Name: Free Will, Witches, Murder, and Macbeth (Part 1): Crash Course Literature #409
Uploaded: 2019-05-05T14:35:19.000Z
Duration: 12 min 56 s
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Hi, I'm John Green, this is Crash Course
Literature and today we'll be discussing

Some people...
...call it the Scottish play or the Bard's

play because allegedly, back in the 17th century
a coven of witches cursed the play to punish

So I'm going to call it by it's real name.

While acknowledging that there have been maybe
a lot of riots, deaths and accidents associated

But this is a YouTube ch...You know what?

Maybe we should call it the Scottish play.

For the record, I did my own stunts in that
bit.

Anyway, today we'll discuss the historical
background for the play, the political and

religious context in which it was written,
the play as a likely collaboration, and Macbeth's

All right, time to find out just what all
that sound and fury signifies.

INTRO
Let's just go straight to the Thoughtbubble.

As the play begins, the Scottish generals
Macbeth and Banquo have defeated the invading

They meet three witches who tell Macbeth,
the Thane of Glamis, that he's going to

They tell Banquo that while he won't become
king, his sons will.

Macbeth calls these witches “imperfect speakers”
and says that all this talk “stands not

within the prospect of belief,” but then
Macbeth almost immediately does become Thane

of Cawdor, so he writes to his wife, and she's
like, we're going to be royalty!

There's just the small matter of killing
the king.

The king, Duncan, comes to stay at Macbeth's
castle, and the Macbeths plan his murder.

They kill the king, but the second half of
the plan, killing Duncan's sons, goes Shakespearenly

So Macbeth has to worry about those sons;
he also has to worry about Banquo's son,

Macbeth starts hallucinating at dinner parties,
so he goes to visit the witches and they tell

him: stay away from Macduff (another Thane),
no man born of woman can hurt you, and you'll

be fine as long as Birnam Wood, the forest
outside Macbeth's castle, stays put.

And Macbeth is like, trees can't travel,
I got this.

Still he becomes crueler and more paranoid,
executing Macduff's family and trying to

Lady Macbeth, haunted by her part in the king's
murder, can't get an invisible spot of blood

out of her dress, begins to sleepwalk and
then dies, a probable suicide.

Macduff, in league with Duncan's son Malcolm,
brings an army to fight Macbeth.

The army uses branches from Birnam Wood as
camouflage.

Macbeth holds out until he and Macduff meet
on the battlefield.

He says no one of woman born can hurt me and
Macduff's like, “I was a C-section baby!”

So Macbeth is a tragedy, but it's also a
history play.

Like Cymbeline or King Lear, it's based
on historical sources.

But these sources have their own problems
and Shakespeare takes plenty of liberties,

some of them artistic, some of them having
more to do with the politics of his day and

Most of what we know about the real Macbeth
comes to us from Holinshed's Chronicles,

published in 1577 and a source for a lot of
Shakespeare.

The Chronicles tell us that Macbeth and Duncan
were kinsmen in medieval Scotland, and that

Macbeth was a great general, although maybe
too cruel and Duncan was a compassionate king,

The chronicles tell us that he was so nice
that the country went to the dogs because

Also after a battle, Macbeth and Banquo meet
“thrée women in strange and wild apparell.”

But then Shakespeare makes some pretty substantial
changes: In Holinshed, Banquo helps Macbeth

slay the king and Macbeth actually becomes
a pretty good ruler, at least for a while.

In the Chronicles, “he set his whole intention
to mainteine iustice, and to punish all enormities

and abuses, which had chanced through the
féeble and slouthfull administration of Duncane.”

/
And Macbeth maintains this justice and punishes

enormities for ten years--before become eventually
becoming paranoid and cruel.

So Shakespeare probably made some of his changes
out of narrative necessity--murder and tyranny

make for a better story than boringly effective
kingships.

He also, of course, wanted to explore how
ambition and prophecy and heirs shape human

But he probably left Banquo out of the murderous
plotting for one very specific reason:

King James I was Shakespeare's patron at
the time, and King James I just happened to

trace his lineage back to Banquo, who by the
way, is probably a made-up figure.

So obviously, Macbeth the king killer had
to be bad, and Banquo the king's ancestor

had to be good, unless you're the kind of
playwright who'd rather live out the rest

Also King James I's men had just foiled
a pretty serious assassination plot, the Gunpowder

Plot, which you may remember because it involved
Guy Fawkes and Remember Remember the Fifth

of November and that massively overrated movie
V for Vendetta.

Macbeth was probably first performed the following
year, so the killing of kings was a touchy

subject, even touchier for James because his
mother, Mary Queen of Scots, was killed by

Queen Elizabeth and his father was assassinated.

So in this context, it makes sense that Shakespeare
would highlight the dire consequences on offer

when someone assassinates a divinely crowned
king.

James I as a patron also may help to explain
the text's emphasis on the supernatural,

because James I was super into the supernatural.

So into it that in 1597 he published a book
on witchcraft, called “Daemonologie.”

The book really caught on; after it, people
in England became a lot more willing to believe

in witches, and fairies, and ghosts, and demons.

Daemonologie also helped perpetuate witch
hunts all over Europe.

James, in fact participated in witch hunts
himself, most of which targeted vulnerable

women, particularly the poor and the elderly.

So taking the witches seriously is another
way to flatter and interest his patron.

Although it should also be noted that Macbeth
taking the witches seriously leads to disaster.

But first, let's see what's in the secret
compartment today.

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Free Will, Witches, Murder, and Macbeth (Part 1): Crash Course Literature #409

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