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Post by Eni on Jul 2, 2010 11:51:40 GMT
Well most of his stories we're actually his, he just retold them a lot better. A lot of them would have been oral tradition before he wrote them into plays.
Here I just wikied it, this is where Wiki says Shakespeare got Macbeth from;
Shakespeare borrowed the story from several tales in Holinshed's Chronicles, a popular history of the British Isles known to Shakespeare and his contemporaries. In Chronicles, a man named Donwald finds several of his family put to death by his king, King Duff, for dealing with witches. After being pressured by his wife, he and four of his servants kill the King in his own house. In the "Chronicles", Macbeth is portrayed as struggling to support the kingdom in the face of King Duncan's ineptitude. He and Banquo meet the three witches, who make exactly the same prophecies as in Shakespeare's version. Macbeth and Banquo then together plot the murder of Duncan, at Lady Macbeth's urging. Macbeth has a long, ten-year reign before eventually being overthrown by Macduff and Malcolm. The parallels between the two versions are clear. However, some scholars think that George Buchanan's Rerum Scoticarum Historia matches Shakespeare's version more closely. Buchanan's work was available in Latin in Shakespeare's day.[10]
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Post by Perdy the Birdy on Jul 3, 2010 1:33:13 GMT
Oh wow. Thanks for that Eni THat's really interesting. *wiki's where Romeo and Juliet came from* Have you read the Merchant of Venice?
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Post by Eni on Jul 3, 2010 6:30:23 GMT
Nah, I haven't read that one at all, I've been meaning to for ages though.
I've read Macbeth, Othello, The Twelfth Night, and The Tempest. I've seen Julia Caesar and Henry V.
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Post by Perdy the Birdy on Jul 3, 2010 7:25:23 GMT
Oh okay; which ones your favourite?
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Post by Eni on Jul 3, 2010 16:18:40 GMT
Erm, probably Othello. In general I would have probably liked The Tempest or Twelfth Night just because they're not miserable but I never studied them as indepthly. ...I missed out Hamlet from the above list as well, read Hamlet too.
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Post by Perdy the Birdy on Jul 4, 2010 2:02:22 GMT
Yeah, I think I've only ever read the tragety plays of Shakespear. I shall look into finding a happier one
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Post by Eni on Jul 4, 2010 9:58:53 GMT
Twelfth Night is a good happy play, The Tempest is a bit more bittersweet, and Mid Summer Night's Dream I hate because everyone preforms it over and over and over!
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Post by Perdy the Birdy on Jul 4, 2010 11:24:35 GMT
Yes but supprisenly I have never read/heard the plot of mid summers night dream so it would all be new to me I shall get that one me thinks.
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crystalclear
New Member
"Life is a game, If your not careful you'll loose it..."
Posts: 18
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Post by crystalclear on Jul 7, 2010 23:04:02 GMT
We are studying Macbet for school and I was wondering what your opnions on it where. Do you think Lady Macbeth was evil or just strangly motivated? Do you think that Shakespears interpriatetion of the witches was correct to that time? And do you think that the witches powers were real or just coincidences? And, finally. What are your oppinions on the overall story/plot? 1) Well I'll go with strangely motivated because she was controlled (strangely) by her mental state, rather than actually being evil. 2)Definately, people thought they really existed, and there magic was evil, we see this as whats a seemingly good deal turns out to have a sting in the tail. 3)I'm not sure what you mean by this but its too precisely correct to be a coincidence. Imagine someone saying, "I see in my crysytal that you have a wife" which might not be a real prediction since, its a petty general situation that will probably be right. Now imagine someone saying, "You have 3 dogs, 1 you bought yesterday its a collie cross called barney and you contemplated taking it for a walk to the river earlier," the precision of these statements makes it much more likely to be real, just as the witches were. 4) I studied it for school too and didnt like it much, parts of it are clever, like the witches prediction of the forest moving coming true. But it wasnt very gripping and I wouldnt recommend it!
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Post by Michael on Jul 10, 2010 20:43:43 GMT
Did a bit on this as a joint essay with Frankenstein:
MacBeth ~ Starts off good then gets drawn into the dark side. Victor Frankenstein ~ Is evil in creating life when he doesn't realise what he's actually do is horrible, then starts to realise what a terrible thing he has done.
Opposites.
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Post by Eni on Jul 12, 2010 22:15:46 GMT
Oh, that's a really good comparison. They are proper opposites. ...however isn't it weird what English lit classes make you compare. Different books, different genres, different styles of writing, for different points in history but compare them anyway XP
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Post by Perdy the Birdy on Jul 13, 2010 1:51:47 GMT
Sometimes you don't realise how similar characters motives are until they make you compaire them; I think that's there motive If you can compare a murder mystory with a love story then there is nothing you can't do! Except maybe fly...
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Post by Michael on Jul 13, 2010 17:02:32 GMT
Eni - Yeah, I sometimes don't get what teachers are trying to say, and older books always have other hidden meanings. Unlike our teenage fiction nowadays. Sometimes you don't realise how similar characters motives are until they make you compaire them; I think that's there motive If you can compare a murder mystory with a love story then there is nothing you can't do! Except maybe fly... But you're living proof!
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Post by Perdy the Birdy on Jul 14, 2010 8:15:07 GMT
Yes, but I am super. Regular humans can't fly; only we awesome birdies can!
I in no way promote you jumping off high things to try and become and awesome bird; it won't happen. It just wont.
xD
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Post by Pickles on Jul 14, 2010 12:22:25 GMT
I was in sydney and I saw this show called MacHomer. It was this one guy, and he did the plot of Macbeth, but entirely with impersonations of the Simpsons cast all by himself, and some pictures on a projector that he drew himself. It was actually really cool, becasue he could do almost all the characters perfectly.
Just thought I'd put that in there.
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