How to study Macbeth?

Hey there! Well I just completed my English Lit A-level this year and got 113/120 UMS in my A2 paper where I wrote about Macbeth. It does depend on what level you're studying as I'm not sure what is expected of you in say GCSE year. But from what I did, I made sure I knew the text back to front, learning all the relevant quotes to what I am expected to write about (my theme was the Gothic so it was pretty easy to know what to write about... darkness, supernatural etc.)

For A2 it is essential that you do further independent reading to get a high grade so I used jstor a tonne to read journals and understand the text from another critics perspective. One of the AOs in A2 is to analyse the text from different perspectives, so perhaps looking at a feminist reading of Lady Macbeth or the links to the divine right of kings and history during when Shakespeare wrote it will not only help you get extra marks, but allow you to be more immersed in the text!

A lot of people seem to hate studying Shakespeare because it is not in modern English, but once you understand the concept behind the context you will fall in love!

Try to enjoy it

Yes if you're going GCSE then spark notes or York notes will definitely help! Look online for resources too, there are lots of people who post model essays on blogs that helped me! Good luck

Help! I have an English mock on Macbeth next week yet I have no idea how I should go about revising! Any advice???

Hey, I'm currently in year 12 studying A Level Lit, and my GCSE coursework was on Macbeth (got full marks.)

Have you covered that the play's meter reflects Macbeth's mental state all the way through? It is mostly iambic pentameter when he is calm and normal but becomes very erratic when, for example he finds out that banquo's son is still alive (there are other cases but none come to mind).

Also I'd do a paragraph on the idea of "absolute power corrupting absolutely" and how Macbeth goes from an honourable warrior to a sneaky despicable murderer.

I'd do another paragraph on the nature of the witches and whether they are literal or a metaphor for evil in general.

Also you could cover how the play presents women, and how lady Macbeth starts off as a very empowered, if evil, lady but at the end she breaks down and hangs herself, showing she is a stereotypical, dainty medieval woman afterall.

hope that helped

Hi and thanks for the reply!
My English teacher has mentioned something about Iambic Pentameter at the start of the year but I didn't really get it and she hasn't gone over it since. I've tried searching about it but I'm still kinda clueless. I only know it has something to do with 'u'.... well I think it does anyway. Would you mind explaining it to me, if it's not too much to ask?

Thank you for your tips! I'll try practicing them until my exam and hopefully apply them in the questions if I can.
Great job on getting full marks! I'm currently in year 11 but I'm thinking of taking English literature in sixth form. Is it hard in general??

Hi and thanks for the reply!
My English teacher has mentioned something about Iambic Pentameter at the start of the year but I didn't really get it and she hasn't gone over it since. I've tried searching about it but I'm still kinda clueless. I only know it has something to do with 'u'.... well I think it does anyway. Would you mind explaining it to me, if it's not too much to ask?

Thank you for your tips! I'll try practicing them until my exam and hopefully apply them in the questions if I can.
Great job on getting full marks! I'm currently in year 11 but I'm thinking of taking English literature in sixth form. Is it hard in general??

As for Lit in sixth form, I'm enjoying it so far, the step up isn't as harsh as in history (which I'm also doing at a level) the only difference I've noticed so far is that you need to include the interpretations of literary critics in your essays, my teacher gave us a 100 page booklet of critics on Christina Rossetti, so that helped

So iambic pentameter refers to two things:

1.) the syllabic structure is iambic, meaning that the syllables go "unstressed, stressed, unstressed, stressed etc"

2.) each pair of syllables is called a foot, and pentameter is where there are five "feet" in the line;

The special thing about iambic pentameter is that it is like the rhythm of a heartbeat and as such is used to represent conventional, normal ideas in literature.

Does that help?

As for Lit in sixth form, I'm enjoying it so far, the step up isn't as harsh as in history (which I'm also doing at a level) the only difference I've noticed so far is that you need to include the interpretations of literary critics in your essays, my teacher gave us a 100 page booklet of critics on Christina Rossetti, so that helped