hears it murmuring,

Duncan is in his grave: After life's fitful fever he sleeps well:

or,

better be with the dead: or,

I have lived long enough:

and it speaks its last words on the last day of his life:

Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale

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Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

How strange that this judgment on life, the despair of a man who had knowingly made mortal war on his own soul, should be frequently quoted as Shakespeare's own judgment, and should even be adduced, in serious criticism, as a proof of his pessimism! It remains to look a little more fully at the history of Macbeth after the murder of Duncan. Unlike his first struggle this history excites little suspense or anxiety on his account: we have now no hope for him. But it is an engrossing spectacle, and psychologically it is perhaps the most remarkable exhibition of the development of a character to be found in Shakespeare's tragedies. That heart-sickness which comes from Macbeth's perception of the futility of his crime, and which never leaves him for long, is not, however, his habitual state. It could not be so, for two reasons. In the first place the consciousness of guilt is stronger in him than the consciousness of failure; and it keeps him in a perpetual agony of restlessness, and forbids him simply to droop and pine. His mind is 'full of scorpions.' He cannot sleep. He 'keeps alone,' moody and savage. 'All that is within him does condemn itself for being there.' There is a fever in his blood which urges him to ceaseless action in the search for oblivion. And, in the second place, ambition, the love of power, the instinct of self-assertion, are much too potent in Macbeth to permit him to resign, even in spirit, the prize for which he has put rancours in the vessel of his peace. The 'will to live' is mighty in him. The forces which impelled him to aim at the crown re-assert themselves. He faces the world, and his own conscience, desperate, but never dreaming of acknowledging defeat. He will see 'the frame of things disjoint' first. He challenges fate into the lists. The result is frightful. He speaks no more, as before Duncan's murder, of honour or pity. That sleepless torture, he tells himself, is nothing but the sense of insecurity and the fear of retaliation. If only he were safe, it would vanish. And he looks about for the cause of his fear; and his eye falls on Banquo. Banquo, who cannot fail to suspect him, has not fled or turned against him: Banquo has become his chief counsellor. Why? Because, he answers, the kingdom was promised to Banquo's children. Banquo, then, is waiting to attack him, to make a way for them. The 'bloody instructions' he himself taught when he murdered Duncan, are about to return, as he said they would, to plague the inventor. This then, he tells himself, is the fear that will not let him sleep; and it will die with Banquo. There is no hesitation now, and no remorse: he has nearly learned his lesson. He hastens feverishly, not to murder Banquo, but to procure his murder: some strange idea is in his mind that the thought of the dead man will not haunt him, like the memory of Duncan, if the deed is done by other hands. The deed is done: but, instead of peace descending on him, from the depths of his nature his half-murdered conscience rises; his deed confronts him in the apparition of Banquo's Ghost, and the horror of the night of his first murder returns. But, alas, it has less power, and he has more will. Agonized and trembling, he still faces this rebel image, and it yields:

Why, so: being gone, I am a man again.

Yes, but his secret is in the hands of the assembled lords. And, worse, this deed is as futile as the first. For, though Banquo is dead and even his Ghost is conquered, that inner torture is unassuaged. But he will not bear it. His guests have hardly left him when he turns roughly to his wife:

How say'st thou, that Macduff denies his person At our great bidding?

Macduff it is that spoils his sleep. He shall perish -- he and aught else that bars the road to peace.

For mine own good All causes shall give way: I am in blood Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o'er: Strange things I have in head that will to hand, Which must be acted ere they may be scann'd.

She answers, sick at heart,

You lack the season of all natures, sleep.

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No doubt: but he has found the way to it now:

Come, we'll to sleep. My strange and self abuse Is the initiate fear that wants hard use: We are yet but young in deed.

What a change from the man who thought of Duncan's virtues, and of pity like a naked new-born babe! What a frightful clearness of self-consciousness in this descent to hell, and yet what a furious force in the instinct of life and self-assertion that drives him on! He goes to seek the Witches. He will know, by the worst means, the worst. He has no longer any awe of them.

How now, you secret, black and midnight hags! -- so he greets them, and at once he demands and threatens. They tell him he is right to fear Macduff. They tell him to fear nothing, for none of woman born can harm him. He feels that the two statements are at variance; infatuated, suspects no double meaning; but, that he may 'sleep in spite of thunder,' determines not to spare Macduff. But his heart throbs to know one thing, and he forces from the Witches the vision of Banquo's children crowned. The old intolerable thought returns, 'for Banquo's issue have I filed my mind'; and with it, for all the absolute security apparently promised him, there returns that inward fever. Will nothing quiet it? Nothing but destruction. Macduff, one comes to tell him, has escaped him; but that does not matter: he can still destroy:

And even now, To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done: The castle of Macduff I will surprise; Seize upon Fife; give to the edge o' the sword His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls That trace him in's line. No boasting like a fool; This deed I'll do before this purpose cool. But no more sights!

No, he need fear no more 'sights.' The Witches have done their work, and after this purposeless butchery his own imagination will trouble him no more. He has dealt his last blow at the conscience and pity which spoke through it. The whole flood of evil in his nature is now let loose. He becomes an open tyrant, dreaded by everyone about him, and a terror to his country. She 'sinks beneath the yoke.'

Each new morn New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows Strike heaven on the face.

She weeps, she bleeds, 'and each new day a gash is added to her wounds.' She is not the mother of her children, but their grave;

where nothing, But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile: Where sighs and groans and shrieks that rend the air Are made, not mark'd.

For this wild rage and furious cruelty we are prepared; but vices of another kind start up as he plunges on his downward way.

I grant him bloody, Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful, Sudden, malicious,

says Malcolm; and two of these epithets surprise us. Who would have expected avarice or lechery in Macbeth? His ruin seems complete. Yet it is never complete. To the end he never totally loses our sympathy; we never feel towards him as we do to those who appear the born children of darkness. There remains something sublime in the defiance with which, even when cheated of his last hope, he faces earth and hell and heaven. Nor would any soul to whom evil was congenial be capable of that heart-sickness which overcomes him when he thinks of the 'honour, love, obedience,

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troops of friends' which 'he must not look to have' (and which Iago would never have cared to have), and contrasts with them

Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath, Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not,

(and which Iago would have accepted with indifference). Neither can I agree with those who find in his reception of the news of his wife's death proof of alienation or utter carelessness. There is no proof of these in the words,

She should have died hereafter; There would have been a time for such a word,

spoken as they are by a man already in some measure prepared for such news, and now transported by the frenzy of his last fight for life. He has no time now to feel. Only, as he thinks of the morrow when time to feel will come -- if anything comes, the vanity of all hopes and forward-lookings sinks deep into his soul with an infinite weariness, and he murmurs,

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death.

In the very depths a gleam of his native love of goodness, and with it a touch of tragic grandeur, rests upon him. The evil he has desperately embraced continues to madden or to wither his inmost heart. No experience in the world could bring him to glory in it or make his peace with it, or to forget what he once was and Iago and Goneril never were.

LECTURE X: MACBETH by A.C. Bradley (use the course reader as your source for this critical essay – both for your works cited page and any in-text citations) 1 To regard Macbeth as a play, like the love-tragedies Romeo and Juliet and Antony and Cleopatra, in which there are two central characters of equal importance, is certainly a mistake. But Shakespeare himself is in a measure responsible for it, because the first half of Macbeth is greater than the second, and in the first half Lady Macbeth not only appears more than in the second but exerts the ultimate deciding influence on the action. And, in the opening Act at least, Lady Macbeth is the most commanding and perhaps the most awe-inspiring figure that Shakespeare drew. Sharing, as we have seen, certain traits with her husband, she is at once clearly distinguished from him by an inflexibility of will, which appears to hold imagination, feeling, and conscience completely in check. To her the prophecy of things that will be becomes instantaneously the determination that they shall be:

Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be What thou art promised.

She knows her husband's weakness, how he scruples 'to catch the nearest way' to the object he desires; and she sets herself without a trace of doubt or conflict to counteract this weakness. To her there is no separation between will and deed; and, as the deed falls in part to her, she is sure it will be done:

The raven himself is hoarse That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements.

On the moment of Macbeth's rejoining her, after braving infinite dangers and winning infinite praise, without a syllable on these subjects or a word of affection, she goes straight to her purpose and permits him to speak of nothing else. She takes the superior position and assumes the direction of affairs, -- appears to assume it even more than she really can, that she may spur him on. She animates him by picturing the deed as heroic, 'this night's great business,' or 'our great quell,' while she ignores its cruelty and faithlessness. She bears down his

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faint resistance by presenting him with a prepared scheme which may remove from him the terror and danger of deliberation. She rouses him with a taunt no man can bear, and least of all a soldier -- the word 'coward.' She appeals even to his love for her:

from this time Such I account thy love;

-- such, that is, as the protestations of a drunkard. Her reasonings are mere sophisms; they could persuade no man. It is not by them, it is by personal appeals, through the admiration she extorts from him, and through sheer force of will, that she impels him to the deed. Her eyes are fixed upon the crown and the means to it; she does not attend to the consequences. Her plan of laying the guilt upon the chamberlains is invented on the spur of the moment, and simply to satisfy her husband. Her true mind is heard in the ringing cry with which she answers his question, 'Will it not be received . . . that they have done it?' Who dares receive it other? And this is repeated in the sleep-walking scene: 'What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?' Her passionate courage sweeps him off his feet. His decision is taken in a moment of enthusiasm:

Bring forth men-children only; For thy undaunted mettle should compose Nothing but males.

And even when passion has quite died away her will remains supreme. In presence of overwhelming horror and danger, in the murder-scene and the banquet-scene, her self-control is perfect. When the truth of what she has done dawns on her, no word of complaint, scarcely a word of her own suffering, not a single word of her own as apart from his, escapes her when others are by. She helps him, but never asks his help. She leans on nothing but herself. And from the beginning to the end -- though she makes once or twice a slip in acting her part -- her will never fails her. Its grasp upon her nature may destroy her, but it is never relaxed. We are sure that she never betrayed her husband or herself by a word or even a look, save in sleep. However appalling she may be, she is sublime. In the earlier scenes of the play this aspect of Lady Macbeth's character is far the most prominent. And if she seems invincible she seems also inhuman. We find no trace of pity for the kind old king; no consciousness of the treachery and baseness of the murder; no sense of the value of the lives of the wretched men on whom the guilt is to be laid; no shrinking even from the condemnation or hatred of the world. Yet if the Lady Macbeth of these scenes were really utterly inhuman, or a 'fiend-like queen,' as Malcolm calls her, the Lady Macbeth of the sleepwalking scene would be an impossibility. The one woman could never become the other. And in fact, if we look below the surface, there is evidence enough in the earlier scenes of preparation for the later. I do not mean that Lady Macbeth was naturally humane. There is nothing in the play to show this, and several passages subsequent to the murder-scene supply proof to the contrary. One is that where she exclaims, on being informed of Duncan's murder,

Woe, alas! What, in our house?

This mistake in acting shows that she does not even know what the natural feeling in such circumstances would be; and Banquo's curt answer, 'Too cruel anywhere,' is almost a reproof of her insensibility. But, admitting this, we have in the first place to remember, in imagining the opening scenes, that she is deliberately bent on counteracting the 'human kindness' of her husband, and also that she is evidently not merely inflexibly determined but in a condition of abnormal excitability. That exaltation in the project which is so entirely lacking in Macbeth is strongly marked in her. When she tries to help him by representing their enterprise as heroic, she is deceiving herself as much as him. Their attainment of the crown presents itself to her, perhaps has long presented itself, as something so glorious, and she has fixed her will upon it so completely, that for the time she sees the enterprise in no other light than that of its greatness. When she soliloquises,

Yet do I fear thy nature: It is too full o' the 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,

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one sees that 'ambition' and 'great' and 'highly' and even 'illness' are to her simply terms of praise, and 'holily' and 'human kindness' simply terms of blame. Moral distinctions do not in this exaltation exist for her; or rather they are inverted: 'good' means to her the crown and whatever is required to obtain it, 'evil' whatever stands in the way of its attainment. This attitude of mind is evident even when she is alone, though it becomes still more pronounced when she has to work upon her husband. And it persists until her end is attained. But, without being exactly forced, it betrays a strain which could not long endure. Besides this, in these earlier scenes the traces of feminine weakness and human feeling, which account for her later failure, are not absent. Her will, it is clear, was exerted to overpower not only her husband's resistance but some resistance in herself. Imagine Goneril uttering the famous words,

Had be not resembled My father as he slept, I had done 't,

They are spoken, I think, without any sentiment -- impatiently, as though she regretted her weakness: but it was there. And in reality, quite apart from this recollection of her father, she could never have done the murder if her husband had failed. She had to nerve herself with wine to give her 'boldness' enough to go through her minor part. That appalling invocation to the spirits of evil, to unsex her and fill her from the crown to the toe topfull of direst cruelty, tells the same tale of determination to crush the inward protest. Goneril had no need of such a prayer. In the utterance of the frightful lines,

I have given suck, and know How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me: I would, while it was smiling in my face, Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums, And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you Have done to this,

her voice should doubtless rise until it reaches, in 'dash'd the brains out,' an almost hysterical scream.1 These lines show unmistakably that strained exaltation which, as soon as the end is reached, vanishes, never to return. The greatness of Lady Macbeth lies almost wholly in courage and force of will. It is an error to regard her as remarkable on the intellectual side. In acting a part she shows immense self-control, but not much skill. Whatever may be thought of the plan of attributing the murder of Duncan to the chamberlains, to lay their bloody daggers on their pillows, as if they were determined to advertise their guilt, was a mistake which can be accounted for only by the excitement of the moment. But the limitations of her mind appear most in the point where she is most strongly contrasted with Macbeth -- in her comparative dullness of imagination. I say 'comparative,' for she sometimes uses highly poetic language, as indeed does everyone in Shakespeare who has any greatness of soul. Nor is she perhaps less imaginative than the majority of his heroines. But as compared with her husband she has little imagination. It is not simply that she suppresses what she has. To her, things remain at the most terrible moment precisely what they were at the calmest, plain facts which stand in a given relation to a certain deed, not visions which tremble and flicker in the light of other worlds. The probability that the old king will sleep soundly after his long journey to Inverness is to her simply a fortunate circumstance; but one can fancy the shoot of horror across Macbeth's face as she mentions it. She uses familiar and prosaic illustrations, like

Letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,' Like the poor cat i' the adage,

(the cat who wanted fish but did not like to wet her feet); or, We fail? But screw your courage to the sticking-place, And we'll not fail;

or,

Was the hope drunk Wherein you dress'd yourself? hath it slept since? And wakes it now, to look so green and pale At what it did so freely?

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The Witches are practically nothing to her. She feels no sympathy in Nature with her guilty purpose, and would never bid the earth not hear her steps, which way they walk. The noises before the murder, and during it, are heard by her as simple facts, and are referred to their true sources. The knocking has no mystery for her: it comes from 'the south entry.' She calculates on the drunkenness of the grooms, compares the different effects of wine on herself and on them, and listens to their snoring. To her the blood upon her husband's hands suggests only the taunt, and in the banquet scene:

O these flaws and starts, Impostors to true fear, would well become A woman's story at a winter's fire, Authorised by her grandam. Shame itself! Why do you make such faces? When all's done, You look but on a stool.

Even in the awful scene where her imagination breaks loose in sleep she uses no such images as Macbeth's. It is the direct appeal of the facts to sense that has fastened on her memory. The ghastly realism of 'Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?' or 'Here's the smell of the blood still,' is wholly unlike him. Her most poetical words, 'All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand,' are equally unlike his words about great Neptune's ocean. Hers, like some of her other speeches, are the more moving, from their greater simplicity and because they seem to tell of that self-restraint in suffering which is so totally lacking in him; but there is in them comparatively little of imagination. If we consider most of the passages to which I have referred, we shall find that the quality which moves our admiration is courage or force of will. This want of imagination, though it helps to make Lady Macbeth strong for immediate action, is fatal to her. If she does not feel beforehand the cruelty of Duncan's murder, this is mainly because she hardly imagines the act, or at most imagines its outward show, 'the motion of a muscle this way or that.' Nor does she in the least foresee those inward consequences which reveal themselves immediately in her husband, and less quickly in herself. It is often said that she understands him well. Had she done so, she never would have urged him on. She knows that he is given to strange fancies; but, not realizing what they spring from, she has no idea either that they may gain such power as to ruin the scheme, or that, while they mean present weakness, they mean also perception of the future. At one point in the murder scene the force of his imagination impresses her, and for a moment she is startled; a light threatens to break on her:

These deeds must not be thought After these ways: so, it will make us mad,

she says, with a sudden and great seriousness. And when he goes panting on, 'Methought I heard a voice cry, "Sleep no more"' . . . she breaks in, 'What do you mean?' half-doubting whether this was not a real voice that he heard. Then, almost directly, she recovers herself, convinced of the vanity of his fancy. Nor does she understand herself any better than him. She never suspects that these deeds must be thought after these ways; that her facile realism,

A little water clears us of this deed, will one day be answered by herself, 'Will these hands ne'er be clean?' or that the fatal commonplace, 'What's done is done,' will make way for her last despairing sentence, 'What's done cannot be undone.' Hence the development of her character -- perhaps it would be more strictly accurate to say, the change in her state of mind -- is both inevitable, and the opposite of the development we traced in Macbeth. When the murder has been done, the discovery of its hideousness, first reflected in the faces of her guests, comes to Lady Macbeth with the shock of a sudden disclosure, and at once her nature begins to sink. The first intimation of the change is given when, in the scene of the discovery, she faints. When next we see her, Queen of Scotland, the glory of her dream has faded. She enters, disillusioned, and weary with want of sleep: she has thrown away everything and gained nothing:

Nought's had, all's spent, Where our desire is got without content:

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'Tis safer to be that which we destroy Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.

Henceforth she has no initiative: the stem of her being seems to be cut through. Her husband, physically the stronger, maddened by pangs he had foreseen, but still flaming with life, comes into the foreground, and she retires. Her will remains, and she does her best to help him; but he rarely needs her help. Her chief anxiety appears to be that he should not betray his misery. He plans the murder of Banquo without her knowledge (not in order to spare her, I think, for he never shows love of this quality, but merely because he does not need her now); and even when she is told vaguely of his intention she appears but little interested. In the sudden emergency of the banquet scene she makes a prodigious and magnificent effort; her strength, and with it her ascendancy, returns, and she saves her husband at least from an open disclosure. But after this she takes no part whatever in the action. We only know from her shuddering words in the sleep-walking scene, 'The Thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now?' that she has even learned of her husband's worst crime; and in all the horrors of his tyranny over Scotland she has, so far as we hear, no part. Disillusionment and despair prey upon her more and more. That she should seek any relief in speech, or should ask for sympathy, would seem to her mere weakness, and would be to Macbeth's defiant fury an irritation. Thinking of the change in him, we imagine the bond between them slackened, and Lady Macbeth left much alone. She sinks slowly downward. She cannot bear darkness, and has light by her continually: 'tis her command. At last her nature, not her will, gives way. The secrets of the past find vent in a disorder of sleep, the beginning perhaps of madness. What the doctor fears is clear. He reports to her husband no great physical mischief, but bids her attendant to remove from her all means by which she could harm herself, and to keep eyes on her constantly. It is in vain. Her death is announced by a cry from her women so sudden and direful that it would thrill her husband with horror if he were any longer capable of fear. In the last words of the play Malcolm tells us it is believed in the hostile army that she died by her own hand. And (not to speak of the indications just referred to) it is in accordance with her character that even in her weakest hour she should cut short by one determined stroke the agony of her life. The sinking of Lady Macbeth's nature, and the marked change in her demeanour to her husband, are most strikingly shown in the conclusion of the banquet-scene; and from this point pathos is mingled with awe. The guests are gone. She is completely exhausted, and answers Macbeth in listless, submissive words which seem to come with difficulty. How strange sounds the reply 'Did you send to him, sir?' to his imperious question about Macduff! And when he goes on, 'waxing desperate in imagination,' to speak of new deeds of blood, she seems to sicken at the thought, and there is a deep pathos in that answer which tells at once of her care for him and of the misery she herself has silently endured,

You lack the season of all natures, sleep.

We begin to think of her now less as the awful instigator of murder than as a woman with much that is grand in her, and much that is piteous. Strange and almost ludicrous as the statement may sound, she is, up to her light, a perfect wife. She gives her husband the best she has; and the fact that she never uses to him the terms of affection which, up to this point in the play, he employs to her, is certainly no indication of want of love. She urges, appeals, reproaches, for a practical end, but she never recriminates. The harshness of her taunts is free from mere personal feeling, and also from any deep or more than momentary contempt. She despises what she thinks the weakness which stands in the way of her husband's ambition; but she does not despise him. She evidently admires him and thinks him a great man, for whom the throne is the proper place. Her commanding attitude in the moments of his hesitation or fear is probably confined to them. If we consider the peculiar circumstances of the earlier scenes and the banquet-scene, and if we examine the language of the wife and husband at other times, we shall come, I think, to the conclusion that their habitual relations are better represented by the later scenes than by the earlier, though naturally they are not truly represented by either. Her ambition for her husband and herself (there was no distinction to her mind) proved fatal to him, far more so than the prophecies of the Witches; but even when she pushed him into murder she believed she was helping him to do what he merely lacked the nerve to attempt; and her part in the crime was so much less open-eyed than his, that, if the impossible and undramatic task of estimating degrees of culpability were forced on us, we should surely have to assign the larger share to Macbeth. 'Lady Macbeth,' says Dr. Johnson, 'is merely detested'; and for a long time critics generally spoke of her as though she were Malcolm's 'fiend-like queen.' In natural reaction we tend to insist, as I have been doing, on the other and less obvious side; and in the criticism of the last century there is even a tendency to sentimentalize the character. But it can hardly be doubted that Shakespeare meant the predominant impression to be one of awe,

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grandeur, and horror, and that he never meant this impression to be lost, however it might be modified, as Lady Macbeth's activity diminishes and her misery increases. I cannot believe that, when she said of Banquo and Fleance,

But in them nature's copy's not eterne, she meant only that they would some day die; or that she felt any surprise when Macbeth replied,

There's comfort yet: they are assailable; though I am sure no light came into her eyes when he added those dreadful words, 'Then be thou jocund.' She was listless. She herself would not have moved a finger against Banquo. But she thought his death, and his son's death, might ease her husband's mind, and she suggested the murders indifferently and without remorse. The sleep-walking scene, again, inspires pity, but its main effect is one of awe. There is great horror in the references to blood, but it cannot be said that there is more than horror; and Campbell was surely right when, in alluding to Mrs. Jameson's analysis, he insisted that in Lady Macbeth's misery there is no trace of contrition. Doubtless she would have given the world to undo what she had done; and the thought of it killed her; but, regarding her from the tragic point of view, we may truly say she was too great to repent. 2 The main interest of the character of Banquo arises from the changes that take place in him, and from the influence of the Witches upon him. And it is curious that Shakespeare's intention here is so frequently missed. Banquo being at first strongly contrasted with Macbeth, as an innocent man with a guilty, it seems to be supposed that this contrast must be continued to his death; while, in reality, though it is never removed, it is gradually diminished. Banquo in fact may be described much more truly than Macbeth as the victim of the Witches. If we follow his story this will be evident. He bore a part only less distinguished than Macbeth's in the battles against Sweno and Macdonwald. He and Macbeth are called 'our captains,' and when they meet the Witches they are traversing the 'blasted heath' alone together. Banquo accosts the strange shapes without the slightest fear. They lay their fingers on their lips, as if to signify that they will not, or must not, speak to him. To Macbeth's brief appeal, 'Speak, if you can: what are you?' they at once reply, not by saying what they are, but by hailing him Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor, and King hereafter. Banquo is greatly surprised that his partner should start as if in fear, and observes that he is at once 'rapt'; and he bids the Witches, if they know the future, to prophesy to him, who neither begs their favour nor fears their hate. Macbeth, looking back at a later time, remembers Banquo's daring, and how

he chid the sisters, When first they put the name of king upon me, And bade them speak to him.

'Chid' is an exaggeration; but Banquo is evidently a bold man, probably an ambitious one, and certainly has no lurking guilt in his ambition. On hearing the predictions concerning himself and his descendants he makes no answer, and when the Witches are about to vanish he shows none of Macbeth's feverish anxiety to know more. On their vanishing he is simply amazed, wonders if they were anything but hallucinations, makes no reference to the predictions till Macbeth mentions them, and then answers lightly. When Ross and Angus, entering, announce to Macbeth that he has been made Thane of Cawdor, Banquo exclaims, aside, to himself or Macbeth. 'What! can the devil speak true?' He now believes that the Witches were real beings and the 'instruments of darkness.' When Macbeth, turning to him, whispers,

Do you not hope your children shall be kings, When those that gave the Thane of Cawdor to me Promised no less to them?

he draws with the boldness of innocence the inference which is really occupying Macbeth, and answers,

That, trusted home, Might yet enkindle you unto the crown Besides the Thane of Cawdor.

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Here he still speaks, I think, in a free, off-hand, even jesting, manner ('enkindle' meaning merely 'excite you to hope for'). But then, possibly from noticing something in Macbeth's face, he becomes graver, and goes on, with a significant 'but,'

But 'tis strange: And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths, Win us with honest trifles, to betray's In deepest consequence.

He afterwards observes for the second time that his partner is 'rapt'; but he explains his abstraction naturally and sincerely by referring to the surprise of his new honours; and at the close of the scene, when Macbeth proposes that they shall discuss the predictions together at some later time, he answers in the cheerful, rather bluff manner, which he has used almost throughout, 'Very gladly.' Nor was there any reason why Macbeth's rejoinder, 'Till then, enough,' should excite misgivings in him, though it implied a request for silence, and though the whole behaviour of his partner during the scene must have looked very suspicious to him when the prediction of the crown was made good through the murder of Duncan. In the next scene Macbeth and Banquo join the King, who welcomes them both with the kindest expressions of gratitude and with promises of favours to come. Macbeth has indeed already received a noble reward. Banquo, who is said by the King to have 'no less deserved,' receives as yet mere thanks. His brief and frank acknowledgment is contrasted with Macbeth's laboured rhetoric; and, as Macbeth goes out, Banquo turns with hearty praises of him to the King. And when next we see him, approaching Macbeth's castle in company with Duncan, there is still no sign of change. Indeed he gains on us. It is he who speaks the beautiful lines,

This guest of summer, The temple-haunting martlet, does approve, By his loved mansionry, that the heaven's breath Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze, Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle: Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed, The air is delicate;

-- lines which tell of that freedom of heart, and that sympathetic sense of peace and beauty, which the Macbeth of the tragedy could never feel. But now Banquo's sky begins to darken. At the opening of the Second Act we see him with Fleance crossing the court of the castle on his way to bed. The blackness of the moonless, starless night seems to oppress him. And he is oppressed by something else.

A heavy summons lies like lead upon me, And yet I would not sleep: merciful powers, Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature Gives way to in repose!

On Macbeth's entrance we know what Banquo means: he says to Macbeth -- and it is the first time he refers to the subject unprovoked,

I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters. His will is still untouched: he would repel the 'cursed thoughts'; and they are mere thoughts, not intentions. But still they are 'thoughts,' something more, probably, than mere recollections; and they bring with them an undefined sense of guilt. The poison has begun to work. The passage that follows Banquo's words to Macbeth is difficult to interpret:

I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters: To you they have show'd some truth. Macb. I think not of them:

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Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve, We would spend it in some words upon that business, If you would grant the time. Ban. At your kind'st leisure. Macb. If you shall cleave to my consent, when 'tis, It shall make honour for you. Ban. So I lose none In seeking to augment it, but still keep My bosom franchised and allegiance clear, I shall be counselled. Macb. Good repose the while! Ban. Thanks, sir: the like to you!

Macbeth's first idea is, apparently, simply to free himself from any suspicion which the discovery of the murder might suggest, by showing himself, just before it, quite indifferent to the predictions, and merely looking forward to a conversation about them at some future time. But why does he go on, 'If you shall cleave,' etc.? Perhaps he foresees that, on the discovery, Banquo cannot fail to suspect him, and thinks it safest to prepare the way at once for an understanding with him (in the original story he makes Banquo his accomplice before the murder). Banquo's answer shows three things, -- that he fears a treasonable proposal, that he has no idea of accepting it, and that he has no fear of Macbeth to restrain him from showing what is in his mind. Duncan is murdered. In the scene of discovery Banquo of course appears, and his behaviour is significant. When he enters, and Macduff cries out to him,

O Banquo, Banquo, Our royal master's murdered,

and Lady Macbeth, who has entered a moment before, exclaims,

Woe, alas! What, in our house?

his answer,

Too cruel anywhere, shows, as I have pointed out, repulsion, and we may be pretty sure that he suspects the truth at once. After a few words to Macduff he remains absolutely silent while the scene is continued for nearly forty lines. He is watching Macbeth and listening as he tells how he put the chamberlains to death in a frenzy of loyal rage. At last Banquo appears to have made up his mind. On Lady Macbeth's fainting he proposes that they shall all retire, and that they shall afterwards meet,

And question this most bloody piece of work To know it further. Fears and scruples30 shake us: In the great hand of God I stand, and thence Against the undivulged pretence31 I fight Of treasonous malice.

His solemn language here reminds us of his grave words about 'the instruments of darkness,' and of his later prayer to the 'merciful powers.' He is profoundly shocked, full of indignation, and determined to play the part of a brave and honest man. But he plays no such part. When next we see him, on the last day of his life, we find that he has yielded to evil. The Witches and his own ambition have conquered him. He alone of the lords knew of the prophecies, but he has said nothing of them. He has acquiesced in Macbeth's accession, and in the official theory that Duncan's sons had suborned the chamberlains to murder him. Doubtless, unlike Macduff, he was present at Scone to see the new king invested. He has, not formally but in effect, 'cloven to' Macbeth's 'consent'; he is knit to him by 'a most indissoluble tie'; his advice in council has been 'most grave and prosperous'; he is to be the 'chief guest' at that night's supper. And his soliloquy tells us why: 30 = doubts 31= design

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Thou hast it now: king, Cawdor, Glamis, all, As the weird women promised, and, I fear, Thou play'dst most foully for't: yet it was said It should not stand in thy posterity, But that myself should be the root and father Of many kings. If there come truth from them -- As upon thee, Macbeth, their speeches shine -- Why, by the verities on thee made good, May they not be my oracles as well, And set me up in hope? But hush! no more.

This 'hush! no more' is not the dismissal of 'cursed thoughts': it only means that he hears the trumpets announcing the entrance of the King and Queen. His punishment comes swiftly, much more swiftly than Macbeth's, and saves him from any further fall. He is a very fearless man, and still so far honourable that he has no thought of acting to bring about the fulfilment of the prophecy which has beguiled him. And therefore he has no fear of Macbeth. But he little understands him. To Macbeth's tormented mind Banquo's conduct appears highly suspicious. Why has this bold and circumspect1 man kept his secret and become his chief adviser? In order to make good his part of the predictions after Macbeth's own precedent. Banquo, he is sure, will suddenly and secretly attack him. It is not the far-off accession of Banquo's descendants that he fears; it is (so he tells himself) swift murder; not that the 'barren sceptre' will some day droop from his dying hand, but that it will be 'wrenched' away now (III. i. 62).1 So he kills Banquo. But the Banquo he kills is not the innocent soldier who met the Witches and daffed their prophecies aside, nor the man who prayed to be delivered from the temptation of his dreams. Macbeth leaves on most readers a profound impression of the misery of a guilty conscience and the retribution of crime. And the strength of this impression is one of the reasons why the tragedy is admired by readers who shrink from Othello and are made unhappy by Lear. But what Shakespeare perhaps felt even more deeply, when he wrote this play, was the incalculability of evil, -- that in meddling with it human beings do they know not what. The soul, he seems to feel, is a thing of such inconceivable depth, complexity, and delicacy, that when you introduce into it, or suffer to develop in it, any change, and particularly the change called evil, you can form only the vaguest idea of the reaction you will provoke. All you can be sure of is that it will not be what you expected, and that you cannot possibly escape it. Banquo's story, if truly apprehended, produces this impression quite as strongly as the more terrific stories of the chief characters, and perhaps even more clearly, inasmuch as he is nearer to average human nature, has obviously at first a quiet conscience, and uses with evident sincerity the language of religion. 3 Apart from his story Banquo's character is not very interesting, nor is it, I think, perfectly individual. And this holds good of the rest of the minor characters. They are sketched lightly, and are seldom developed further than the strict purposes of the action required. From this point of view they are inferior to several of the less important figures in each of the other three tragedies. The scene in which Lady Macduff and her child appear, and the passage where their slaughter is reported to Macduff, have much dramatic value, but in neither case is the effect due to any great extent to the special characters of the persons concerned. Neither they, nor Duncan, nor Malcolm, nor even Banquo himself, have been imagined intensely, and therefore they do not produce that sense of unique personality which Shakespeare could convey in a much smaller number of lines than he gives to most of them.1 And this is of course even more the case with persons like Ross, Angus, and Lennox, though each of these has distinguishable features. I doubt if any other great play of Shakespeare's contains so many speeches which a student of the play, if they were quoted to him, would be puzzled to assign to the speakers. Let the reader turn, for instance, to the second scene of the Fifth Act, and ask himself why the names of the persons should not be interchanged in all the ways mathematically possible. Can he find, again, any signs of character by which to distinguish the speeches of Ross and Angus in Act I., scenes ii and iii, or to determine that Malcolm must have spoken I. iv. 2-11? Most of this writing, we may almost say, is simply Shakespeare's writing, not that of Shakespeare become another person. And can anything like the same proportion of such writing be found in Hamlet, Othello, or King Lear? Is it possible to guess the reason of this characteristic of Macbeth? I cannot believe it is due to the presence of a second hand. The writing, mangled by the printer and perhaps by 'the players,' seems to be sometimes obviously Shakespeare's, sometimes sufficiently Shakespearean to repel any attack not based on external

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evidence. It may be, as the shortness of the play has suggested to some, that Shakespeare was hurried, and, throwing all his weight on the principal characters, did not exert himself in dealing with the rest. But there is another possibility which may be worth considering. Macbeth is distinguished by its simplicity, -- by grandeur in simplicity, no doubt, but still by simplicity. The two great figures indeed can hardly be called simple, except in comparison with such characters as Hamlet and Iago; but in almost every other respect the tragedy has this quality. Its plot is quite plain. It has very little intermixture of humour. It has little pathos except of the sternest kind. The style, for Shakespeare, has not much variety, being generally kept at a higher pitch than in the other three tragedies; and there is much less than usual of the interchange of verse and prose. All this makes for simplicity of effect. And, this being so, is it not possible that Shakespeare instinctively felt, or consciously feared, that to give much individuality or attraction to the subordinate figures would diminish this effect, and so, like a good artist, sacrificed a part to the whole? And was he wrong? He has certainly avoided the overloading which distresses us in King Lear, and has produced a tragedy utterly unlike it, not much less great as a dramatic poem, and as a drama superior. I would add, though without much confidence, another suggestion. The simplicity of Macbeth is one of the reasons why many readers feel that, in spite of its being intensely 'romantic,' it is less unlike a classical tragedy than Hamlet or Othello or King Lear. And it is possible that this effect is, in a sense, the result of design. I do not mean that Shakespeare intended to imitate a classical tragedy; I mean only that he may have seen in the bloody story of Macbeth a subject suitable for treatment in a manner somewhat nearer to that of Seneca, or of the English Senecan plays familiar to him in his youth, than was the manner of his own mature tragedies. The Witches doubtless are 'romantic,' but so is the witchcraft in Seneca's Medea and Hercules Oetueus; indeed it is difficult to read the account of Medea's preparations (670-739) without being reminded of the incantations in Macbeth. Banquo's Ghost again is 'romantic,' but so are Seneca's ghosts. For the swelling of the style in some of the great passages -- however immeasurably superior these may be to anything in Seneca -- and certainly for the turgid bombast which occasionally appears in Macbeth, and which seems to have horrified Jonson, Shakespeare might easily have found a model in Seneca. Did he not think that this was the high Roman manner? Does not the Sergeant's speech, as Coleridge observed, recall the style of the 'passionate speech' of the Player in Hamlet -- a speech, be it observed, on a Roman subject? And is it entirely an accident that parallels between Seneca and Shakespeare seem to be more frequent in Macbeth than in any other of his undoubtedly genuine works except perhaps Richard III., a tragedy unquestionably influenced either by Seneca or by English Senecan plays?1 If there is anything in these suggestions, and if we suppose that Shakespeare meant to give to his play a certain classical tinge, he might naturally carry out this idea in respect to the characters, as well as in other respects, by concentrating almost the whole interest on the important figures and leaving the others comparatively shadowy. Macbeth being more simple than the other tragedies, and broader and more massive in effect, three passages in it are of great importance as securing variety in tone, and also as affording relief from the feelings excited by the Witch-scenes and the principal characters. They are the passage where the Porter appears, the conversation between Lady Macduff and her little boy, and the passage where Macduff receives the news of the daughter of his wife and babes. Yet the first of these, we are told even by Coleridge, is unworthy of Shakespeare and is not his; and the second, with the rest of the scene which contains it, appears to be usually omitted in stage representations of Macbeth. I question if either this scene or the exhibition of Macduff's grief is required to heighten our abhorrence of Macbeth's cruelty. They have a technical value in helping to give the last stage of the action the form of a conflict between Macbeth and Macduff. But their chief function is of another kind. It is to touch the heart with a sense of beauty and pathos, to open the springs of love and of tears. Shakespeare is loved for the sweetness of his humanity, and because he makes this kind of appeal with such irresistible persuasion; and the reason why Macbeth, though admired as much as any work of his, is scarcely loved, is that the characters who predominate cannot make this kind of appeal, and at no point are able to inspire unmingled sympathy. The two passages in question supply this want in such measure as Shakespeare thought advisable in Macbeth, and the play would suffer greatly from their excision. The second, on the stage, is extremely moving, and Macbeth's reception of the news of his wife's death may be intended to recall it by way of contrast. The first brings a relief even greater, because here the element of beauty is more marked, and because humour is mingled with pathos. In both we escape from the oppression of huge sins and sufferings into the presence of the wholesome affections of unambitious hearts; and, though both scenes are painful and one dreadful, our sympathies can flow unchecked. Lady Macduff is a simple wife and mother, who has no thought for anything beyond her home. Her love for her children shows her at once that her husband's flight exposes them to terrible danger. She is in an agony of fear for them, and full of indignation against him. It does not even occur to her that he has acted from public spirit, or that there is such a thing.

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What had he done to make him fly the land?

He must have been mad to do it. He fled for fear. He does not love his wife and children. He is a traitor. The poor soul is almost beside herself -- and with too good reason. But when the murderer bursts in with the question 'Where is your husband?' she becomes in a moment the wife, and the great noble's wife:

I hope, in no place so unsanctified Where such as thou may'st find him.

What did Shakespeare mean us to think of Macduff's flight, for which Macduff has been much blamed by others beside his wife? Certainly not that fear for himself, or want of love for his family, had anything to do with it. His love for his country, so strongly marked in the scene with Malcolm, is evidently his one motive.

He is noble, wise, judicious, and best knows The fits o' the season,

says Ross. That his flight was 'noble' is beyond doubt. That it was not wise or judicious in the interest of his family is no less clear. But that does not show that it was wrong; and, even if it were, to represent its consequences as a judgment on him for his want of due consideration is equally monstrous and ludicrous. The further question whether he did fail in due consideration, or whether for his country's sake he deliberately risked a danger which he fully realized, would in Shakespeare's theatre have been answered at once by Macduff's expression and demeanour on hearing Malcolm's words,

Why in that rawness left you wife and child, Those precious motives, those strong knots of love, Without leave-taking?

It cannot be decided with certainty from the mere text; but, without going into the considerations on each side, I may express the opinion that Macduff knew well what he was doing, and that he fled without leave-taking for fear his purpose should give way. Perhaps he said to himself, with Coriolanus,

Not of a woman's tenderness to be, Requires nor child nor woman's face to see.

Little Macduff suggests a few words on Shakespeare's boys (there are scarcely any little girls). It is somewhat curious that nearly all of them appear in tragic or semi-tragic dramas. I remember but two exceptions: little William Page, who said his Hic, haec, hoc to Sir Hugh Evans; and the page before whom Falstaff walked like a sow that hath overwhelmed all her litter but one; and it is to be feared that even this page, if he is the Boy of Henry V., came to an ill end, being killed with the luggage.

So wise so young, they say, do ne'er live long, as Richard observed of the little Prince of Wales. Of too many of these children (some of the 'boys,' e.g. those in Cymbeline, are lads, not children) the saying comes true. They are pathetic figures, the more so because they so often appear in company with their unhappy mothers, and can never be thought of apart from them. Perhaps Arthur is even the first creation in which Shakespeare's power of pathos showed itself mature;1 and the last of his children, Mamillius, assuredly proves that it never decayed. They are almost all of them noble figures, too affectionate, frank, brave, high-spirited, 'of an open and free nature' like Shakespeare's best men. And almost all of them, again, are amusing and charming as well as pathetic; comical in their mingled acuteness and naïveté, charming in their confidence in themselves and the world, and in the seriousness with which they receive the jocosity of their elders, who commonly address them as strong men, great warriors, or profound politicians. Little Macduff exemplifies most of these remarks. There is nothing in the scene of a transcendent kind, like the passage about Mamillius's never-finished 'Winter's Tale' of the man who dwelt by a churchyard, or the passage about his death, or that about little Marcius and the butterfly, or the audacity which introduces him, at the supreme moment of the tragedy, outdoing the appeals of Volumnia and Virgilia by the statement,

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'A shall not tread on me: I'll run away till I'm bigger, but then I'll fight.

Still one does not easily forget little Macduff's delightful and well justified confidence in his ability to defeat his mother in argument; or the deep impression she made on him when she spoke of his father as a 'traitor'; or his immediate response when he heard the murderer call his father by the same name, --

Thou liest, thou shag-haired villain. Nor am I sure that, if the son of Coriolanus had been murdered, his last words to his mother would have been, 'Run away, I pray you.' I may add two remarks. The presence of this child is one of the things in which Macbeth reminds us of Richard III. And he is perhaps the only person in the tragedy who provokes a smile. I say 'perhaps,' for though the anxiety of the Doctor to escape from the company of his patient's husband makes one smile, I am not sure that it was meant to. 4 The Porter does not make me smile: the moment is too terrific. He is grotesque; no doubt the contrast he affords is humorous as well as ghastly; I dare say the groundlings roared with laughter at his coarsest remarks. But they are not comic enough to allow one to forget for a moment what has preceded and what must follow. And I am far from complaining of this. I believe that it is what Shakespeare intended, and that he despised the groundlings if they laughed. Of course he could have written without the least difficulty speeches five times as humorous; but he knew better. The Grave-diggers make us laugh; the old Countryman who brings the asps to Cleopatra makes us smile at least. But the Grave-digger scene does not come at a moment of extreme tension; and it is long. Our distress for Ophelia is not so absorbing that we refuse to be interested in the man who digs her grave, or even continue throughout the long conversation to remember always with pain that the grave is hers. It is fitting, therefore, that he should be made decidedly humorous. The passage in Antony and Cleopatra is much nearer to the passage in Macbeth, and seems to have been forgotten by those who say that there is nothing in Shakespeare resembling that passage. The old Countryman comes at a moment of tragic exaltation, and the dialogue is appropriately brief. But the moment, though tragic, is emphatically one of exaltation. We have not been feeling horror, nor are we feeling a dreadful suspense. We are going to see Cleopatra die, but she is to die gloriously and to triumph over Octavius. And therefore our amusement at the old Countryman and the contrast he affords to these high passions, is untroubled, and it was right to make him really comic. But the Porter's case is quite different. We cannot forget how the knocking that makes him grumble sounded to Macbeth, or that within a few minutes of his opening the gate Duncan will be discovered in his blood; nor can we help feeling that in pretending to be porter of hell-gate he is terribly near the truth. To give him language so humorous that it would ask us almost to lose the sense of these things would have been a fatal mistake -- the kind of mistake that means want of dramatic imagination. And that was not the sort of error into which Shakespeare fell. To doubt the genuineness of the passage, then, on the ground that it is not humorous enough for Shakespeare, seems to me to show this want. It is to judge the passage as though it were a separate composition, instead of conceiving it in the fullness of its relations to its surroundings in a stage-play. Taken by itself, I admit, it would bear no indubitable mark of Shakespeare's authorship, not even in the phrase 'the primrose way to the everlasting bonfire,' which Coleridge thought Shakespeare might have added to an interpolation of 'the players.' And if there were reason (as in my judgment there is not) to suppose that Shakespeare thus permitted an interpolation, or that he collaborated with another author, I could believe that he left 'the players' or his collaborator to write the words of the passage. But that anyone except the author of the scene of Duncan's murder conceived the passage, is incredible. The speeches of the Porter, a low comic character, are in prose. So is the letter of Macbeth to his wife. In both these cases Shakespeare follows his general rule or custom. The only other prose speeches occur in the sleep- walking scene, and here the use of prose may seem strange. For in great tragic scenes we expect the more poetic medium of expression, and this is one of the most famous of such scenes. Besides, unless I mistake, Lady Macbeth is the only one of Shakespeare's great tragic characters who on a last appearance is denied the dignity of verse. Yet in this scene also he adheres to his custom. Somnambulism is an abnormal condition, and it is his general rule to assign prose to persons whose state of mind is abnormal. Thus, to illustrate from these four plays, Hamlet when playing the madman speaks prose, but in soliloquy, in talking with Horatio, and in pleading with his mother,

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he speaks verse. Ophelia in her madness either sings snatches of songs or speaks prose. Almost all Lear's speeches, after he has become definitely insane, are in prose: where he wakes from sleep recovered, the verse returns. The prose enters with that speech which closes with his trying to tear off his clothes; but he speaks in verse -- some of it very irregular -- in the Timon-like speeches where his intellect suddenly in his madness seems to regain the force of his best days (IV. vi). Othello, in IV. i., speaks in verse till the moment when Iago tells him that Cassio has confessed. There follow ten lines of prose -- exclamations and mutterings of bewildered horror -- and he falls to the ground unconscious. The idea underlying this custom of Shakespeare's evidently is that the regular rhythm of verse would be inappropriate where the mind is supposed to have lost its balance and to be at the mercy of chance impressions coming from without (as sometimes with Lear), or of ideas emerging from its unconscious depths and pursuing one another across its passive surface. The somnambulism of Lady Macbeth is such a condition. There is no rational connection in the sequence of images and ideas. The sight of blood on her hand, the sound of the clock striking the hour for Duncan's murder, the hesitation of her husband before that hour came, the vision of the old man in his blood, the idea of the murdered wife of Macduff, the sight of the hand again, Macbeth's 'flaws and starts' at the sight of Banquo's ghost, the smell on her hand, the washing of hands after Duncan's murder again, her husband's fear of the buried Banquo, the sound of the knocking at the gate -- these possess her, one after another, in this chance order. It is not much less accidental than the order of Ophelia's ideas; the great difference is that with Ophelia total insanity has effaced or greatly weakened the emotional force of the ideas, whereas to Lady Macbeth each new image or perception comes laden with anguish. There is, again, scarcely a sign of the exaltation of disordered imagination; we are conscious rather of an intense suffering which forces its way into light against resistance, and speaks a language for the most part strikingly bare in its diction and simple in its construction. This language stands in strong contrast with that of Macbeth in the surrounding scenes, full of a feverish and almost furious excitement, and seems to express a far more desolating misery. The effect is extraordinarily impressive. The soaring pride and power of Lady Macbeth's first speeches return on our memory, and the change is felt with a breathless awe. Any attempt, even by Shakespeare, to draw out the moral enfolded in this awe, would weaken it. For the moment, too, all the language of poetry -- even of Macbeth's poetry -- seems to be touched with unreality, and these brief toneless sentences seem the only voice of truth.

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Short Stories Essay Length: 5-7 pages Due Date: Check Canvas Task: Write an essay that addresses one of the options below Option One: Explore how Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “The Handsomest Drowned Man” (a) incorporates elements of magical realism and (b) represents an origin myth for this small town. Option Two: Explore the frantic, manic tone and repetitions of the unreliable narrator in Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Option Three: Explore the epiphany that the young boy has in James Joyce’s “Araby.” An epiphany is a sudden revelation of truth, usually inspired by a seemingly trivial incident (you should explain the epiphany itself, the circumstances leading up to it, and the knowledge or realization that the character seems to gain through the epiphany). Option Four: Explore (a) how Rachel B. Glasser’s “Pee on Water” provides a very fragmented “history” of the world and the significance of the evolution of where we urinate and (b) what we might infer about whether we are more advanced in this day and age. When you refer to the title of the short story in your essay, place quotation marks around the title. Textual Analysis: Make sure that you analyze the text of the story. You do not need to analyze everything, but you should definitely quote significant passages and explain them. Refer to your notes from the class lectures and discussions to help you incorporate some of the bigger themes and questions of the story. Make sure you explore the specific direction explained in the options above. Audience: Your audience is familiar with the plot of the story, so do not just tell us what happens. Your task is to explore the specific direction as stated in the options above—and then, in order to provide evidence for your conclusions, you must very carefully analyze specific blocks of text to provide evidence for how that theme/literary style works in the story. To Prepare: To help you better prepare for the essay, I want you, before you begin, to print out copies of the soliloquies you are writing about and then, in the margins, summarize, word for word, what the character is describing/discussing. I’d also like you to write down your initial reflections and analyses about what you might infer from the language of the soliloquies. DO NOT submit this to me or Canvas. Structure: For this essay, begin with • A formal introduction that (a) establishes the nature / plot of the short story (very brief summary) and

introduces the theme or literary style [“Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” = magical realism and origin myth; “The Tell-Tale Heart”= unreliable narrator; “Araby” = epiphany; “Pee on Water” = fragmented history and (b) provides a thesis that specifically asserts the importance of the soliloquy in the play.

• Your body paragraphs must explore the nature of that theme/literary style by specifically analyzing the text. Do not just retell the story. You are exploring the actual language of the text and showing how the theme/literary style works. SHOW us … do NOT just tell us.

• Your conclusion must be a conclusion that comes from your analysis of the story’s text and your discussion of how the theme and/or literary style relates to the overall story and then specifically concludes what the importance of the theme and/or literary styles is/are.

Citation: You will be analyzing one short story—so once you state the title and author of the story in your introduction, for the rest of the essay you only need to cite the page number from the course reader. Your works cited page citation should look like this: Glaser, Rachel B. “Pee on Water.” English 1B Course Reader. Edited by Nathan Wirth, Nathan’s Mind Inc.,

2019. Outside Sources: I do not want you to reference any outside sources. Upload to Canvas: (1) A letter that discusses your difficulties and/or successes writing the essay (2) Your Final Draft. Please make the first page of the document your process letter. You can find a sample process letter in this course reader. Formatting: Check the course reader for formatting rules.

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The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World: A Story for Children by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Translated by Gregory Rabassa) THE FIRST CHILDREN who saw the dark and slinky bulge approaching through the sea let themselves think it was an enemy ship. Then they saw it had no flags or masts and they thought it was a whale. But when it washed up on the beach, they removed the clumps of seaweed, the jellyfish tentacles, and the remains of fish and flotsam, and only then did they see that it was a drowned man. They had been playing with him all afternoon, burying him in the sand and digging him up again, when someone chanced to see them and spread the alarm in the village. The men who carried him to the nearest house noticed that he weighed more than any dead man they had ever known, almost as much as a horse, and they said to each other that maybe he'd been floating too long and the water had got into his bones. When they laid him on the floor they said he'd been taller than all other men because there was barely enough room for him in the house, but they thought that maybe the ability to keep on growing after death was part of the nature of certain drowned men. He had the smell of the sea about him and only his shape gave one to suppose that it was the corpse of a human being, because the skin was covered with a crust of mud and scales. They did not even have to clean off his face to know that the dead man was a stranger. The village was made up of only twenty-odd wooden houses that had stone courtyards with no flowers and which were spread about on the end of a desert-like cape. There was so little land that mothers always went about with the fear that the wind would carry off their children and the few dead that the years had caused among them had to be thrown off the cliffs. But the sea was calm and bountiful and all the men fitted into seven boats. So when they found the drowned man they simply had to look at one another to see that they were all there. That night they did not go out to work at sea. While the men went to find out if anyone was missing in neighboring villages, the women stayed behind to care for the drowned man. They took the mud off with grass swabs, they removed the underwater stones entangled in his hair, and they scraped the crust off with tools used for scaling fish. As they were doing that they noticed that the vegetation on him came from faraway oceans and deep water and that his clothes were in tatters, as if he had sailed through labyrinths of coral. They noticed too that he bore his death with pride, for he did not have the lonely look of other drowned men who came out of the sea or that haggard, needy look of men who drowned in rivers. But only when they finished cleaning him off did they become aware of the kind of man he was and it left them breathless. Not only was he the tallest, strongest, most virile, and best built man they had ever seen, but even though they were looking at him there was no room for him in their imagination. They could not find a bed in the village large enough to lay him on nor was there a table solid enough to use for his wake. The tallest men's holiday pants would not fit him, nor the fattest ones' Sunday shirts, nor the shoes of the one with the biggest feet. Fascinated by his huge size and his beauty, the women then decided to make him some pants from a large piece of sail and a shirt from some bridal linen so that he could continue through his death with dignity. As they sewed, sitting in a circle and gazing at the corpse between stitches, it seemed to them that the wind had never been so steady nor the sea so restless as on that night and they supposed that the change had something to do with the dead man. They thought that if that magnificent man had lived in the village, his house would have had the widest doors, the highest ceiling, and the strongest floor, his bedstead would have been made from a midship frame held together by iron bolts, and his wife would have been the happiest woman. They thought that he would have had so much authority that he could have drawn fish out of the sea simply by calling their names and that he would have put so much work into his land that springs would have burst forth from among the rocks so that he would have been able to plant flowers on the cliffs. They secretly compared him to their own men, thinking that for all their lives theirs were incapable of doing what he could do in one night, and they ended up dismissing them deep in their hearts as the weakest, meanest and most useless creatures on earth. They were wandering through that maze of fantasy when

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the oldest woman, who as the oldest had looked upon the drowned man with more compassion than passion, sighed: 'He has the face of someone called Esteban.' It was true. Most of them had only to take another look at him to see that he could not have any other name. The more stubborn among them, who were the youngest, still lived for a few hours with the illusion that when they put his clothes on and he lay among the flowers in patent leather shoes his name might be Lautaro. But it was a vain illusion. There had not been enough canvas, the poorly cut and worse sewn pants were too tight, and the hidden strength of his heart popped the buttons on his shirt. After midnight the whistling of the wind died down and the sea fell into its Wednesday drowsiness. The silence put an end to any last doubts: he was Esteban. The women who had dressed him, who had combed his hair, had cut his nails and shaved him were unable to hold back a shudder of pity when they had to resign themselves to his being dragged along the ground. It was then that they understood how unhappy he must have been with that huge body since it bothered him even after death. They could see him in life, condemned to going through doors sideways, cracking his head on crossbeams, remaining on his feet during visits, not knowing what to do with his soft, pink, sea lion hands while the lady of the house looked for her most resistant chair and begged him, frightened to death, sit here, Esteban, please, and he, leaning against the wall, smiling, don't bother, ma'am, I'm fine where I am, his heels raw and his back roasted from having done the same thing so many times whenever he paid a visit, don't bother, ma'am, I'm fine where I am, just to avoid the embarrassment of breaking up the chair, and never knowing perhaps that the ones who said don't go, Esteban, at least wait till the coffee's ready, were the ones who later on would whisper the big boob finally left, how nice, the handsome fool has gone. That was what the women were thinking beside the body a little before dawn. Later, when they covered his face with a handkerchief so that the light would not bother him, he looked so forever dead, so defenseless, so much like their men that the first furrows of tears opened in their hearts. It was one of the younger ones who began the weeping. The others, coming to, went from sighs to wails, and the more they sobbed the more they felt like weeping, because the drowned man was becoming all the more Esteban for them, and so they wept so much, for he was the more destitute, most peaceful, and most obliging man on earth, poor Esteban. So when the men returned with the news that the drowned man was not from the neighboring villages either, the women felt an opening of jubilation in the midst of their tears.

'Praise the Lord,' they sighed, 'he's ours!' The men thought the fuss was only womanish frivolity. Fatigued because of the difficult nighttime inquiries, all they wanted was to get rid of the bother of the newcomer once and for all before the sun grew strong on that arid, windless day. They improvised a litter32 with the remains of foremasts and gaffs, tying it together with rigging so that it would bear the weight of the body until they reached the cliffs. They wanted to tie the anchor from a cargo ship to him so that he would sink easily into the deepest waves, where fish are blind and divers die of nostalgia, and bad currents would not bring him back to shore, as had happened with other bodies. But the more they hurried, the more the women thought of ways to waste time. They walked about like startled hens, pecking with the sea charms on their breasts, some interfering on one side to put a scapular33 of the good wind on the drowned man, some on the other side to put a wrist compass on him , and after a great deal of get away from there, woman, stay out of the way, look, you almost made me fall on top of the dead man, the men began to feel mistrust in their livers and started grumbling about why so many main-altar decorations for a stranger, because no matter how many nails and holy-water jars he had on him, the sharks would chew him all the same, but the women kept piling on their junk relics, running back and forth, stumbling, while they released in sighs what they did not in tears, so that the men finally exploded with since when has there ever been such a fuss over a drifting corpse, a drowned nobody, a piece of cold Wednesday 32 Litter: a framework of cloth stretched between two parallel bars, for the transportation of a sick or wounded person; stretcher.scapular

33 Scapular: two small pieces of woolen cloth, joined by strings passing over the shoulders, worn under the ordinary clothing as a badge of affiliation with a religious order, a token of devotion, etc.

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meat. One of the women, mortified by so much lack of care, then removed the handkerchief from the dead man's face and the men were left breathless too. He was Esteban. It was not necessary to repeat it for them to recognize him. If they had been told Sir Walter Raleigh, even they might have been impressed with his gringo accent, the macaw on his shoulder, his cannibal-killing blunderbuss, but there could be only one Esteban in the world and there he was, stretched out like a sperm whale, shoeless, wearing the pants of an undersized child, and with those stony nails that had to be cut with a knife. They only had to take the handkerchief off his face to see that he was ashamed, that it was not his fault that he was so big or so heavy or so handsome, and if he had known that this was going to happen, he would have looked for a more discreet place to drown in, seriously, I even would have tied the anchor off a galleon around my nick and staggered off a cliff like someone who doesn't like things in order not to be upsetting people now with this Wednesday dead body, as you people say, in order not to be bothering anyone with this filthy piece of cold meat that doesn't have anything to do with me. There was so much truth in his manner that even the most mistrustful men, the ones who felt the bitterness of endless nights at sea fearing that their women would tire of dreaming about them and begin to dream of drowned men, even they and others who were harder still shuddered in the marrow of their bones at Esteban's sincerity. That was how they came to hold the most splendid funeral they could ever conceive of for an abandoned drowned man. Some women who had gone to get flowers in the neighboring villages returned with other women who could not believe what they had been told, and those women went back for more flowers when they saw the dead man, and they brought more and more until there were so many flowers and so many people that it was hard to walk about. At the final moment it pained them to return him to the waters as an orphan and they chose a father and mother from among the best people, and aunts and uncles and cousins, so that through him all the inhabitants of the village became kinsmen. Some sailors who heard the weeping from a distance went off course and people heard of one who had himself tied to the mainmast, remembering ancient fables about sirens. While they fought for the privilege of carrying him on their shoulders along the steep escarpment by the cliffs, men and women became aware for the first time of the desolation of their streets, the dryness of their courtyards, the narrowness of their dreams as they faced the splendor and beauty of their drowned man. They let him go without an anchor so that he could come back if he wished and whenever he wished, and they all held their breath for the fraction of centuries the body took to fall into the abyss. They did not need to look at one another to realize that they were no longer all present, that they would never be. But they also knew that everything would be different from then on, that their houses would have wider doors, higher ceilings, and stronger floors so that Esteban's memory could go everywhere without bumping into beams and so that no one in the future would dare whisper the big boob finally died, too bad, the handsome fool has finally died, because they were going to paint their house fronts gay colors to make Esteban's memory eternal and they were going to break their backs digging for springs among the stones and planting flowers on the cliffs so that in future years at dawn the passengers on great liners would awaken, suffocated by the smell of gardens on the high seas, and the captain would have to come down from the bridge in his dress uniform, with his astrolabe, his pole star, and his row of war medals and, pointing to the promontory of roses on the horizon, he would say in fourteen languages, look there, where the wind is so peaceful now that it's gone to sleep beneath the beds, over there, where the sun's so bright that the sunflowers don't know which way to turn, yes, over there, that's Esteban's village.

The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe

True! --nervous --very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses --not destroyed --not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily --how calmly I can tell you the whole story.

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It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture --a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees --very gradually --I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.

Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded --with what caution --with what foresight --with what dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him. And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it --oh so gently! And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed, closed, that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowly --very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man's sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha! would a madman have been so wise as this, And then, when my head was well in the room, I undid the lantern cautiously-oh, so cautiously --cautiously (for the hinges creaked) --I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye. And this I did for seven long nights --every night just at midnight --but I found the eye always closed; and so it was impossible to do the work; for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye. And every morning, when the day broke, I went boldly into the chamber, and spoke courageously to him, calling him by name in a hearty tone, and inquiring how he has passed the night. So you see he would have been a very profound old man, indeed, to suspect that every night, just at twelve, I looked in upon him while he slept.

Upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in opening the door. A watch's minute hand moves more quickly than did mine. Never before that night had I felt the extent of my own powers --of my sagacity. I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. To think that there I was, opening the door, little by little, and he not even to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts. I fairly chuckled at the idea; and perhaps he heard me; for he moved on the bed suddenly, as if startled. Now you may think that I drew back --but no. His room was as black as pitch with the thick darkness, (for the shutters were close fastened, through fear of robbers,) and so I knew that he could not see the opening of the door, and I kept pushing it on steadily, steadily. I had my head in, and was about to open the lantern, when my thumb slipped upon the tin fastening, and the old man sprang up in bed, crying out --"Who's there?" I kept quite still and said nothing. For a whole hour I did not move a muscle, and in the meantime I did not hear him lie down. He was still sitting up in the bed listening; --just as I have done, night after night, hearkening to the death watches in the wall.

Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of grief --oh, no! --it was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well. Many a night, just at midnight, when all the world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted me. I say I knew it well. I knew what the old man felt, and pitied him, although I chuckled at heart. I knew that he had been lying awake ever since the first slight noise, when he had turned in the bed. His fears had been ever since growing upon him. He had been trying to fancy them causeless, but could not. He had been saying to himself --"It is nothing but the wind in the chimney --it is only a mouse crossing the floor," or "It is merely a cricket which has made a single chirp." Yes, he had been trying to comfort himself with these suppositions: but he had found all in vain. All in vain; because Death, in approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before him, and enveloped the victim. And it was the mournful influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel --although he neither saw nor heard --to feel the presence of my head within the room.

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When I had waited a long time, very patiently, without hearing him lie down, I resolved to open a little -- a very, very little crevice in the lantern. So I opened it --you cannot imagine how stealthily, stealthily -- until, at length a simple dim ray, like the thread of the spider, shot from out the crevice and fell full upon the vulture eye. It was open --wide, wide open --and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness --all a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones; but I could see nothing else of the old man's face or person: for I had directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the damned spot. And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over- acuteness of the sense? --now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man's heart. It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage.

But even yet I refrained and kept still. I scarcely breathed. I held the lantern motionless. I tried how steadily I could maintain the ray upon the eve. Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart increased. It grew quicker and quicker, and louder and louder every instant. The old man's terror must have been extreme! It grew louder, I say, louder every moment! --do you mark me well I have told you that I am nervous: so I am. And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror. Yet, for some minutes longer I refrained and stood still. But the beating grew louder, louder! I thought the heart must burst. And now a new anxiety seized me --the sound would be heard by a neighbour! The old man's hour had come! With a loud yell, I threw open the lantern and leaped into the room. He shrieked once --once only. In an instant I dragged him to the floor, and pulled the heavy bed over him. I then smiled gaily, to find the deed so far done. But, for many minutes, the heart beat on with a muffled sound. This, however, did not vex me; it would not be heard through the wall. At length it ceased. The old man was dead. I removed the bed and examined the corpse. Yes, he was stone, stone dead. I placed my hand upon the heart and held it there many minutes. There was no pulsation. He was stone dead. His eye would trouble me no more.

If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body. The night waned, and I worked hastily, but in silence. First of all I dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and the arms and the legs. I then took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber, and deposited all between the scantlings. I then replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye --not even his --could have detected any thing wrong. There was nothing to wash out --no stain of any kind --no blood-spot whatever. I had been too wary for that. A tub had caught all --ha! ha! When I had made an end of these labors, it was four o'clock --still dark as midnight. As the bell sounded the hour, there came a knocking at the street door. I went down to open it with a light heart, --for what had I now to fear? There entered three men, who introduced themselves, with perfect suavity, as officers of the police. A shriek had been heard by a neighbour during the night; suspicion of foul play had been aroused; information had been lodged at the police office, and they (the officers) had been deputed to search the premises. I smiled, --for what had I to fear? I bade the gentlemen welcome. The shriek, I said, was my own in a dream. The old man, I mentioned, was absent in the country. I took my visitors all over the house. I bade them search --search well. I led them, at length, to his chamber. I showed them his treasures, secure, undisturbed. In the enthusiasm of my confidence, I brought chairs into the room, and desired them here to rest from their fatigues, while I myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph, placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim.

The officers were satisfied. My manner had convinced them. I was singularly at ease. They sat, and while I answered cheerily, they chatted of familiar things. But, ere long, I felt myself getting pale and wished them gone. My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in my ears: but still they sat and still chatted. The ringing became more distinct: --It continued and became more distinct: I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling: but it continued and gained definiteness --until, at length, I found that the noise was not within my ears. No doubt I now grew very pale; --but I talked more fluently, and with a heightened

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voice. Yet the sound increased --and what could I do? It was a low, dull, quick sound --much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breath --and yet the officers heard it not. I talked more quickly --more vehemently; but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased. Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the men --but the noise steadily increased. Oh God! what could I do? I foamed --I raved --I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder --louder --louder! And still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God! --no, no! They heard! --they suspected! --they knew! --they were making a mockery of my horror!-this I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than this agony! Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die! and now --again! --hark! louder! louder! louder! louder!

"Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! --tear up the planks! here, here! --It is the beating of his hideous heart!"

Araby by James Joyce (From Joyce’s short story collection Dubliners) North Richmond Street, being blind, was a quiet street except at the hour when the Christian Brothers' School set the boys free. An uninhabited house of two storeys stood at the blind end, detached from its neighbours in a square ground. The other houses of the street, conscious of decent lives within them, gazed at one another with brown imperturbable faces. The former tenant of our house, a priest, had died in the back drawing-room. Air, musty from having been long enclosed, hung in all the rooms, and the waste room behind the kitchen was littered with old useless papers. Among these I found a few paper-covered books, the pages of which were curled and damp: The Abbot, by Walter Scott, The Devout Communicant, and The Memoirs of Vidocq. I liked the last best because its leaves were yellow. The wild garden behind the house contained a central apple-tree and a few straggling bushes, under one of which I found the late tenant's rusty bicycle-pump. He had been a very charitable priest; in his will he had left all his money to institutions and the furniture of his house to his sister. When the short days of winter came, dusk fell before we had well eaten our dinners. When we met in the street the houses had grown sombre. The space of sky above us was the colour of ever-changing violet and towards it the lamps of the street lifted their feeble lanterns. The cold air stung us and we played till our bodies glowed. Our shouts echoed in the silent street. The career of our play brought us through the dark muddy lanes behind the houses, where we ran the gauntlet of the rough tribes from the cottages, to the back doors of the dark dripping gardens where odours arose from the ashpits, to the dark odorous stables where a coachman smoothed and combed the horse or shook music from the buckled harness. When we returned to the street, light from the kitchen windows had filled the areas. If my uncle was seen turning the corner, we hid in the shadow until we had seen him safely housed. Or if Mangan's sister came out on the doorstep to call her brother in to his tea, we watched her from our shadow peer up and down the street. We waited to see whether she would remain or go in and, if she remained, we left our shadow and walked up to Mangan's steps resignedly. She was waiting for us, her figure defined by the light from the half-opened door. Her brother always teased her before he obeyed, and I stood by the railings looking at her. Her dress swung as she moved her body, and the soft rope of her hair tossed from side to side.

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Every morning I lay on the floor in the front parlour watching her door. The blind was pulled down to within an inch of the sash so that I could not be seen. When she came out on the doorstep my heart leaped. I ran to the hall, seized my books and followed her. I kept her brown figure always in my eye and, when we came near the point at which our ways diverged, I quickened my pace and passed her. This happened morning after morning. I had never spoken to her, except for a few casual words, and yet her name was like a summons to all my foolish blood. Her image accompanied me even in places the most hostile to romance. On Saturday evenings when my aunt went marketing I had to go to carry some of the parcels. We walked through the flaring streets, jostled by drunken men and bargaining women, amid the curses of labourers, the shrill litanies of shop- boys who stood on guard by the barrels of pigs' cheeks, the nasal chanting of street-singers, who sang a come-all-you about O'Donovan Rossa, or a ballad about the troubles in our native land. These noises converged in a single sensation of life for me: I imagined that I bore my chalice safely through a throng of foes. Her name sprang to my lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which I myself did not understand. My eyes were often full of tears (I could not tell why) and at times a flood from my heart seemed to pour itself out into my bosom. I thought little of the future. I did not know whether I would ever speak to her or not or, if I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my confused adoration. But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires. One evening I went into the back drawing-room in which the priest had died. It was a dark rainy evening and there was no sound in the house. Through one of the broken panes I heard the rain impinge upon the earth, the fine incessant needles of water playing in the sodden beds. Some distant lamp or lighted window gleamed below me. I was thankful that I could see so little. All my senses seemed to desire to veil themselves and, feeling that I was about to slip from them, I pressed the palms of my hands together until they trembled, murmuring: 'O love! O love!' many times. At last she spoke to me. When she addressed the first words to me I was so confused that I did not know what to answer. She asked me was I going to Araby. I forgot whether I answered yes or no. It would be a splendid bazaar; she said she would love to go. 'And why can't you?' I asked. While she spoke she turned a silver bracelet round and round her wrist. She could not go, she said, because there would be a retreat that week in her convent. Her brother and two other boys were fighting for their caps, and I was alone at the railings. She held one of the spikes, bowing her head towards me. The light from the lamp opposite our door caught the white curve of her neck, lit up her hair that rested there and, falling, lit up the hand upon the railing. It fell over one side of her dress and caught the white border of a petticoat, just visible as she stood at ease. 'It's well for you,' she said. 'If I go,' I said, 'I will bring you something.' What innumerable follies laid waste my waking and sleeping thoughts after that evening! I wished to annihilate the tedious intervening days. I chafed against the work of school. At night in my bedroom and by day in the classroom her image came between me and the page I strove to read. The syllables of the word Araby were called to me through the silence in which my soul luxuriated and cast an Eastern enchantment over me. I asked for leave to go to the bazaar on Saturday night. My aunt was surprised, and hoped it was not some Freemason affair. I answered few questions in class. I watched my master's face pass from amiability to sternness; he hoped I was not beginning to idle. I could not call my wandering thoughts together. I had hardly any patience with the serious work of life which, now that it

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stood between me and my desire, seemed to me child's play, ugly monotonous child's play. On Saturday morning I reminded my uncle that I wished to go to the bazaar in the evening. He was fussing at the hallstand, looking for the hat-brush, and answered me curtly: 'Yes, boy, I know.' As he was in the hall I could not go into the front parlour and lie at the window. I felt the house in bad humour and walked slowly towards the school. The air was pitilessly raw and already my heart misgave me. When I came home to dinner my uncle had not yet been home. Still it was early. I sat staring at the clock for some time and, when its ticking began to irritate me, I left the room. I mounted the staircase and gained the upper part of the house. The high, cold, empty, gloomy rooms liberated me and I went from room to room singing. From the front window I saw my companions playing below in the street. Their cries reached me weakened and indistinct and, leaning my forehead against the cool glass, I looked over at the dark house where she lived. I may have stood there for an hour, seeing nothing but the brown- clad figure cast by my imagination, touched discreetly by the lamplight at the curved neck, at the hand upon the railings and at the border below the dress. When I came downstairs again I found Mrs Mercer sitting at the fire. She was an old, garrulous woman, a pawnbroker's widow, who collected used stamps for some pious purpose. I had to endure the gossip of the tea-table. The meal was prolonged beyond an hour and still my uncle did not come. Mrs Mercer stood up to go: she was sorry she couldn't wait any longer, but it was after eight o'clock and she did not like to be out late, as the night air was bad for her. When she had gone I began to walk up and down the room, clenching my fists. My aunt said: 'I'm afraid you may put off your bazaar for this night of Our Lord.' At nine o'clock I heard my uncle's latchkey in the hall door. I heard him talking to himself and heard the hallstand rocking when it had received the weight of his overcoat. I could interpret these signs. When he was midway through his dinner I asked him to give me the money to go to the bazaar. He had forgotten. 'The people are in bed and after their first sleep now,' he said. I did not smile. My aunt said to him energetically: 'Can't you give him the money and let him go? You've kept him late enough as it is.' My uncle said he was very sorry he had forgotten. He said he believed in the old saying: 'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.' He asked me where I was going and, when I told him a second time, he asked me did I know The Arab's Farewell to his Steed. When I left the kitchen he was about to recite the opening lines of the piece to my aunt. I held a florin tightly in my hand as I strode down Buckingham Street towards the station. The sight of the streets thronged with buyers and glaring with gas recalled to me the purpose of my journey. I took my seat in a third-class carriage of a deserted train. After an intolerable delay the train moved out of the station slowly. It crept onward among ruinous houses and over the twinkling river. At Westland Row Station a crowd of people pressed to the carriage doors; but the porters moved them back, saying that it was a special train for the bazaar. I remained alone in the bare carriage. In a few minutes the train drew up beside an improvised wooden platform. I passed out on to the road and saw by the lighted dial of a

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clock that it was ten minutes to ten. In front of me was a large building which displayed the magical name. I could not find any sixpenny entrance and, fearing that the bazaar would be closed, I passed in quickly through a turnstile, handing a shilling to a weary-looking man. I found myself in a big hall girded at half its height by a gallery. Nearly all the stalls were closed and the greater part of the hall was in darkness. I recognized a silence like that which pervades a church after a service. I walked into the centre of the bazaar timidly. A few people were gathered about the stalls which were still open. Before a curtain, over which the words Café Chantant were written in coloured lamps, two men were counting money on a salver. I listened to the fall of the coins. Remembering with difficulty why I had come, I went over to one of the stalls and examined porcelain vases and flowered tea-sets. At the door of the stall a young lady was talking and laughing with two young gentlemen. I remarked their English accents and listened vaguely to their conversation. 'O, I never said such a thing!' 'O, but you did!' 'O, but I didn't!' 'Didn't she say that?' 'Yes. I heard her.' 'O, there's a... fib!' Observing me, the young lady came over and asked me did I wish to buy anything. The tone of her voice was not encouraging; she seemed to have spoken to me out of a sense of duty. I looked humbly at the great jars that stood like eastern guards at either side of the dark entrance to the stall and murmured: 'No, thank you.' The young lady changed the position of one of the vases and went back to the two young men. They began to talk of the same subject. Once or twice the young lady glanced at me over her shoulder. I lingered before her stall, though I knew my stay was useless, to make my interest in her wares seem the more real. Then I turned away slowly and walked down the middle of the bazaar. I allowed the two pennies to fall against the sixpence in my pocket. I heard a voice call from one end of the gallery that the light was out. The upper part of the hall was now completely dark. Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.

Pee on Water by Rachel B. Glaser Though alien to the world’s ancient past, young blood runs similar circles. All those bones are born from four grandparents. Baby teeth and baby teeth all down the line. Jackets didn’t used to zip up. There wasn’t a single door.

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Earth is round and open, whole and beating in its early years. The stars are in a bright smear against the blackboard. A breath pulled so gradual the breath forgets. Winds run back and forth. Clouds idly shift their shapes. Stubborn ice blocks will not be niced down by the fat sun. Melted tears run, then freeze. Tiny cells slide into tiny cells. The wind learns to whistle. The sun starts setting in a colorful display. Ice melts into oceans, lakes, and ponds. Plants have their first batch of leaves. Guppies shiver in the lake. Shiver, have babies, babies shiver. Crawlers. Diggers. Stingers. The plants get bit and chewed. Leaves grow more intricate. Beings start dragging with them, little lives. Moments where they crawl on sand. Moments where they look behind them. They eat plants. They eat stomachs. Lick bones. They pee on grass. Pee on dirt. Pee on snow. Their skin is cut by teeth, by claws. Water fills their lungs. Blood cries itself in a blind pool. Blood dries on leaves. Blood browns on fur. Creatures big as mountains stomp on top of mountains. Then new ones. New ones. Feathers, spikes, hooves. Clouds crawl smugly. The air smells cool. Atoms bump and lump. Birds have sex. Bears have sex. The sun gets better at setting. Monkeys play with sticks. Monkeys eat ants. They get sexy about each other’s butts. The monkeys fuck from behind. They sleep in leaves, in mud, in trees. They protect their babies and teach them. The sun glares in their eyes, making spots. Ants amble on, self-consciously changing direction. Rain makes them flinch, makes them happy. The monkeys make faces. The monkeys get smart. Two monkeys look at each other with knowing eyes. The trees sway. The birds chat. The knowing eyes are locked in a gaze. They look away. They look back. They have sophisticated children. The new monkeys need less and less protective hair. They have babies. They fight, throw punches, show teeth and bite. They think each other are sexy. Raise their babies away from the others. Males try sex with females from the front. Boobs get bigger to remind males what butts felt like. This is the nice time of early men and monkeys, before cigarette butts cozied fat into the grass. No plastics, no prayers. Wood isn’t sliced into slats, it’s still living it up in trees. The rain is surprising, usual. Men and monkeys leave their lives with their bodies. Early men paint, cry, stare into fire meditatively. Pee on grass. Pee on dirt. Wear furs, have babies, catch dogs. Fall in love with dogs. Pause at oceans and their rambling edges. Sticks complicate grass. Grass complicates sand. The ground and every thousand thing on top of it. Curves and lumps. Uneven clouds. But click the clock radio through am to pm, the leaves live the leaves fall, the leaves live the leaves die. Men ride horses, roam plains, live in trees, in caves, wipe the sleep out of their eyes. They dance to a beat, carve wood into arrows. Pleasure and fun plus boredom and loss. The fun of hands gliding on top water. Of mud oozing between toes. Knotted hair is pulled back. Dirt gets comfortable on skin. A band crouches in the bushes. Horses down, blood on ground. Blood on grass. Blood on brains. Legs are separated from bodies. Trees stand still, sway, stand still. The first restaurant opens. Families look alike. Caught dogs love man back. The middle of the night waits for people to run bravely through it. A toothbrush with bristles is invented. Dandelions lose petals, grow big fluffy heads. Days of work. Hands on rakes. Hands on shovels. Hands on rocks. Hands in clay. Hands in water. Aches in bones, aches in muscles, aches in head. Night chases day. Seasons switch slow. People pee in bushes, in open trenches. There are jobs, schools, songs. There are Moms and Dads. Young and carrying their children haphazard down the street. Older and with their hands in dough. Men feel cool riding horses. Arrows are pulled on tight bows, yanked back near ears, released in wild flight. Blood dries in sand. Blood dries in hair. The sun casts pyramid shadows on packed sand. A girl awakens to be seventeen. The heat is hot on the street. Sand in teeth. "Sister!" her boyfriend says. He gives her love poems written with the picture language. They are about bathing together in the river, touching and holding red fish. The girl laughs, "Brother, what fish?"

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"The ones that feel right in hands." He nudges her. He hunts honey all day. He and others sacrifice an animal. Remove its lower entrails and fill the body with loaves and honey and spices. They offer it to a god. The boyfriend sneaks out to meet the seventeen-year-old girl. They get drunk, tongue on tongue, tongue on lips, tongue on cheeks. She puts honey and crocodile dung in her vagina to block out sperm. They sniff water lilies, get high, fall clumsily asleep. Chairs are rare. They sit patiently in rooms. Mutton fat is boiled to make soap. Rocks are fired out of bamboo poles. Condoms are made from fish and animal intestines. Men feel cool playing the lute. They pee in private. Fish are caught with hooks. Held in rigid hands. Unhooked with fish eyes wide and watching, wishing for water, wishing for water. Diseases wriggle, latch onto cells, to genes, to skin. A bishop writes a book that recommends letting children have a childhood. He says babies should have their spirits stirred "by kisses and embraces," that "children should learn to play." Children say their jokes a few more times aloud. They balance their spoons on their noses. They lie in the flower field and hum. A lake sits still and wet, creating dynamic calm. Girls no longer swim lakes. "Fish bite our thi-ighs!" A collective whine. The ducks don't give a fuck. "More for us." The ducks stick their face in their feathers. "You've chay-yanged!" They eye the girls, "You used to wear your hair in knots." "Don't remind us." The girls watch the lake with the others, for the dynamic calm. A rebellious inventor is sick of shit on the street. Of shit in bushes, of pee in puddles. He takes his evenings by himself, working hard on a "necessary" for his godmother, the Queen. His wife laughs. His friends laugh. He tinkers with pipes. Meanwhile, he shits in the outhouse. He smells pee on the sidewalk. He wants a machine that will whirl it all invisible. He succeeds in making a flush toilet. A plumbing wonder! He tries it out. Pees into the toilet. Each drop twinks. A pull of the flush and the toilet answers, a magic wave! The sewage system is not advanced enough to handle the water disposal. A smell creeps out the pipes. The inventor’s friends laugh. He never builds another, though he and The Queen both use theirs. The first chocolate factory. First personal ad. Friends add onto long running jokes. Young Beethoven goes deaf from his father beating the shit out of him. Dogs get annoyed at having their ears inspected. Deadly fever epidemics kill thousands. A band of adventurers plot to overtake something. The year without summer. June snow comes down in sheets. The seventeen-year-old girl gets arrested for wearing pants. First safety pin. First saxophone. A pencil with an eraser attached. Two people say the same thing at the same time and laugh. Diamonds are discovered in Africa. Diaries discovered in underwear drawers. First White House Easter egg roll. First train robbery. Boxers start wearing gloves. Flush toilets work with new sewage systems. Everyone begins to pee on water. At the World's Fair, someone rolls a waffle and scoops ice cream in it. Plastic is invented. Neon lights. 127 kisses in a single movie. Fire department horses retire. Men feel cool riding cars. Chuck Berry fucks time into place, pulls it into beats and it hangs. It plays. Women use Lysol disinfectant in their vaginas to prevent pregnancy. Crowds of bodies are buried in the ground. Bombs are made with chemicals about to freak out. The seventeen-year-old girl looks into the toilet at the shape of shit that sits there, complete as one thing, a size similar to her boyfriend’s penis. Not right, but close maybe, and she puts her hand above the water, widening her fingers to remember the length. Cars come close to smashing. Flags paraded around, then stuck on the moon. A little sister orders her baseball collection by cuteness. Wild animals have no more room. Land gets so full of buildings, when town girls and city boys escape into the open, ‘God’ is waiting in the fields. Cars smash, glass in a crowd

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of shards. Huge ambivalent teen models lounge across highway billboards. Dust gathers between VCR remote buttons. A bunch of 5th grade girls hang out with 5th grade boys and the boys start looking through the videotapes for something to show the girls. The girls don’t know what but they giggle and try to sit up so their stomachs don't bunch but they bunch anyway. A boy sticks in the video and it's of a man raping a woman against a pinball machine. The 5th graders stare, leaving the potato chips alone in the bowl. A boy laughs. A girl tries it out, laughs a little too. Dog walkers pick up after their dogs. Shit in plastic. Shit in trash. Shit on grass. Pee on grass. Pee on pavement. Pee on pee. Cars come close to smashing. Ketchup proudly won’t leave bottle. Underwear inches up in butts. Bullets find their snug way into bodies. Moms and Dads talk in whispers while children pretend to sleep in the backseat. Snow falls all night, everyone wakes to good moods. Harper dribbles the ball down the court, guarded by Ward, head fakes right, passes left to Pippen. Pippen up against Oakley, looks to see if Longley has posted, but Longley hasn't posted, Longley is tangled with Ewing. Longley’s arms curl around Ewing while Longley's little eyes look to lock with Steve Javie's eyes, but Javie's eyes follow the ball. Pippen drives by Oakley, then passes to Kerr who bounces it to Jordan. Jordan holds the ball, his eyes twinkle. He passes it back. Alone behind the three-point line, Kerr takes a breath, grimaces, shoots the ball into a spiraling three-point attempt, which hits the rim and sails out of bounds. Someone is killed wearing a Mickey Mouse shirt. Blood on head. Blood on mouse. Blood on pavement. The mouse still smiles. The sun is in a rhythm. The sky stays put. Babies grow into sturdier shapes. The rocks stay. The paintings stay. The people leave. Blood slows and then sits. Tongues get hot and hurt in their mouths. The sitcoms play on. Newly dead bodies get put in wood. Spacemen invade space. Dog catchers catch dogs. Then the sound, dirt on wood. Girls sit outside a mall in the cold. One girl is sure life stops at dirt on wood. Black like outer space. But the seventeen-year-old girl says firmly, “When you die, you watch movie remakes of your life.” The girls smile, but the cold tells them it is dirt on wood. A boy rides loops in the parking lot, his butt high off his bike seat. Sperm bite eggs. Wet new eyes. Tongues on tongues, dirt on wood. Cell phones are used as weak flashlights. City teenagers discover grass. People strap bombs under their outfits and enter buildings. Religions are dragged through time. A pet dog catches a rabbit, hears his name called, turns around, loses the rabbit. The buildings get straighter, sturdier, simpler, shinier. On New Year’s, everyone looks funny in their 2020 glasses, 2050 glasses, 2086 glasses. Every famous person born finds the time to die. The newspaper isn’t on paper. Scientists are still trying to make pain less painful. Wake to half thoughts and a dirty mouth. Remember your first name and last. Toothpaste on the toothbrush. The day cut into hours. Stream your pee onto water. Remember the fields of trees, the wayward grass? We couldn't help crowd everything with squares. Dictionaries, mattresses, apartment complexes. All buildings with flat faces, with rows and rows of square eyes. Pages, screens, tiles. The curves got covered with lines. The birds have sex. The bears eat trash. Life still runs enough years. Plenty more than before. Fur ruffles in the wind. Candles coy and shy their hot face. Many parts are still the same. The day is light and easy to see in. A soap bar slims down to a sliver.

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As I Lay Dying Essay Length: 8-10 pages Due: Check Canvas for Due Date Write an essay that responds to one of the three options below. You must use all four of the provided sources on Canvas to support your findings. 1. “The Dimensions of Consciousness” by Olga W. Vickery 2. “The Odyssey of the Bundrens” by Cleanth Brooks 3. William Faulkner: First Encounters by Cleanth Brooks 4. The Art of Faulkner’s Novels by Peter Swiggart Make sure you correctly cite your sources using MLA formatting rules (including a Works Cited Page) First Option: Many critics have suggested that the journey to Jefferson is a journey of change for each of the Bundren children. Choose one of the Bundren children and closely examine how he/she changes throughout the “funeral procession” to Jefferson (if at all). Questions “worth” considering but NOT required:

1. What are the character’s concerns at the beginning of the novel? 2. How does he/she initially react to his/her mother’s death? 3. How do they cope (or not cope) with the death as the journey progresses? 4. Does he/she have an ulterior motive for going to Jefferson? 5. What do we learn about his/her relationship with Addie during Addie’s narrative? 6. How do they react to Darl being committed to the asylum? 7. How have they changed, if at all, at the end of the novel?

Second Option: A careful reading of the novel reveals that Darl is, despite some oddities, a “fairly” rational character, and that his decision to burn the barn is not the action of a madman but someone who sees how ridiculous this “funeral procession” has become. Trace the ways in which Darl’s narratives reveal his decidedly divided view of reality and decide whether or not, by novel’s end, he has gone insane. Questions “worth” considering but NOT required:

1. Does the fact that his family turns on him act as the catalyst for Darl’s slip into madness or do his final words in the novel reveal a disturbing awareness of how comical, tragic, and inevitable the events of this journey have been?

2. How do Darl’s family members and the neighbors “talk” about him? 3. How do you understand Cash’s assessment of the family’s decision to send him to an asylum? 4. What do you make of the family’s decision to send him to an asylum?

Third Option: During her narrative in the middle of the novel, Addie thinks about “how words go straight up in a thin line, quick and harmless, and how terribly doing goes along the earth, clinging to it, so that after a while the two lines are too far apart for the same person to straddle from one to the other; and that sin and love and fear are just sounds that people who never sinned nor loved nor feared have for what they never had and cannot have until they forgot the words” (173). Discuss how Addie’s understanding of the value of action versus the emptiness of words manifests itself in the words and actions of the characters in the novel (especially each member of the Bundren family and Cora Tull).

Make Sure Your Sources Are Properly Formatted (MLA)! No revisions allowed for this essay.

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As I Lay Dying- A Who’s Who Darl Bundren: The second oldest son of the Bundren family. Vardaman Bundren: The youngest son of the family. Addie Bundren: Mother of the family. Anse Bundren: Patriarch. Cash Bundren: Oldest son of the Bundren family. Jewel: The third oldest son of the Bundrens (son of Addie and Whitfield (the preacher). Dewey Dell: Only daughter of the Bundren family. Vernon Tull: A neighboring, wealthier farmer. Cora Tull: Vernon's extremely religious wife. Eula Tull: Daughter of Vernon and Cora. Kate Tull: Daughter of Vernon and Cora. Peabody: The county doctor. Samson: Local farmer. Whitfield: Local minister. Father of Jewel. Years ago, he had a secret affair with Addie. Armstid: Farmer who puts up the Bundrens for several nights. Gillespie: Farmer who puts up the Bundrens for a night. Darl burns his barn down. MacGowan: Assistant in a town store.

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Vocabulary for As I Lay Dying Adze: a cutting tool that has a thin arched blade set at right angles to the handle and is used chiefly for shaping wood "Chuck. Chuck. Chuck. of the adze" (As I Lay Dying, p. 5). Aguer: variant of "ague," a malarial fever "…shaking like he had an aguer" (As I Lay Dying, p. 188). A holt: as in "a hold" "…take a holt of my hand" (As I Lay Dying, p. 139). Aiming to: as in "intending to" "Are you aiming to leave it laying there?" (As I Lay Dying, p. 31). Ammoniac: the aromatic gum resin of a Persian herb "…smells of cooling flesh and ammoniac hair…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 56). Animal magnetism: a paranormal belief that humans and other organisms produce a magnetic force "The animal magnetism of a dead body makes the stress come slanting, so the seams and joints of a coffin are made on the bevel" (As I Lay Dying, p. 83). Approbation: praise "For a while still she looks down at him from the composite picture, neither with censure nor approbation" (As I Lay Dying, p. 48). A-tall: as in "at all" "…I couldn't see nobody a-tall…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 69). Auger: a hand tool with a helical shaft used for boring holes "…the top of the box bored clean full of holes and Cash's new auger broke off in the last one" (As I Lay Dying, p. 73). Bait: to feed an animal, especially on a journey "…bait the mules…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 116). Beast with two backs: a phrase meaning partners engaged in sexual intercourse (In Shakespeare's Othello, the villain Iago says, "I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.") "Darl had a little spy-glass he got in France at the war. In it it had a woman and a pig with two backs and no face" (As I Lay Dying, p. 254). Beholden: owing gratitude, indebted "We would be beholden to no man" (As I Lay Dying, p. 19). Bevel: the angle of a surface that meets another at any angle but 90° "I made it on the bevel" (As I Lay Dying, p. 82). Birdsell wagon: a high-quality farm hauling wagon, not the cheap, rattling kind like the Bundrens own "A rattling wagon is mighty dry weather, for a Birdsell" (As I Lay Dying, p. 34). Blooden: related by blood "…blooden children…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 256). Brogans: a heavy shoe; especially a coarse work shoe reaching to the ankle "Beside his chair his brogans sit" (As I Lay Dying, p. 11).

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Bridge-piling: a heavy beam driven into the earth as support "He said it had already covered the highest water-mark on the bridge-piling he had ever seen" (As I Lay Dying, p. 85). Buckboard: a four-wheeled vehicle with a floor made of long springy boards "They had already dragged the buckboard back from where Quick found it upside down straddle of the ditch about a mile from the spring" (As I Lay Dying, p. 85). Busted-out: plowed or harrowed in preparation for planting "'You take off and stay in the house today," ma said. 'With that whole bottom piece to be busted out?' pa said" (As I Lay Dying, p. 128). Calculant: given to thought, calculation "His face is calm, down-sloped, calculant, concerned" (As I Lay Dying, p. 147). Caliper: an instrument of two curved hinged legs, used to measure thickness "One of that caliper which measures the length and breadth of life" (As I Lay Dying, p. 104). Calomel: a compound used as a purgative or insecticide "…a doctor has to learn all sorts of things while he's learning to roll calomel…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 245). Cap and suture: cutting the umbilical cord [Addie is watching Peabody deliver Jewel.] "With Jewel—I lay by the lamp, holding up my own head, watching him cap and suture it before he breathed…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 176). Cattymount: a wild cat "A durn spotted critter wilder than a cattymount" (As I Lay Dying, p. 104). Censure: condemnation "For a while still she looks down at him from the composite picture, neither with censure nor approbation" (As I Lay Dying, p. 48). Chalk-line: a cord rubbed with chalk, used for making straight lines on boards "He had his saw and hammer and chalk-line and rule…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 157). Chapping: to conceive and beget offspring "You and me aint nigh done chapping yet, with just two" (As I Lay Dying, p. 173). Chattel mortgage: a mortgage using movable personal property instead of real estate as security "I give a chattel mortgage on my cultivator and seeder" (As I Lay Dying, p. 189). Chinking: to fill narrow openings in "The cottonhouse is of rough logs, from between which the chinking has fallen" (As I Lay Dying, p. 4). Chocked: secured with block placed under a wheel, to keep the wheel from moving "The wagon is hauled clear, the wheels chocked…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 157). Christmas masts: according to Faulkner, comic masks worn by children at Christmas and Halloween "Him so dead for sleep that Cora says his face looked like one of these here Christmas masts that had done been buried a while and then dug up…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 73). Conjure: to influence by magic "I be durn if Anse don't conjure a man, some way" (As I Lay Dying, p. 193).

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Cubistic: Cubism is a school of art developed in the early 20th century, characterized by the reduction and fragmentation of natural forms into abstract, often geometric structures "The square squat shape of the coffin on the sawhorses like a cubistic bug…"(As I Lay Dying, p. 219). Curry-comb: a comb used for grooming horses "He climbs onto the manger and drags the hay down and leaves the stall and seeks and finds the curry-comb" (As I Lay Dying, p. 182). Curvetting: a light leap by a horse "With tossing mane and tail and rolling eyes the horse makes another short curvetting rush…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 12). Daresome: bold "Pa was coming along with that kind of daresome and hangdog look… (As I Lay Dying, p. 260). Dassent: "doesn't" "Pa dassent sweat…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 26). Dicker: to bargain, barter "A fellow dont trade with Snopes in thirty minutes. They'll set in the shade all afternoon to dicker" (As I Lay Dying, p. 188). Discommode: to cause trouble to "We couldn't discommode you" (As I Lay Dying, p. 115). Dregs: the sediment in a liquid "I fling the dipper dregs to the ground…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 11). Durns't: "doesn't", although "durn" often substitutes for "damn" or "damned" "If he had been a man, he would a been there instead of making his sons do what he durns't" (As I Lay Dying, p. 153). Ejaculent: a sudden, short exclamation "We hear sudden voices, ejaculent" (As I Lay Dying, p. 229). Engendered: produce, procreate "She is looking out the window, at Cash stooping steadily at the board in the failing light, laboring on toward darkness and into it as though the stroking of the saw illumined its own motion, board and saw engendered" (As I Lay Dying, p. 48). Ere: traditionally, ere is a conjunction for "before," or "rather than." Faulkner's characters seem to use it as in "ever" or "every." "I mislike undecision as much as ere a man" (As I Lay Dying, p. 17). "She will be grateful to ere a one of you" (As I Lay Dying, p. 182). Et: as in "eat," "ate" "…maybe throwed away for him to lie about the dogs et it" (As I Lay Dying, p. 38). Expiation: to make amends "And she [Addie] said, 'My daily life is an acknowledgment and expiation of my sin'" (As I Lay Dying, p. 167). Female dope: patent medicine used to alleviate pain of menstrual cramps "So I thought that maybe her ma or somebody had sent her in for some of the female dope…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 199). Fixing up to: preparing to

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"It's fixing up to rain" (As I Lay Dying, p. 18). Flotsam: floating debris "It [the current] clucks and murmers among the spokes and about the mules' knees, yellow, skummed with flotsam…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 141). Forehanded: prudent or well to do "Well, I [Anse] got a little property. I'm forehanded; I got a good honest name" (As I Lay Dying, p. 171). Frailed: to whip or beat "Inventing devilment to devil her till I would have frailed him time and time" (As I Lay Dying, p. 21). Frieze: This is one of four words of Latin origin that Faulkner uses in his description of the fire (frieze, proscenium, nimbus and portière) "They are like two figures in a Greek frieze…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 221). Fulcrum: the point on which a lever pivots "A piece of rotting log for fulcrum…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 52). Git: as in "get" "There ere corn me and the boys was aimin to git up with…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 44). Grabble: to feel around with the hands, grope "Darl had to grabble for her so I knew he could catch her because he is the best grabbler…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 151). Graphophone: Invented by Chichester Bell, Alexander Graham Bell's cousin, in 1886, graphophones produced higher quality recording than the phonographs. "The music was playing in the house. It was one of them graphophones" (As I Lay Dying, p. 235). Grip: a suitcase "…carrying a grip in his hand…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 260). Gutter down: to burn low and unsteadily, flicker "Her eyes are like two candles when you watch them gutter down into the sockets of iron candle-sticks" (As I Lay Dying, p. 8). Hale: healthy "And her [Addie] hale and well as ere a woman in the land until that day" (As I Lay Dying, p. 37). Hang-dog: shamefaced or guilty "He looked kind of funny: kind of more hang-dog than common, and kind of proud, too" (As I Lay Dying, p. 189). Hay-rack: a rack from which livestock feed "Clinging to the hay-rack he lowers his head and peers out across the stall tops…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 13). Hern: as in "hers" "She has hern" (As I Lay Dying, p. 92). Hiatus: an interruption in space, time or continuity "They [Jewel and his horse] stand in rigid, terrific hiatus…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 12). High-blooded face: red-faced, angry "Jewel's eyes look like pale wood in his high-blooded face." (As I Lay Dying, p. 17). Hit: as in "it" "Hit hadn't happened then" (As I Lay Dying, p. 56).

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Hitch-rein: the connection between a wagon or a buggy and the horse "I run this way and that as they [the horses] rear and jerk at the hitch-rein, striking" (As I Lay Dying, p. 55). Holp: as in "help" "But you couldn't a holp it" (As I Lay Dying, p. 90). Horse-physic: medicine for horses (Doc Peabody is unavailable, so Jewel brings Uncle Billy Varner, a veterinarian, to treat Cash's leg.) "…Uncle Billy had come back with him, with his satchel of horse-physic" (As I Lay Dying, p. 185). Illumined: brought to light, made understandable "She is looking out the window, at Cash stooping steadily at the board in the failing light, laboring on toward darkness and into it as though the stroking of the saw illumined its own motion, board and saw engendered" (As I Lay Dying, p. 48). Implacable: impossible to appease "That's the trouble with this country: everything, weather, hangs on too long. Like our rivers, our land: opaque, slow, violent; shaping and creating the life of man in its implacable and brooding image" (As I Lay Dying, p. 45). Irremediable: incurable "She looks at pa; all her failing life appears to drain into her eyes, urgent, irremediable" (As I Lay Dying, p. 47). Jest: as in "just" "I jest thought…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 44). Jouncing: bounce "…the stick jouncing on my shoulder" (As I Lay Dying, p. 54). Keer: as in "care" Dewey Dell a-takin good keer of her…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 44). Ketch: as in "catch" "Cant nobody else ketch hit" (As I Lay Dying, p. 42). Kilt: as in "killed" "He kilt her. He kilt her" (As I Lay Dying, p. 54). Laidby: a cultivated crop that will require no further attention until it is picked at harvest time "…between the green rows of laidby cotton…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 3). Lawed: penalized "He should be lawed for treating her so" (As I Lay Dying, p. 187). Leastways: at least "Leastways, we might as well go on and make like we did" (As I Lay Dying, p. 74). Lessen: as in "unless" "Lessen you behave, we will leave you" (As I Lay Dying, p. 63). Lick: (1) a sudden hard stroke; (2) speed, pace "One lick less" (As I Lay Dying, p. 15). Liefer: as in "like to" "I'd liefer go back there" (As I Lay Dying, p. 200).

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Mattress shucks: corn husks used to stuff a mattress "Under the quilt she makes no more of a hump than a rail would, and the only way you can tell she is breathing is by the sound of the mattress shucks" (As I Lay Dying, p. 8). Maul: a heavy, long-handled hammer "He looks like right after the maul hits the steer and it is no longer alive…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 61). Mete: to give out, to measure out "It is His to judge and to mete…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 168). Ministration: the act of serving or aiding "…laying there at the mercy and ministration of four men and a tom-boy girl" (As I Lay Dying, p. 8). Miscue: a mistake "Anybody is likely to make a miscue…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 9). Misdoubtful: full of doubt and mistrust "It had been a misdoubtful night, with the storm making… " (As I Lay Dying, p. 68). Mislike: dislike "I mislike undecision as much as ere a man…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 17). Moiling: toiling, slaving "…going down into the moiling water…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 137). Negative: to negate, nullify "I gave Anse Dewey Dell to negative Jewel" (As I Lay Dying, p. 176). Nigh/Nigher: near/nearer "He is carrying a fish nigh long as he is" (As I Lay Dying, p. 30). "'It won't float like a saw,' Jewel says. 'It'll float nigher to a saw than a hammer will,' Vernon says" (As I Lay Dying, p. 161). Nimbus: a classical radiance said to surround a classical deity when on earth "…he appears to be enclosed in a thin nimbus of fire" (As I Lay Dying, p. 222). Off: euphemism for poor, or unfortunate; as a farm term, "off" refers to the horse or ox on the far right side of the driver. "...Peabody's team come up, lathered, with the broke harness dragging and the neck-yoke betwixt the off critter's legs..." (As I Lay Dying, p. 68). Otherlike: as in "otherwise" "I have done things but neither better nor worse than them that pretend otherlike…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 38). Ourn: as in "ours" "'She'll want to go in ourn,' Pa says" (As I Lay Dying, p. 18). Outen: as in "out in" or "out of" "Washed clean outen the ground it will be" (As I Lay Dying, p. 90). Peakling: variant of "peaking," becoming sickly "Because he was peakling around the house more. That's why she named him Jewel I told them" (As I Lay Dying, p. 18). Penurious: severe poverty

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"…guarding with horned and penurious alertness the cessation which they know cannot last" (As I Lay Dying, p. 51). Pig-iron: crude iron cast in blocks "They [Anse's brogans] look like they had been hacked with a blunt axe out of a pig-iron" (As I Lay Dying, p. 11). Plowline: rope or cord "…Vardaman appears with the plowline. He gives the end of it to Anse and comes down the path, uncoiling it" (As I Lay Dying, p. 42). Plumb-line: a line from which a weight is suspended to determine verticality or depth "The path runs straight as a plumb-line…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 3). Portière: heavy curtain hung across a doorway "For an instant he looks up and out at us through the rain or burning hay like a portière of flaming beads…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 222). Pottering: variant of "putter," occupying oneself in an aimless and ineffective manner "It was Darl, the one that folks say is queer, lazy pottering about the place no better than Anse…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 24). Proscenium: the wall that separates the stage from the auditorium and provides the arch that frames the stage "…the dissolving proscenium of the doorway…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 221). Pussel-gutted: bloated "Get the goddamn stuff out of sight while you got a chance, you pussel-gutted bastard. You sweet son of a bitch" (As I Lay Dying, p. 13). Queer: odd, unusual (not as in "homosexual") "It was Darl, the one that folks say is queer, lazy, pottering…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 24). Rack: variant of "wrack," to cause the ruin of, fall apart "If this team don't rack to pieces. Snopes must have fed them on sawdust" (As I Lay Dying, p. 196). Rawhiding: a whipping with a whip made from untanned cattle skin "You got to take a rawhiding for thinking they meant it" (As I Lay Dying, p. 118). Recapitulant or recapitulation: repeated more concisely "How do our lives ravel out into the no-wind, no-sound, the weary gestures wearily recapitulant…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 207). Repair: to betake oneself, go "…repair to that home in which you have put a living lie…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 177). Retrograde: tending toward or resulting in a worse or previous state "Motionless, the tall buzzards hang in soaring circles, the clouds giving them an illusion of retrograde" (As I Lay Dying, p. 95). Right smart: a goodly amount "The horse is still a right smart piece away" (As I Lay Dying, p. 106). Runnel: a brook, a narrow channel for water "…about Jewel's ankles a runnel of yellow neither water nor earth swirls…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 49). Ruther: as in "rather" "Wouldn't you ruther have bananas?" (As I Lay Dying, p. 66).

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Rutting: to have a strong sexual impulse at the reproductive period; said of livestock "'Rutting,' Cash said" (As I Lay Dying, p. 131). Scoriation: tracks made by wagon wheels (from "scored") "…a smooth, red scoriation curving away into the pines…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 108). Second-sight: a sixth sense "I can stand her and same as see it with second-sight…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 35). Serge: twilled cloth "His overalls are faded; on one knee a serge patch cut out of a pair of Sunday pants, wore iron-slick" (As I Lay Dying, p. 29). Sho: as in "sure" "All the while I made sho'" (As I Lay Dying, p. 45). Shoat: a young pig "There was a shoat come by, blowed up like a balloon; one of them spotted shoats of Lon Quick's" (As I Lay Dying, p. 155). Sholy: as in "surely" "…they'll sholy get started by daylight" (As I Lay Dying, p. 114). Shut: to get rid, free, or clear of "…it would be God's blessing if He did take her outen our hands and git shut of her in some clean way…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 233). Sibilance: producing a hissing sound like that of s or sh "…jarring the whole bed into a chattering sibilance of mattress shucks…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 49). Sich: as in "such" "Folks comin in, a-offerin to help and sich…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 44). Sister: a form of address for a woman or girl "'Where's that big fish Bud caught, sister?' he says" (As I Lay Dying, p. 60). Slough: watering hole "It was about a mile from the house we saw him, sitting on the edge of the slough" (As I Lay Dying, p. 92). Snubbed: secured by checking the movement of a rope running out by turning it quickly about a post or cleat "He was middle deep, so I knew he was on the ford, anyway, leaning hard upstream, and then I see the rope, and then I see that water building up where he was holding the wagon snubbed just below the ford" (As I Lay Dying, p. 155). Soporific: tending to induce sleep "We go on with a motion so soporific…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 107). Sot: as in "sold" or "set" "Her mind is sot on hit" (As I Lay Dying, p. 45). Spears: metaphor for driving raindrops "Overhead the day drives level and gray, hiding the sun by a flight of gray spears" (As I Lay Dying, p. 49). Spectral: ghostly

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"…rootless, severed from the earth, spectral above a scene of immense yet circumscribed desolation…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 142). Spindling: thin, elongated or weak "He's long-armed, even if he is spindling" (As I Lay Dying, p. 32). Spraddled: spread out "I see the mules come rolling slow up out of the water, their legs spraddled stiff like they had balked upside down, and roll on into the water again" (As I Lay Dying, p. 154). Spy-glass: a small telescope or pair of binoculars "Darl had a little spy-glass he got in France at the war" (As I Lay Dying, p. 254). Stanchion: an upright bar, post, or support (as for a roof) "Tull's wagon stands beside the spring, hitched to the rail, the reins wrapped about the seat stanchion" (As I Lay Dying, p. 4). Stertorous: characterized by a harsh snoring or gasping sound "The cow breathes upon my hips and back, her breath warm, sweet, stertorous, moaning" (As I Lay Dying, p. 63). Stint: to restrict or limit "I give them what was mine without a stint" (As I Lay Dying, p. 256). Stove-zinc: a section of galvanized iron placed under and around a wood stove to keep sparks from hitting the floor and perhaps starting a house fire "…him sitting on a up-turned bucket on the stove-zinc where she had put him…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 71). Suffused: to spread over or through in the manner of fluid or light "…his lean face suffused up to and beyond the pale rigidity of his eyes" (As I Lay Dying, p. 128). Surreptitious: by clandestine or stealthy means "…those worms which work surreptitious and steady through you and out the other side…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 103). Suspicioned: suspected "But he would a suspicioned it sooner or later" (As I Lay Dying, p. 232). Tableau: a striking incidental scene, or a scene on stage when actors freeze and then resume action "…they are like two figures carved for a tableau savage in the sun" (As I Lay Dying, p. 12 ). Tarnation: an expression of annoyance, derived from the expression "eternal damnation" or, possibly, from "entire nation" "Why in the tarnation you put it on there" (As I Lay Dying, p. 224). Tight: difficult to deal with or get out of "If you get in a tight, maybe some of them'll get here tomorrow and help you" (As I Lay Dying, p. 50). Tooth-cropped: a coined phrase from the verb "crop," meaning to appear or occur unexpectedly, as in "crop up"— when Jewel's horse jerks its head back, it bares its teeth suddenly and unexpectedly (most would say "teeth flashing") "[The horse's] head flashes back, tooth-cropped" (As I Lay Dying, p. 183). Tote: to haul, or a load or burden "I told them that if they wanted it [Addie's coffin] to tote and ride on a balance, they would have to" (As I Lay Dying, p. 165) Tother: as in "the other"

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"…neither because it's one or tother… (As I Lay Dying, p. 234). Trestle: a horizontal beam held up by two pairs of divergent legs and used as a support "He [Cash] holds the two planks on the trestle…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 4). Trifling: of little importance or value "…clinging to some trifling animal to whom they [women] never were more than pack-horses" (As I Lay Dying, p. 45). Turgid: swollen "She watches Cash stooping at the plank, the turgid savage gleam of the lantern slicking on the raincoat as he moves" (As I Lay Dying, p. 79). Uncurried: not groomed "Looking like an uncurried horse dressed up…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 123). Uninferant: without inference, with no hint of "…so dreamlike so as to be uninferant of progress…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 108). Victuals: food for human consumption "…so I could get my mouth fixed where I could eat God's own victuals as a man should…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 37). Volitional: with decisiveness, consciousnesses and intent "For an instant it resists, as though volitional…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 97). Wedge: a piece of material, thick at one edge and tapered to a thin edge for insertion into a narrow crevice "I have seen him [Cash] spend an hour trimming out a wedge like it was glass he was working…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 87). Withers: part of a horse between the shoulder blades "They descend the hill in a series of spine-jolting jumps, Jewel high, leech-like on the withers…" (As I Lay Dying, p. 13). Yit: as in "yet" "Have you told her yit?" (As I Lay Dying, p. 45). Yonder: at an indicated place "'Yonder,' Cash says, jerking his head toward the lane" (As I Lay Dying, p. 106).

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Some Literary Terms relevant to this Course Alliteration: repetition of initial consonant sounds (Her hardest hue to hold … dawn goes down to day) Allusion: a figure of speech that makes a reference to, or a representation of, people, places, events, literary work, myths, or works of art, either directly or by implication. In “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” Robert Frost writes, “So Eden sank to grief.” Eden is an allusion to the Garden of Eden story in the Bible. Ambiguity: A word, statement, or situation with two or more possible meanings is said to be ambiguous. As poet and critic William Empson wrote in his influential book Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930), “The machinations of ambiguity are among the very roots of poetry.” A poet may consciously join together incompatible words to disrupt the reader’s expectation of meaning, as e.e. cummings does in [anyone lived in a pretty how town]. The ambiguity may be less deliberate, steered more by the poet’s attempts to express something ineffable, as in Gerard Manley Hopkins’s “The Windhover.” At the sight of a bird diving through the air, the speaker marvels, “Brute beauty and valor and act, oh, air, pride, plume here / Buckle!” The ambiguity of this phrase lies in the exclamation of “buckle”: The verb could be descriptive of the action, or it could be the speaker’s imperative. In both cases, the meaning of the word is not obvious from its context. “Buckle” could mean “fall” or “crumple,” or it could describe the act of clasping armor and bracing for battle. Assonance: The repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds in neighboring words. "Why do men then now not reck his rod” Dramatic Irony: This occurs when the audience knows something that is going on in a situation, but the characters are unaware of what is going on. Because of this understanding, the words and actions of the characters take on a different meaning. This can create intense suspense or humor. Tension develops between what the audience and characters know is happening. In Macbeth, the audience knows much more about what is going than the characters because we see dramatic action other characters do not witness. Caesura: a break in a verse where one phrase ends and the following phrase begins. It may be a comma, a dash, or two slashed lines. “And for all this, nature is never spent” Catharsis: “cleansing” in Greek, refers to a literary theory first developed by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, who believed that cleansing our emotions was the purpose of a good story, especially a tragedy. Catharsis applies to any form of art or media that makes us feel strong negative emotions, but that we are nonetheless drawn to – we may seek out art that creates these emotions because the experience purges the emotions from our system. We can feel something intense, then walk out of the theater feeling better afterwards. Catharsis is roughly synonymous with the idea of “blowing off steam.” Consonance: The repetition of final consonant sounds: “The world is charged with the Grandeur of God” End Rhyme: A rhyme occurring in the terminating word or syllable of one line of poetry with that of another line. Example: Nature’s first green is gold / Her hardest hue to hold Epiphany: In literature, a character has an epiphany when they experience a sudden insight or realization that changes their understanding. The term was made popular by James Joyce and fully divulged in his autobiographical novel, Stephen Hero. According to Joyce, epiphany is the moment when "the soul of the commonest object… seems to us radiant, and may be manifested through any chance, word, or gesture." An epiphany is a powerful rhetorical device that reveals character growth and demonstrates a "coming to" or a realization.

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Explication: An explication is a close reading of a single poem or passage of poetry. The purpose of this exercise—originally a staple of French literary training from secondary school onward—is to talk about the meaning(s) of the poem primarily in terms of how the poem works—that is, through diction, stanza and line structure, meter, rhythm and imagery. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia explain, “Not intent on ripping a poem to pieces, the author of a useful explication instead tries to show how each part contributes to the whole.” A good explication requires some basic familiarity with the language of poetry. Hyperbole: the use of over-exaggeration to emphasize a point or to be humorous. It is not intended to be taken literally. Frost, in “The Road Not Taken” writes: “I shall be telling this with a sigh / Somewhere ages and ages hence.” Ages and ages represent thousands of years—no one lives that long! But the exaggeration implies the speaker will be saying this when he is much older. Internal Rhyme: a rhyme created by two or more words in the same line of verse “seared with trade; bleared, smeared” Irony: a figure of speech in which words are used in such a way that their intended meaning is different from the actual meaning of the words. Italian Sonnet: a fourteen-line poem divided, by end rhyme, into a major group of 8 lines (the octave= abba /abba) followed by a minor group of 6 lines (the sestet = some combination of cd or cde). The sestet looks back and comments on the octave (the ninth line, which is the first line of the sestet, is called "the turn"). Literary Theme: a main idea or an underlying meaning of a literary work, which may be stated directly or indirectly. For example, James Joyce explores the theme of innocence and experience in “Araby.” Rachel B. Glaser Magical Realism: a kind of modern fiction in which fabulous and fantastical events are included in a narrative that otherwise maintains the ‘reliable’ tone of objective realistic report. Designating a tendency of the modern novel to reach beyond the confines of realism and draw upon the energies of fable, folk tale, and myth while maintaining a strong contemporary social relevance. The fantastic attributes given to characters in such novels—levitation, flight, telepathy, telekinesis—are among the means that magic realism adopts in order to encompass the often phantasmagoric political realities of the 20th century. Metaphor: a figure of speech in which two dissimilar things are compared. ("Nature’s first green is gold” “Her early leaf’s a flower”). Green is not gold. A leaf is not a flower. However, the comparison between these two dissimilar things reveals something about the thing being compared. Origin Myth: a myth that explains an origin, particularly how an object, or custom came into existence. Paradox: A statement or situation containing apparently contradictory or incompatible elements, but on closer inspection may be true. Death, thou shalt die Personification: the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form (nature cannot hold anything, Eden (a place) cannot feel grief) Rhythm: The beat and movement of language (rise and fall, repetition and variation, change of pitch, mix of syllables, melody of words). Simile: a figure of speech in which two dissimilar things are compared using “like” or “as”.

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"O my Luve is like a red, red rose / That's newly sprung in June; O my Luve is like the melody / That's sweetly played in tune." (From Romeo and Juliet) Love is being compared to (a) a rose that has just opened in the summer and (b) a melody played in tune Slant Rhyme: a rhyme in which either the vowels or the consonants of stressed syllables are identical, but the words do not rhyme. Examples eyes / light years / yours. Soliloquy: an utterance or discourse by a person who is talking to himself or herself or is disregardful of or oblivious to any hearers present (often used as a device in drama to disclose a character's innermost thoughts). Stanza: a group of lines that form a metrical unit. Couplets = two lines Tercets = three lines Quatrain = four lines Quintain = five lines Sestet = six lines Septet = seven lines Octave = eight lines Stream of Consciousness: a literary style in which a character's thoughts, feelings, and reactions are depicted in a continuous flow uninterrupted by objective description or conventional dialogue. Symbol: A symbol works two ways: It is something itself, and it also suggests “something else.” In Robert Frost’s “Fire and Ice,” fire and ice are exactly what fire and ice are but they also relate to other things. We see fire being linked to desire and ice being linked to hate. They, however, are NOT being compared to these things (as we see in a metaphor and a simile). Unreliable Narrator: a character who tells the reader a story that cannot be fully trusted (if trusted at all) because the narrator is insane, lying, naive or deluded. Often, the narrator is unreliable by nature and incapable of telling the objective truth because they are simply not a “good” person or not mentally stable (these narrators often trying to rationalize their actions to themselves). Villanelle: a villanelle carries a pattern of only two rhymes, and is marked most distinctively by its alternating refrain, which appears initially in the first and third lines of the opening tercet. In all, it comprises five tercets (three-line stanzas) and a concluding quatrain. Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art” is a villanelle.

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CITING SOURCES IN-TEXT - Contextualizing Sources From now on, you are no longer allowed to do the following: “Nature’s first Green is gold / Her hardest Hue to Hold” (Pollan 27). This quote means that Pollan thinks that nature resents gardeners so it sends things to undo the garden. (A) You are not allowed to leave a quotation floating around by itself. (B) You must find a way to provide context for the quote by either introducing it or integrating it into the flow of your own sentence. [context = the parts of something written or spoken that immediately precede and follow a word or passage and clarify its meaning and justify its presence] (C) You should not use a quotation that includes more than one sentence unless you are blocking that quote. (D) Do not refer to the quote as a quote or quotation. (E) Your explanation cannot just be a restatement of what the writer said. You need to explain what the quotation means; in other words, you need to provide relevance for the quotation. [relevance = importance to the matter at hand, to what you are writing about] I. So and so says – According to so and so – As so and so says 1. Use a comma to separate your own words from the quotation when your introductory phrase ends with a verb such as adds, compares, clarifies, confirms, responds, wonders, emphasizes, acknowledges, refutes, mentions, implies, asserts, doubts, rejects, comments, admits, agrees, suggests, challenges, observes, writes, endorses, illustrates, denies, insists, hopes, disputes, refers to, reasons, concludes, argues, reports, feels, claims, judges, implies. (Note: make sure that you know the definition for the word you choose to use.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Pollan writes, “My experience as a gardener has taught me that nature resents our presence” (28). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2. Use a comma when introducing a quotation with a phrase like "According to so and so" or “As so and so says.” (a) According to Pollan, “the front lawn symbolized the collective face of suburbia, the backyard its private aspect” (25). (b) As Pollan remembers, “one of the things childhood is is a process of learning about the various paths that lead out of nature and into culture, and the garden contains many of these” (24). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3. If the introductory phrase ends with that, then you do not use a comma. Pollan realizes that “the key to eliminating an insect from the garden is knowledge: about its habits, preferences and vulnerabilities” (29). Note: When you use that in this way, you form a noun clause and the whole quotation becomes a direct object. Subject Verb Noun Clause acting as a Direct Object Pollan realizes [that “The key to eliminating an insect from the garden is knowledge” (29).] Weak: In Michael Pollan’s article “Gardening Means War,” he concludes that “the key to eliminating an insect from the garden is knowledge: about its habits, preferences and vulnerabilities” (29). Stronger: In his article “Gardening Means War,” Michael Pollan concludes that “the key to eliminating an insect from the garden is knowledge: about its habits, preferences and vulnerabilities” (29). ********************************************************************************************* Does not work: According to Michael Pollan, in his article titled “Gardening Means War,” he says, “the key to eliminating an insect from the garden is knowledge: about its habits, preferences and vulnerabilities” (29). Fixed: According to Michael Pollan, “the key to eliminating an insect from the garden is knowledge: about its habits, preferences and vulnerabilities” (29).

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While perfectly acceptable, these three introductory methods [So and so says – According to so and so – As so and so says] are the weakest because they do not provide any context for your use of the quote other than the simple fact that someone said such and such. Providing context for your quote is essential because it offers your reader the necessary information for why you are even using the quote in the first place (and it offers you, the writer, the opportunity to figure out and explain why you are even using it in the first place). You could also consider using these methods by adding more information to the phrase (and make sure that the quote directly relates to a specific point and that you provide adequate context and explanations): So, on the one hand, the design of a garden is a reflection of the way we see nature, but, on the other, it is entirely an illusion. [ point] A garden only retains the shape that we impose on it for as long as we are willing to sustain that imposition. [explanation / information / context] One might take this thought a step further, as Michael Pollan does in his book Second Nature, and recognize that nature will eventually reclaim anything that we create. [ explanation – specific context for the point] As he takes a walk in the woods near his house, Pollan, who is in a battle with the inevitable forces of animals and pests that want to eat the vegetation of his garden, realizes that “every weed I pulled, every blade of grass I mowed, each beetle I crushed— all was done to slow the advance of the forest” (46). [ illustration] Pollan comes to this conclusion after he discovers that these woods have reclaimed what used to be an agricultural village— and through this experience he realizes that the forest is what is normal, and that “the lawns and pavements and, most spectacularly, the gardens” are an “ecological vacuum that nature will not abide for long” (46). [ illustration] Indeed, if nature itself is a constant reminder of the impermanence of things, then the garden serves as a profound reminder that any human attempt to force purpose or design upon it only ends in its eventual reclamation. [explanation / point] Bold = So and So Says – but with the addition of other context / information to boost the presence of the quote Underline= Context that sets up the point / explanation you will soon be offering Italics= Explanations that provide relevance / that relate the illustrations (quotations) to the point II. Using a sentence to introduce the quotation followed by a colon: You can also use a complete sentence to set up a quotation, an approach that is much stronger than using the previous phrases because it provides a better opportunity for you to offer some specific context and relevance for the quotation. Emerson recognizes that the immensity of the night sky inspires a certain quality of respect, a certain spiritual connection, one that he feels can also be experienced in any communion with nature: “The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence” (8). However, as Emerson explains, we can only experience such awe in the natural world if we are willing to recognize that nature contains such beauty— a perspective that implies many are not open to such things. In that spirit, solitude spent in nature, offers one the opportunity to open up and discover ways to cultivate such a mindset by providing one quite moments free from the distractions of others (or the trappings of the civilized world). Bold = introductory sentence followed by a colon Italics = quotation Note: The introductory sentence not only sets up the quote but also provides the much needed context that a reader needs in order to follow along and understand why you are quoting this source. You should also notice that the sentences which follow the quotation (illustration) both address and provide an explanation for the quotation— thus giving it relevance while also allowing one to build off of it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Context = the parts of something written or spoken that immediately precede and follow a word or passage and clarify its meaning and justify its presence Relevance = importance to the matter at hand, to what you are writing about

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III. Integrating the quotation into the words of your own sentence The strongest method is to integrate the quotation into your sentences. This method allows you to pick and choose what words you wish to use from a source and then integrate them into the flow of your sentence so that you create a seamless blend of your words / point / explanation and the writer’s words / example / argument / information. etc.

In his book Gardens: An Essay on the Human Condition, Robert Pogue Harrison, an Italian literature professor at Stanford University, writes about his fascination with these New York slum gardens, which are made up of objects and items found in the streets, things that might be thought of as garbage by most. [ summary / illustration] What fascinates him, however, is not the fact that this kind of garden stretches our idea of what a garden is or can be, but that it asks questions about what motivates these people, who have virtually nothing, to spend so much of their time and effort finding and arranging items when none of it helps them with the basics of surviving (42). [paraphrase / illustration] At the very least, they are motivated, as most gardeners are, to create, to “express, fashion and beautify,” a kind of self-expression that Harrison reminds us is “a basic human urge” (42). [ illustration] This spark of creativity, this desire to create, to design, to shape, is part of what sets gardening apart from farming. [ explanation / point] Indeed, no one actually knows which came first, but conventional theories suggest that gardening is either a creative response to farming or a kind of prototype for agriculture. [ explanation] Harrison, however, argues that one could just as easily recognize that the earliest primitive gardens were created for ritual purposes, citing the “fundamental” craving “in human beings to transfigure reality, to adorn it with costume and illusion, and thereby to respiritualize our experience of it” (40). [ illustration] Harrison’s observation reminds us that the garden can be a cultural expression of art, one that not only reflects the creativity, skills, and vision of its creator, but also the visitor’s appreciation of and desire for beauty, symmetry, and harmony. [ explanation / point] And it is this creative spark that often draws both creator and appreciator to the garden. [ point] Bold = the words taken from the quoted source and integrated into the flow of the sentence so that the quoted words and the writer’s words fuse into a single expression. Words Not in Bold = the essay writer’s words ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When you integrate a quote into the words of your sentence you can pick and choose which words you want to use—and open and close the quote as you wish. When you use this process, you no longer need to use the ellipses (…) to point out that part of the quote has been omitted or the brackets ( [ ] ) to indicate that you have added or changed something Emerson’s original words from Nature There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, -- no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, -- my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, -- all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. Okay (the old method): Emerson, when pondering the spiritual connection he has with nature, becomes “… a transparent eyeball; [he is] nothing; [he sees] all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through [him]; [he is] part or particle of God” (8). Better (integration method]: Emerson, when pondering the spiritual connection he has with nature, becomes “a transparent eyeball”; he is nothing, sees all; “the currents of the Universal Being circulate through” him; he is “part or particle of God” (8). The Quotation Rule You can “borrow” up to four words from a quotation without it being considered plagiarism.

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IV. Blockquoting If you are quoting four or more lines, then you must block the quotation by separating the quotation from the rest of the paragraph and indenting it 5-10 spaces on either side (see example below).  Provide an introductory phrase or sentence followed by a colon.  DO NOT USE QUOTATION MARKS UNLESS WHAT YOU ARE QUOTING USES QUOTATION MARKS!  The longer the quotation, the longer the explanation needs to be.  Only include those words/quotations that are absolutely relevant to your discussion.

THE CORRECT WAY TO BLOCK A QUOTE

As a result of modern, commercial farming practices, farmers are far more concerned about the appearance of the fruit than they are about the flavor. For example, Frances Spicy Salsa, author of The Death of Flavor: Modern Practices in Farming, suggests that the commercial tomato lost its flavor years ago:

The tomato we see in the market today is ripe, watery, even juicy, potentially delicious, but when you bite into it, you get a burst of water that lacks any flavor. That red sheen, that blemish free skin is little more than a barrier between our world and the walls of pulp and water contained within (32).

What has happened to the flavor of the modern tomato? Part of the problem is that growers pick the tomato before it ripens on the vine, a reality that promises the tomato will never reach its true potential for flavor. The first 2 sentences provide context and set up the blockquote, the final 2 sentences address the blockquote.

WRONG – VERY WRONG! The tomato we see in the market today is ripe, watery, even juicy, potentially delicious, but when you bite into it, you get a burst of water that lacks any flavor. That red sheen, that blemish free skin is little more than a barrier between our world and the walls of pulp and water contained within (32).

What has happened to the flavor of the modern tomato? Part of the problem is that growers pick the tomato before it ripens on the vine, a reality that promises the tomato will never reach its true potential for flavor. Never begin a paragraph with a blockquote without a sentence or phrase to introduce it. Instead, Begin the paragraph with relevant context / setup for the quote—something that gives it purpose and connects it to your overall purpose for using it (e.g. as an illustration or part of a point or explanation).

ALSO WRONG – VERY WRONG! As a result of modern, commercial farming practices, farmers are far more concerned about the

appearance of the fruit than they are about the flavor. For example, Frances Spicy Salsa, author of The Death of Flavor: Modern Practices in Farming, suggests that the commercial tomato lost its flavor years ago:

The tomato we see in the market today is ripe, watery, even juicy, potentially delicious, but when you bite into it, you get a burst of water that lacks any flavor. That red sheen, that blemish free skin is little more than a barrier between our world and the walls of pulp and water contained within (32).

Never end a paragraph with a blockquote without a sentence or two of explanation about its relevance. Instead, follow the blockquote, in the same paragraph, with an explanation—or, at the very least, address its presence (thus giving the quotation relevance).

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THE MECHANICS OF IN-TEXT CITATIONS When you are quoting from a source, you need to provide enough information into a citation, which you place at the end of the sentence, so that your reader can easily find the full citation of the source in your Works Cited Page. MLA, APA, Chicago and other formats handle all of this in different ways. For MLA, in general, you will need to know the following information about your source: 1. the author’s last name 2. the page number 3. if you do not know the name of the author and title of the source— and the source is a website— then use the web site. What you use in the in-text citation will depend on several different factors. The goal is to provide the least amount of information necessary to make it clear to your reader what the source is (and that minimal information must clearly refer to the full citation in your works cited page).

In the end, however, we must not forget that the “defining characteristic of the garden” is that, “in essence, it is an imposition on nature, one that will only sustain its imposition if one is willing to do the labor necessary to keep its form, its shape” (Fitzgerald 79).

However, providing more information about the writer in the sentence can be helpful, particularly if you want your reader to know more about the source you are quoting.

In his 19th century essay Nature, the American transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson writes, “nothing can befall me in life, - - no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair” (8).

Formatting Rules for In-Text Citations 1. The end of the sentence punctuation must be placed after the citation. The citation is part of the sentence. Correct: Pollan writes, “My experience as a gardener has taught me that nature resents our presence” (28). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Incorrect: Pollan writes, “My experience as a gardener has taught me that nature resents our presence (28).” Incorrect: Pollan writes, “My experience as a gardener has taught me that nature resents our presence. (28).” Incorrect: Pollan writes, “My experience as a gardener has taught me that nature resents our presence.” (28). 2. Place the citation at the end of the quotation Robert Pogue Harrison, an Italian literature professor at Stanford University, writes about his fascination with New York slum gardens, which are made up of “largely random material such as toys, stuffed animals, flags, found objects, milk cartons, recycled trash, piles of leaves” (41); in other words, even though this gathering of items seems un-gardenly, it retains the spirit of organization, presentation and creation that all gardens possess. 3. If you quote from the same source, but from two different pages, then provide the page numbers in the citations after each quotation. Parker, arguing that gardening is a waste of time for most people, insists that we “still need gardens because they remind us of our connection to the earth” (21), an observation that he feels “justifies the ridiculously large gardening industry that makes its profits off selling plants to people who don’t even bother to figure out how to keep them alive” (6).

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In-text Citations: In order to decide whether you are supposed to include the author’s last name in the citation or not, you should consider the following: Note: Anything you provide in your sentence should not be included in the citation. 1. Is it the first time you are quoting the printed source in your essay? If yes, then ask yourself what your reader needs to know about the source. (Source = “A Retired Botanist in the Garden” by Barnaby Ragu)

Barnaby Ragu, a former botanist at UCLA, pondered the folly of gardening as he planned his brutal attack on the civilization of aphids consuming his tomato plants, realizing “that nature always finds a way to reclaim anything we plant, that nothing lasts, everything fades” (976).

 If you want, you can tell your reader more about the writer or provide the name of the source, but this is not required. You need to base your decision on how relevant or necessary this information is to your reader.  For the rest of the essay, only use the author’s last name.  Once you have stated the title of the source, you, in general, do not need to mention the title again. 2. If you have already quoted the printed source in your essay, then you only need to be concerned about the author’s last name and the page number. While you must always provide the page number (if known), whether you should use the author’s last name or not will depend on the following:  Have you quoted from any other source since quoting from this source?  If no, then you only need to provide the page number (which should be placed in the citation).  If you did quote from a different source before quoting from this one again, then you need to provide both the author’s last name and the page number.  You can either provide the last name of the author in the context of the sentence or in the citation. In general, place the page number in the citation.  If you include the author’s last name in your sentence, DO NOT provide it in the citation. Note: You can always provide the author’s last name in the sentence regardless of these rules, but you must follow these rules exactly when considering when to place the author’s last name in the citation. 3. Missing Information for Sources  If you do not know the author’s name, then use an abbreviated title and the page number “Gardening in the 21st Century: A Manual for the Newbie” = (“Gardening in the 21st Century” 15).  If there are no page numbers, and you know the author’s last name, then place the author’s last name in the citation.  If there is no title and no author—and you found the source from a website—then use the website as your source. Do not include the entire web address, just the website itself.

Incorrect: http://www.geneticstoday.com/articles/2542786%rw765374799990000235@54670000 Correct: geneticstoday.com  italicize web sources when you cite them

 If there is no title, no author, or no website then you are likely not quoting an actual source …  4. Multiple Authors / Authors with the Same Name  If there are two authors for the source, then provide their last names. Ex: (Hunter and Garcia 15)  If there are three authors separate their names with commas. Ex: (Page, Plant, and Bonham 6)  If there are four or more authors, then only include the last name of the first listed author followed by “et al.” Ex: (Weir et al. 38).  If you should happen to encounter two different sources whose authors share the last name, then provide the first initial to indicate which one you have quoted. (J. Page 17) (B. Page 18)

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5. Quoting from More Than One Source by the Same Author If you are quoting from more than one source by the same author, then provide a short abbreviation of the title of the works so that your reader can differentiate between them. You can also make it clear which source you are quoting by giving your reader this information in the sentence. Greg Smith argues, in his book Tomatoes on the Frontline, that scientists “need to pay more attention to the flavor of tomatoes” (18). However, he later admits, in an article he wrote for The New York Times, that “farmers cannot just abandon these new advantages” because they “will no longer be able to sustain a large enough yield to stay in business” (“Yielding” 5). Please note that, in each of these situations, you can either provide the name(s) in the context of the sentence or in the citation. However, do not do both. And the page number, if known, must be included. 6. Quoting from Dictionaries (Print or Online) When you provide a dictionary definition, I want you to provide a signal phrase that tells us which dictionary you used or place it in a citation at the end of the sentence. Italicize titles of dictionaries (book or website)!! Ex: According to the Oxford Dictionary, a gibbosity is “a protuberance or swelling.” Ex: A gibbosity is “a protuberance or swelling” (dictionary.com) 7. Indirect Sources (a source referenced within a source)  Include the name of the writer that you are quoting in your signal sentence and then cite the source in the usual way except, in this case, also add qtd. Johnson argues that “gardens are only good for growing herbs” (qtd. In Weedmen 19).  Or just do some extra research and find the actual source and include it as one of your required sources. In-text Citations for Online Sources 1. Downloaded Online Files of Sources (e.g. pdfs and word docs)  If you download an article / essay from an online resource (e.g. databases), then follow all the same rules as the printed sources. Please note that you still need to follow the correct format for citing it as a web source in your works cited page. Refer to the examples in this course reader for more information: 2. Websites  Typically, you do not provide a page number for websites because, usually, they are not paginated.  You can refer to the author, title, or website in the context of your sentence.  However, if you choose not to, then, if known, place the author’s last name in the citation.  If the author is not known, then provide an abbreviated title of the source.  If you do not know the author’s name or the title then use the domain name (not the whole URL) Incorrect: (http://gardening.com/artcles/how-to-grow-weed.html) Correct: (gardening.com)

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Citing Sources in Your Essay as You Move Between Different Sources Here is an example to illustrate what to do when moving from one source to a new source and then back to a previous source. In general, you need to provide the minimal amount of information necessary to make it clear what source you are using (in other words, so the reader can find the full bibliographical citation on your works cited page). If known, you must always provide the page number. All the exceptions covered in this section apply. Quick Reminder 1. In general, it is good form to provide context for the source the first time you quote from it (e.g. the author’s full name, the title of the source, some other context about the writer or the nature of the source you are quoting). This is, however, not required. 2. If you quote from that source again soon after (and have not quoted from a different source since that use), then only provide the page number. You can feel free to use the author’s last name in your sentence if you think it is relevant or helpful to include it. 3. If you quote from a new source, then follow number 1. 4. If you then quote from a previous source, provide the author’s last name and page number in the citation or use the author’s last name in your sentence and provide the page number in the citation. 5. If you quote from that same source again, without quoting from a different source, follow 2. 6. Rinse and repeat accordingly … REMEMBER, WHATEVER INFORMATION YOU PROVIDE IN A SENTENCE MUST NOT BE PLACED IN THE CITATION! Example: Please note that, for the sake of providing an example, I have used more quotations than you should include in a paragraph. DO NOT INCLUDE THIS MANY QUOTATIONS IN A PARAGRAPH! --------------------------------------------- Kate Winslet, in her book Homegrown, reminds us that tomatoes, when grown in the home, are filled with a flavor that reminds one of “childhood summer days spent frolicking in the hot summer sun” (14). Indeed, commercial tomatoes, which taste like little more than water, used to be “as sweet as one’s memories of grandfathers who gardened and grandmothers who baked” (16). Nowadays, however, as Fabio Applecrackermen suggests in his article “Genetic Art: The Death of Flavor,” tomatoes look like beautiful “red clusters of genetically engineered art” (12), but taste like “plastic bags filled with water and seeds” (19). All of this suggests that consumers are far more interested in the appearance than the taste of the tomato, a point that Fergie, in her autobiography, agrees with when she says, “big tomatoes don’t cry” (89). However, despite these potential tears, as silly as they may be, we must never forget that “nature herself knows how to produce the fullest, sweetest flavor better than any of us” (Winslet 29), so if it is flavor we wish to preserve, we should leave that to Mother Nature. Moreover, we must never let go of the fact that “industry only wishes to turn a profit,” so if we wish to encourage modern farmers to return to more natural methods, we can send “a message that we no longer want flavorless tomatoes by no longer buying them and writing our political representatives” (modernagriculture.com). The choice still belongs to the consumer. Sources Used in the Paragraph 1. A book Homegrown by Kate Winslet 2. An article  “Genetic Art: The Death of Flavor” by Fabio Applecrackermen. The article-- which was published

in a journal and later electronically stored-- was downloaded from a database as a pdf. 3. An eBook Gardeners Never Cry by Fergie 4. A source with no title and no author found on the following website

http://www.modernagriculture.com/stuff/what?/@35674%%$#000000456790@00000 Note: Even though sources 2 and 3 come from electronic and/or online sources, when citing them in-text, you still use author and page number. You will need to specific the nature of the source in your works cited page.

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Punctuation When Using Quotation Marks Commas, periods, question marks and exclamation points go inside the quotation marks. Incorrect: My favorite Robert Frost poem is “The Road Not Taken”. Correct: My favorite Robert Frost poem is “The Road Not Taken.” Incorrect: My favorite Robert Frost poem is “The Road Not Taken”, but I am also very fond of “Design”. Correct: My favorite Robert Frost poem is “The Road Not Taken,” but I am also very fond of “Design.” Exception to the rule: When you are citing a quotation, the sentence ending punctuation follows the citation (parentheses). Example: Frost realizes that someday he “shall be telling this with a sigh” (10). Colons, semi-colons, and dashes go outside the quotation marks Frost beings the poem with the following lines: “Nature’s first green is gold / her hardest hue to hold”; in other words, the very first green of nature— those tender beginnings of the first leaf that sprouts from a tree after a long winter— only lasts for the briefest of moments (1-2). Italicizing Sources versus using “Quotation Marks” (These conventions apply when you use the titles in the text of your essay and the works cited page) Italicize the following titles of the following sources: (MLA convention no longer accepts underlining for titles) Movies: Avatar, The Thin Red Line, The Godfather, Mulholland Drive, When Harry Met Sally Books: The Oxford English Dictionary, Walden, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek TV Shows/Radio Programs: Lost, Survivor, Twin Peaks, 60 Minutes, Fresh Air Magazines: People, Time, Rolling Stone, Teen, Cosmopolitan, Vogue Newspapers: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor Websites When Used as Sources: nytimes.org, wikipedia.org, ccsf.edu Plays: Waiting for Godot, Death of a Salesman, Romeo and Juliet Albums/CDs: American Beauty, Natty Dread, After the Goldrush, Blood on the Tracks Pamphlets: New Developments in AIDS Research, Common Sense Famous Speeches: Letter from Birmingham Jail, The Gettysburg Address Names of Vehicles: The U.S.S. Enterprise, Titanic, Challenger Note: Sacred Texts such as The Bible or The Koran are neither underlined nor italicized. Use quotation marks for the titles of the following sources: Essays/Articles: “Gardening Means War,” “Two Gardens” (Exception to the rule: if the essay is lengthy, such as, for example. Emerson’s Nature, then italicize it) Poems: “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” “Blackberry Picking,” “A Dream Deferred” (Exception to the rule: if the poem is lengthy, such as, for example. Milton’s Paradise Lost, then italicize it) Song Titles: “Jumping Jack Flash,” “In My Life,” “No Woman, No Cry” “Moondance” Short Story Titles: "A Rose for Emily," "A Good Man is Hard to Find," "Araby" Capitalize all the words in the title except for the following words:

Articles (the, a, an) unless it is the first word of the title Prepositions (of, in, on, for, etc.) unless it is the first word of the title Conjunctions (and, or, etc.) unless it is the first word of the title

Exceptions to the Rules  If the original title capitalizes words that are normally not capitalized, then capitalize those words.  If the original title does not capitalize words that are normally capitalized, then do not capitalize those words

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Formatting a Works Cited Page (Bibliography) The in-text citation is a shorthand reference to the works cited page, where you provide all the required information (all of which makes it as easy possible for your readers to find the source themselves so they can read more if they wish). The Works Cited page is also sometimes referred to as the “Bibliography.” They are both the same (I personally like “Works Cited”). Some students also include a “Works Consulted” list, which is reserved for those sources that you may have looked over but never actually used in your essay. Such a list, in some people’s eyes, adds more authority to your work because it indicates the full breadth of sources you considered during your research. I’ll be honest and say that for most sources, one of the best ways to format your citation is to use one of the many online sources that will format the information for you. However, these citation engines do not cover all of the possible sources that you might be using. Fortunately, this information is available from a wide variety of sources online, so, if you are confused, some quick online research will yield many websites that can show you exactly how to format the citation (for all the different formats, MLA, APA, Chicago, etc.). The course reader, in the pages that follow, includes the majority of the common sources that you will likely use. Formatting Rules 1. Organize the list of works in alphabetical order by author’s last name. 2. If the author is not known, then use the title. It should be alphabetized along with the authors’ last names. If

the title begins with the, a, or an— disregard it and use the next word. For example, if the title is “A New Approach to Genetics,” then alphabetize according to the word New.

3. If the title and author is not known— and the source is a website— then begin the citation with the website title. If the website title begins with the, a, or an— disregard it and use the next word. For example, if the website title is The Genetics World, then alphabetize according to the word Genetics. Italicize the website title.

4. If your citation fills up more than one line, then indent each subsequent line of the citation five spaces. 5. Do not number the sources. 6. You can double space or not. I leave that choice up to you; however, other teachers may have their own specific

preferences. 7. When listing two or more sources by the same author, replace the author’s last name with three hyphens and a

period ---.  and then alphabetize the sources according to the title. See the example below. A works cited page NEVER counts toward your minimum page requirements!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Works Cited Cyrus, Miley. Personal Interview. 17 April 2018. “A Disturbing Tomato Mutation.” YouTube, uploaded by TomatoYucker, 6 June 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBlpjSEtELs. Future Genetics. 24 Dec. 2012, futuregenetics.com/articles/@34567%&00004. Accessed 2 May 2018. Grizzly Man. Dir. Werner Herzog. Lions Gate Films, 2005. Pollan, Michael. Second Nature. Atlantic Monthly Press, 1991. Roma, Allan. Tomatoes in Crisis. Binghamton UP, 2003. eBook. Salsa, Frances Spicy. The Death of Flavor: Modern Practices in Farming. Chronicle Books, 2001. Tomatillo, Arthur. “Genetics and Your Food.” New Science, 12 June 2004, pp 85-96. ---. “Genetics for the Future.” Genetics Today & Tomorrow, vol. 48, no. 1, 2007, pp. 173-96. ProQuest,

doi:10.1017/S0018246X06005966. Accessed 17 April 2018. ---. “A Historical Look at Genetics,” Science Forward. 14 December 2006, scienceforward.org/ articles/

geneticstoday.htm. Accessed 21 April 2018.