Banquets of Blood 3: Shakespeare's Macbeth (Patreon)

This is our post-play analysis for The Tragedy of Macbeth.

You may wish to listen after your first reading of the play, using the lecture as an opportunity to reread. Or you may wish to listen as you make your way through the play.

We have timestamps indicating the topics, with acts and scenes referenced throughout the video, so feel free to digest our discussion in the way that best serves you.

We also have some questions below the timestamps, which will result in our next Macbeth video being a collaborative piece.

Video Timestamps:

• 0:00 the tradition of Macbeth
• 2:00 opening on the blasted heath
• 5:00 speaking in binaries
• 9:00 Macbeth’s actions in battle
• 11:00 the prophecy of the weird sisters
• 14:00 meeting Macbeth and Banquo
• 14:30 was Macbeth a real person?
• 15:30 “so foul and fair a day I have not seen”
• 17:00 past, present, and future in an instant
• 19:00 Shakespeare’s mastery of the abstract
• 22:30 “nothing is, but what is not”
• 25:00 Macbeth’s overleaping of obstacles
• 26:30 King Lear vs Macbeth
• 27:30 “stars, hide your fires”
• 30:00 do we identify with Macbeth?
• 31:30 meeting Lady Macbeth
• 34:00 does Lady Macbeth lack a conscience?
• 35:00 was there ever a time without trauma?
• 38:30 “unsex me here”
• 41:00 marking our own tomorrow
• 43:00 beguiling the time
• 44:00 doing things first in the mind, then in reality
• 46:15 “if it were done when ’tis done”
• 50:00 Macbeth’s vaulting ambition
• 53:00 one of the most chilling images in Shakespeare
• 55:00 the ominous poetry of Macbeth
• 57:20 “is this a dagger which I see before me?”
• 59:00 Berkley, Plato, and our sense perceptions
• 1:00:00 Raskolnikov, Macbeth, and guilt
• 1:02:00 the murder of King Duncan
• 1:04:00 “a little water clears us of this deed”
• 1:07:00 “confusion now hath made his masterpiece”
• 1:09:00 the strange temporality of Macbeth
• 1:12:00 “there’s daggers in men’s smiles”
• 1:14:00 King Macbeth orders the killing of Banquo
• 1:16:00 “O, full of scorpions is my mind”
• 1:17:30 Shakespeare, Montaigne, and animals
• 1:20:00 Banquo’s murder, Fleance’s escape
• 1:21:00 the most important lesson in Macbeth
• 1:22:40 the ghost of Banquo at the banquet
• 1:25:00 Hecate and the scene Shakespeare didn’t write
• 1:26:00 Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter
• 1:27:00 “double, double, toil and trouble”
• 1:28:00 Birnam Wood to Dunsinane Hill
• 1:29:30 what makes a play a tragedy?
• 1:31:00 the murdering of Macduff’s family
• 1:32:00 Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking
• 1:34:30 “tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow”
• 1:40:00 “life’s but a walking shadow”
• 1:42:00 the death of Macbeth
• 1:44:00 exploring different productions of Macbeth
• 1:46:50 what did you think of Macbeth?

Questions to Consider:

1) What lines/scenes would you like us to focus on and appreciate together? Our next Macbeth video is the third piece in our “three reads” approach, and will involve comparing different productions.

2) Do Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have a good marriage?

3) Do we identify with Macbeth or Lady Macbeth to any degree?

Bonus - Let us know what your reading experience looked like. Did you watch any adaptations? Did you read in a single sitting or space it out? Did Macbeth exert any influence upon the other books you're reading? 

Happy reading, everybody!