Instead of moving through Macbeth chronologically, as I usually do, the constant shifts between classroom and online learning have forced me to mix things around a bit. By a happy chance, this led to the session on “Iambic Pentameter” (after Duncan’s murder) coming immediately after the session on “Order and Disorder” (Banquo’s ghost), rather than a few weeks earlier. The connection between the two topics became much clearer, and led to some much richer discussion than in previous years.
The lesson on iambic pentameter in the Macbeth section of The RSC Shakespeare Toolkit for Teachers is a really great lesson, but I’ve found it useful to add a couple of ideas to it.
What I really like about it, working in classes with a big mix of students with first-language and emerging English, is that they can access the learning here simply through counting syllables and looking at the script’s layout on the page. Of course, we’re going to look at what the words actually mean before we begin (and it’s a mostly straightforward to understand extract), but if they struggle with retaining the meaning, it’s not going to affect learning or understanding. In fact, I tell them “we can understand a lot about these characters even if we don’t know what they’re talking about”.
It focuses on a section of the scene between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth immediately after the murder:
MACBETH: I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?
LADY MACBETH: I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.
Did not you speak?
MACBETH: When?
LADY MACBETH: Now.
MACBETH: As I descended?
LADY MACBETH: Ay.
MACBETH: Hark!
Who lies i’the second chamber?
LADY MACBETH: Donalbain.
MACBETH: This is a sorry sight.
LADY MACBETH: A foolish thought, to say ‘a sorry sight’.
The RSC scheme (I’m not going into too much detail – you need to buy it. No, really, you NEED to buy it if you teach Drama) covers the following points.
- What stands out about the way the lines are laid out on the page? (Students spot the offset lines. Often, because of the context, their first suggestion is that, like a concrete poem, they’re laid out that way because Macbeth is talking about coming downstairs. the next guess is usually that the space has been left for the actors to “pause or do some action”.)
- The offset lines indicate shared lines, which are lines of verse / iambic pentameter split between two (or more) characters.
- When Shakespeare breaks iambic pentameter, it is a clue to “how the character is feeling, and/or what’s going on in the scene”.
- If a line shorter than five iambs, a pause should be added to fill the missing beats.
- The line “I have done the deed. Didst thou not here a noise” breaks the iambic pentameter, has an extra beat, and the first “I” is stressed.
They use a number of “beating out the rhythm” and “walking the sentences” activities which work really well.
Here are my adaptations, additions and suggestions, a lot of which, I am sure have evolved via reading of Barbara Houseman and Cicely Berry.
Shared Lines
The Shared Lines indicate that the characters understand each other really well. They might be emotionally close, or have similar personalities, so that they’re really in tune with each other. It’s like they share the same thoughts, or can complete each other’s thoughts without needing to think.
What this means is that rather than long pauses, which the spaces on the page suggest, these lines should be spoken with no break in the flow, almost as if it’s a single person speaking the lines.
Broken Lines – What they tell us.
The RSC Handbook leaves it to the students and teacher to discuss what the breaks in the iambic pattern tell us about the characters. I think Barbara Houseman puts it really well in Tackling Text [and subtext]:
“Often, where [the sense and metric stress] flow together the character is in greater harmony with him/herself whereas where they run counter to each other, the character may be more at odds with themselves and there will certainly be a greater tension.”
I present this to my students as when the character is speaking in perfect iambic pentameter, it suggests that they are in control of their thoughts and emotions. When the iambic pentameter breaks, it suggests they have lost that control, and perhaps their emotions have taken control of them, instead.
We then list emotions that might cause people to lose control of their thinking: fear, anxiety, depression, passion, etc.
Once they have counted the syllables in each line in this scene, they will see that it is only Lady Macbeth who speaks in perfect iambic pentameter. None of Macbeth’s lines is ten syllables long.
Moreover, if you look for the word that breaks the iambic rhythm in the shared lines (see next section for how to identify these), you will also find that it is Macbeth who disrupts the flow.
This clearly shows them that it is Lady Macbeth who is in control (of herself and the situation) at this moment in the play, and however challenging they find Shakespeare’s language, they only need to be able to count to eleven to work it out!
Long Lines – Identifying the word that breaks the rhythm.
Before we can discuss which word needs to be emphasised, and why, in the lines longer than ten beats, we need to identify the word that breaks the rhythm. It can be really difficult for students, particularly those whose home language has different rhythms of stress, to understand why that “I” at the start of “I have done the deed” is the word that needs to be emphasised.
I’ve found two strategies that can help them identify where in the line the syllable that breaks the rhythm is. One based on the sound of the line, one based on its meaning. For beginners, these work best if the extra syllable of the line falls at the start or end of the line, but should also work for lines where the break in rhythm is elsewhere.
Both methods need you to mark out, using highlighters, underlining, or whatever, every second syllable:
I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?
(This line has its advantages and disadvantages as an introduction to these techniques. It is helpful, because all the words are single syllable ones, so the students can highlight every second word. The disadvantage of this, is that for some students it may lead to the misconception that the exercise is about “marking every second word” rather than “marking every second syllable”, so it is worth working through a line with multi-syllable words with them as well.)
Sound
Speak the line placing exaggerated emphasis on every second syllable. These are the “DUM” beats of the “de-DUM” rhythm of an iamb.
Begin by making “I” the first DUM beat:
I have DONE the DEED didst THOU not HEAR a NOISE?
Now repeat, making “have” the first DUM beat:
I HAVE done THE deed DIDST thou NOT hear A noise?
Which of the two versions sounds best? (You’ll probably have to emphasise that neither of them sound like “natural” speech, but we’re trying to hear which one of them sounds closest, because the first answer I usually get is “neither”).
The students will hopefully identify that the first version is the way it “should” sound. So “I” is a DUM beat, which should be the second syllable of the “de-DUM” rhythm. Because it is the first syllable in the sentence, not the second, it must be the word that has broken the iambic de-DUM-de-DUM-de-DUM-de-DUM-de-DUM rhythm, and so must be the word that Shakespeare is telling the actor to emphasise.
Meaning
The second approach relies on the fact that it is usually the words that fall on the stressed DUM syllable that carry the meaning of the line.
Read the line speaking only the words that have the odd-numbered beats in them:
I done deed. Thou hear noise?
Then the words that have the even numbered beats:
have the didst not a
Which one best communicates the general meaning of the line? Obviously, it’s the first. Again, this shows that “I” falls on a DUM beat, and so it must be the word that has broken the iambic pattern.
With lines containing multi-syllable words, you will need to remind them that they are counting syllables, not words, and saying the words that every second syllable falls in (and only say the word once, even if it has multiple syllables in it:
Who lies i’the second chamber? / Donalbain:
Who in second chamber? Donalbain. [NOT “Who in second chamber? Donalbain Donalbain”]
or
lies the second chamber? Donalbain.
Even though only two words are different this time, the first version is still more understandable, and carries the sense of the line better than the second. In this case, “Who” falls on a stressed DUM beat, and again because it’s the first syllable of the sentence where it ought to be an unstressed de- beat, it must be the word that breaks the pattern, and which we need to emphasise.
Order and Disorder, Macrocosm and Microcosm
As I mentioned, the connection between iambic pentameter and the theme of Order and Disorder became much clearer when the Iambic Pentameter session followed on from the one on Order and Disorder.
Iambic Pentameter represents order and broken Iambic Pentameter represents disorder – the mind in conrol of itself and the disordered mind.
We were able to consider the idea of the macrocosm and the microcosm – the creation of disorder in the state (the murder if the King) is reflected in the universe…
LENNOX. The night has been unruly. Where we lay,
Our chimneys were blown down, and, as they say,
Lamentings heard i’ the air, strange screams of death,
And prophesying with accents terrible
Of dire combustion and confused events
New hatch’d to the woeful time. The obscure bird
Clamor’d the livelong night. Some say the earth
Was feverous and did shake.
…and immediately reflected in the “little world of man” in Macbeth’s disordered state of mind after the murder.
We can go on to discuss the voice that cried “sleep no more” in the same context: by murdering Duncan while he was asleep, it is as if Macbeth has symbolically murdered sleep itself. The natural order of his day-to-day existence has been destroyed. We can refer to the obvious guilt that will keep Macbeth awake, and Lady Macbeth’s sleep-walking, but it is also a nice task to give the students a list of other characters and ask why the murder of Duncan, and Macbeth’s accession to the throne might stop them from sleeping (you will need to give them some context from later in the play about Macbeth’s tyrannical reign).
- Maybe Malcolm and Donalbain can’t sleep because they’re worried that whoever killed their father might want to remove them, as his heirs, as well. Perhaps they lie awake suspecting and fearing each other.
- Maybe Banquo can’t sleep because he’s worried about what he knows about the witches’ prophecies, maybe suspects Macbeth of the murder, and fears for his own life and those of his children because the witches’ prophecy that “thou shalt get kings though thou be none” (which he would remember was the prophecy that Macbeth first focused on after the witches vanished: “Your children shall be kings”) makes them seem a danger to Macbeth.
- Maybe the Thanes and landowners can’t sleep for fear that Macbeth will take their lands away, or see them as a threat and have them executed.
- The doctor and maidservant can’t sleep, as they’re awake all night keeping watch on Lady Macbeth.
- Maybe Macduff can’t sleep because of his concern for the state of his country.
And so on. The disorder in society is reflected in the lives and minds of everyone.
Implicit Stage Directions and Pauses
We’ll have looked at implicit stage directions right at the beginning of our work on Macbeth, when we worked on the witches’ scenes. Here is an opportunity to remind the students of the idea that Implicit Stage Directions are lines of dialogue that need an action to happen (or to have happened) to make them make sense.
When Macbeth says “This is a sorry sight?” what is he talking about? The first suggestions are generally “Duncan’s body” or “Donalbain being sad that his father is dead”. Remind them that those are upstairs, and Macbeth has “descended”, and that he’s saying “this is” not “that was” [it’s always useful to get a bit of verb-tense ESL work in].
Once they’ve realised that it’s the blood on his hands, you can ask “So, what does he have to do before he says this line?” You can then point out, that by making this a line shorter than ten beats, Shakespeare has left a pause for Macbeth to notice the blood on his hands and stare at it, or maybe turn away from it. Any short line of verse is also an implicit stage direction because it is telling the actor that they must pause, or do something to fill out the missing beats.
Now get them to decide whether the pause is most effective before or after the line. Does he stare at the blood on his hands for a beat of four and then say the line, or does he say the line and then stare at his hands for a beat of four? Or do you want shorter pauses before and after? What’s his inner monologue in each of these scenarios?
What action draws his attention to the blood? Does he drop his head in shame or dread or sorrow after Lady Macbeth says “Donalbain”, and see his blood-stained hands hanging by his sides? Or does he point upstairs when he says “Who lies i’the second chamber?” and notice it then?
Getting the students to build in nine-beat pauses for “Ay” and “Hark” is an equally worthwhile activity. They’re naturally going to rush it, feeling that a pause that long “will make the audience bored”. Here, I’m reminding them of the earlier work we did on focus, proxemics and opposition. They should be using all of these to build tension as the Macbeths listen for the sound they heard. Are they listening to see if they can hear the voice upstairs again? Are they worried that someone might be in the shadows watching them? Are they scared of lurking spirits or vengeful ghosts? Do you want “Hark!” to be a reaction to an imagined sound, or do you want Macduff to start knocking at the castle door now? Let’s see Macbeth pushing himself towards the potential source of the noises, straining to see what made them, trying to see if anyone’s lurking in the shadows, at the same time as he’s pulling himself away from them, repelled by the horror, or ready to escape the danger.
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