Macbeth help? Really confused!Please please help!

[brasian]

Hey guys,
I have to write a textual analysis.
I have chosen the text, Macbeth, but I'm confused about something:
-What does it mean when I have to write the context of which Macbeth is in?(What do I need to write about?)

-And what could I write for 'audience' and 'purpose', without repeating myself writing about the context?

[The Comedian]

Hey guys,
I have to write a textual analysis.
I have chosen the text, Macbeth, but I'm confused about something:
-What does it mean when I have to write the context of which Macbeth is in?(What do I need to write about?)

Context: this could mean a couple things, either it means the time/cultural period in which the play was set. Or it could mean the time in which it was written. I suspect that your instructor wouldn't mind a little of both. Then maybe you could find a few similarities that shed some light on the play itself or a small piece of it.


And what could I write for 'audience' and 'purpose', without repeating myself writing about the context?

Context and audience and purpose may seem similar, but they're different. Purpose really gets at the meanings of the play itself. Entertainment, sure. But there are a lot of different forms of entertainment. Audience -- who's sitting on their bottoms watching the play? how might they relate to the work?

I hope this helps out a bit.

[Katy North]

Yes, and since Macbeth is such a universal masterpiece, You could discuss both the audience of the Elizabethan time period it was written in and modern audiences of the play.

[hellsapoppin]

"Context" may also apply to the social milieu of the story and of Shakespeare's audience. In Macbeth's time there was a belief in the "divine right of kings" - that is, that kings were ordained by some god to rule. In the story, Macbeth kills the king and takes over his reign without that divine sanction and all of Scotland suffers for it.

In Shakespeare's time this idea of divine right was still believed in to some extent. However, with the Enlightenment that was soon to follow, this idea disappeared. Too bad it didn't leave sooner.

[kiki1982]

I understood from a documentary that the divine right was actually not so much present in England until Henry VIII and after that Elizabeth who really took it the furthest in terms of autocracy.

Charles I with his decadence kind of put a stop to it, together with the Enlightenment, but that came much later. Later than Cromwell at any rate. Those democratic forces were way in front of their times. While Louis XIV was still ruling by divine right, England kicked the king out and beheaded him.

The 'powerful autocrat' with a fabricated public image did not emerge until Elizabeth got on the throne, I think. The rest of the monarchs ruled, but ruled by allowance of the rest.

At least that is what I learned from the docu.

[Gladys]

The divine right of kings, as understood in the Christian West, derives in part from the anointing of kings by the high priest, God's representative in the latter part of the The Old Testament. Here the concept is a little double-edged in that seeking a king reflected a lack of confidence in God, and subsequent kings were often seen as a punishment rather than a blessing to the nation.