i used to have a swing. when i was little. it hung on the tree outside of my house. and i remember i used to spend hours on the thing swinging higher and higher hoping i could touch the stars. swing to smth else. outside of my current life. but one of my most vivid memories w that swing is my dad screaming at me from the porch. i can't tell if he was mad or scared. i js remeber his face. scrunched and twisted. his words that were vibrating in my skull. each one tearing into my brain a little more. making a new line. the swing’s gone now. it was taken down years ago. and i can no longer touch the stars
Category Archives: CHAOS
Poetry from Olimova Zarina Ahadovna
A WISE LESSON FROM BRAILLE To be born is wisdom and to be dead is a lesson, It continues from beginning to the end. The wisdom that was given to Louis Braille, It has been winning over the heart for two hundred years. Purposeful dreams are the beginning of happiness, This is the call of the wise world. High invention with six points, This is the book of Braille's life. His letter illuminates the gist of each writing, It is an unequal secret from historical comprehension. Six letters that were created by Louis Braille, They became distributed from six points. Striving for the path of dreams, It is the gift of God for man. Striving for happiness in the heart of imperfection, It is the right path of the eye of the heart for the blind. On the mysterious ways of life's exams, Man tries his luck and happiness. Braille on the way of science Is an opportunity that is given to the blind.
Olimova Zarina Ahadovna was born on April 26, 1984 in the village of Buzrugon, Zandane, Peshko District, Bukhara Region, in a family of intellectuals.
In 1991-2002, she studied at the 24th special boarding school for blind children in Bukhara, and in 2002-2006 at the Uzbek Philology Faculty of Samarkand State University named after Alisher Navoi. In 2006-2008, Navoi completed a master’s degree in “Uzbek language specialization” at the Navoi State Pedagogical Institute.
In 2007-2014, the Blind Society of Uzbekistan was a member of the local organization of Bukhara city.
In 2008-2009, she worked on a public basis as the chairman of the cultural-educational, youth and women’s council of the Blind Society of Uzbekistan in the administration of Bukhara region.
In 2009-2014, she taught native language, literature, and stage speech to students at Peshko Agriculture and Bukhara City cultural Vocational College.
In 2010, she was admitted to the department of Uzbek philology at Bukhara State University as an independent researcher.
On 02.01.2011, she was accepted as an intern-researcher-researcher at the department of Uzbek philology of this educational institution. Doctor of Philology, Professor Shoira Nematovna Akhmedova, conducted scientific research on the candidate’s thesis on “Literary and aesthetic views of Hamil Yakubov”.In the same year, she participated in the competition of essays and essays held by the Onkia organization of Japan among blind people of Asia with an essay called “The role of blind people in the future of society”. He has published more than thirty scientific and journalistic articles, theses and essays. Four of them were published in the press of Azerbaijan, Turkey, Egypt and published on the official website of Japan.
In 2011-2014, she was a member of the Bukhara city branch of the “National Revival” social democratic party.
In 2008-20123, she worked as a responsible secretary in the “Nurafshon Tongi” magazine, which is a newsletter of the Bukhara regional administration of the Blind Society of Uzbekistan.
From April 1, 2014 to November 10, 2014, the Bukhara region branch of the Blind Society of Uzbekistan held courses for members of the society who want to learn computers. Actively participated in competitions and cultural-educational events held by the Society of the Blind of Uzbekistan and many other organizations and won prizes. As a creator, she wrote poems, scientific and popular articles in the newspapers “Karakalpakistan Literature”, “Morning of Karakalpakistan”, “Hurriyat” and “New morning ” of the Kyrgyz Republic, as well as poems in the pages of “Slavyanski Lira”, “World of Turkish Poets” Almanac collection, Uzbekistan, Egypt, Azerbaijan International Journal and published articles and abstracts at conferences.
Since February 18, 2015, she has been working as a teacher of “Uzbek State Language” at the special boarding school for blind and visually impaired children No. 10 in Nukus. Olimova stands out from other employees in the institution due to her mobility at work, implementation of new projects and her unique approach to teaching processes. She established the cooperation of the Boarding School with the Writers’ Union of Karakalpakstan. She always organizes creative meetings with poets and writers, organizes reading competitions among students, holds creative memory evenings. She works tirelessly on herself and never gets tired of searching.
Since 2017, she has been a member of the Nukus city branch of the social democratic party “xalq” of the Republic of Karakalpakstan.
In 2017, she published the books titled “Thinklights of Thought”, “The Coast of Emotions” in 2019, and “The Property of the Soul” in English in 2022 by the American publishing house Amazon.
On 25.05.2018, on 25.05.2019, she was awarded an Honorary Certificate by the Ministry of Public Education of the Republic of Karakalpakstan, and in 2019 by the Ministry of Public Education of Uzbekistan. Parliamentary Commission of the Public Fund for the Support of Non-Governmental Non-Commercial Organizations and Other Institutions of Civil Society under the Supreme Assembly of Uzbekistan: 26.07.2019 Transferred in accordance with Appendix 1 of Decision No. 27According to the result of the 2nd competition, she was declared the winner Society of the Blind of Uzbekistan of Nukus city division. Led the project called “encouraging people with physical disabilities (especially young people) to regularly read Uzbek, Karakalpak and world literature and in the conditions of the pandemic, Uzbek was among the active organizers of the “most active young reader” contest held online in the Telegram network on June 10, 2020, in cooperation with the Uzbek-Nukus city unit, the Karakalpakstan Writers’ Union, and the Karakalpak Literature newspaper. June 1 – on the occasion of International Children’s Day “Give the world to children!” ACCORDING TO THE RESULTS OF THE COMPETITION held under the slogan. On the direction of political science Zarina Olimova won the 1st place for the “Sun and Book” Category and was awarded the 1st degree diploma of the Kazakhstan branch of the “World Talents” Association and was accepted as a member of this organization.
In addition, on 19.06.2020, 30.07.2020, the international online contest organized by the Union of Republican Politicians of Qoraqalpakistan in order to widely promote and audio record the work of Guliston Matyokubova, laureate of the international association “искусство народа мира”, honored cultural worker of Uzbekistan, national poetess of Karakalpakstan, was held on the Telegram network “ “bouquet of creativity” public channel and “Literary friendship – eternal friendship! (bouquet of creativity) managed online through the public group. For this beneficial action during the pandemic, on 30.07.2020 She was officially admitted to the membership of the Union of “Central Asian Writers and Historians” (a non-governmental non-profit organization) and was awarded the medal “Turonian unity – Mykti Kalamger” by the board of this organization.
On 12.08.2020, on 25.08.2020, the Visually Impaired Society of Uzbekistan organized the “Vatan mening nigohimda” competition organized by the Karakalpakstan branch on the territory of the Republic of Uzbekistan.
On 16.09.2020, at the awarding ceremony of the presentation of the results of the Immortal Jamal poet competition held in Samarkand region, Z. Olimova was officially awarded the “Amir Temur” commemorative badge of the “Amir Temur” International Charitable Foundation for the “Unity of Turon” of the “Central Asian Writers and Historians” Association and active actions in the cultural and educational sphere. Member of the Kyrgyz Poet-Writers creative fund organized under the Kyrgyz National Union of Writers. This creative foundation won the proud 2nd place in the Karakalpak region of the International Contest on the theme “Mother”.
On 09-02-2021, on the occasion of the 580th anniversary of Alisher Navoi, she won the 1st place among the participants of the Karakalpak region in the international competition organized by the Union of “Writers and Historians of Central Asia” and was awarded with a Diploma and Medal named after Alisher Navoi.
In November 2021, she was awarded the “Spiritual Sacrifice” State Award for her active activities in the International and Community. Since June 10, 2022, the Republic of Uzbekistan has been a member of the Leader Women’s Platform.
On December 3, 2023, she was awarded the State Award “Excellence of the People” for her book published in America and for his active participation in the Cairo University conference in Egypt.
In January 2023, she was admitted to the membership of the “International Association of Turanian Writers” organized under the “Turan Academy of Sciences”. She was admitted to the membership of the “Kosh qanot” creative fund of Kazakhstan and was awarded the “For International Services” medal. In February, her poems were published in the newspaper “Yangi Jalalabad” of the Kyrgyz Republic. Her poems were also included in the anthology of Uzbek artists published in Great Britain.
In February 2023, Germany was admitted to the membership of the Academy of “Literature, Culture and Communication” and was awarded a diploma for international services by this academy. Academician of the German Academy of Arts and Communication. Kazakhstan is a member of the “Ethno-Cultural Union of Uzbeks”. She is married and has one child.
Poetry from J.J. Campbell
bomb threat bomb threat in the next town over at a parts factory they normally happen at a high school someone wants to get out of a quiz but at a factory the only thing i can think of is today must have been drug test day opioids are still mighty popular out here in the sticks ------------------------------------------------------- been tricked so many times before some angel will surely want to love me one of these days i just hope i am still breathing when that moment arrives been tricked so many times before all the options on the dark side of life have become ever more appealing my patience is wearing thin these days i wouldn't say i have lost hope, just that it does an incredible job playing hide and seek ------------------------------------------------------------ before desperation becomes... pretty quiet outside aside from the cars and occasional trucks driving by this is the eerie quiet before the shit hits the fan before arguments are ended in gunfire before desperation becomes the saddest note written in blood found on the floor among dirty underwear and a nearly empty bottle of jack ------------------------------------------------------ a morphine drip you always wanted a morphine drip for christmas thought that would be the perfect gift that kept on giving the times have changed drug dealers seem to not mind killing off their own customers chasing that elusive high, you should be willing to die for it every junkie has told me that i'm not chasing that high not even chasing perfection simply a stubborn prick that wants to die on his own terms bruises fresh on the arms and legs ---------------------------------------------- burden the spanish princess believes she is too much of a burden for me and no matter how much i argue that this is not the case she won't change her mind i shouldn't feel like i lost something that i never had, but i do but heartache at this point of my life doesn't sting as much as when i was younger i'm guessing because the finish line is in view and i know i won't have to deal with any of this much longer
J.J. Campbell (1976 – ?) is trapped in suburbia, slowly losing hope. He’s been widely published over the years, most recently at just good poems, The Beatnik Cowboy, Horror Sleaze Trash, The Black Shamrock and The Rye Whiskey Review. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)
Essay from Z.I. Mahmud
Do you think that Macbeth is a victim of his own ambition? Or do you think there are other factors contributing to his downfall? Elaborate.
Macbeth is a victim of his own ambition in close reading upon examination of the following verses, herein Macbeth declares, “Sleep no more! Macbeth Glamis hath murdered sleep and therefore Cawdor shall sleep no more, and, Macbeth does murder sleep, the innocent sleep, “Will all great Neptune’s Ocean wash this Blood clean from my hand, This my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, Making the green one red.” Macbeth is a character filled with pity rather than a character of despicable detestations in readers judgment. His peripeteia from exalted nobility’s glory to decadence of degenerative inhumanity contributes to his downfall. Macbeth as a poignant character is transformed into a punitive protagonist in the readers’ and spectators’ deriving satisfaction through revenge or retributive justice.
Bravehearted, valiant and worthy gentleman, Duncan endears epithets of his noble entitlement which ironically obscures into oblivion aftermath of ignominious treachery of murdering Duncan in sleep as his invited guest of honour. Notwithstanding Macbeth’s vacillation and procrastination before the assassination is thus the best evidence we have of vindictiveness in the vein of cathartic plight of the dilemmatic soul. Macbeth is tormented before the prospects of his own crime in declaiming to have chosen kingship over the murder. “Will plead like angels, trumpet tongued, against The deep damnation of his taking-off.” “We shall proceed no further in this business” to “I am settled….this terrible feat” surmounts the trajectory of procrastination to resolution and therefore, parallel the progression from great goodness to great wickedness.
Macbeth’s murdering of Banquo and Lady Macduff along with the inheritor prince grimaces striking horror and terror which vividly portrays crime at its pinnacle. Absence from her husband, the loving banter of her son and her stand against the murderers makes her as admirable as the little boy himself, who dies in defense of his father’s name. Then maneuvering to England to witness the atrocity on Macduff, our active pity for Macbeth’s victims is at the high point of the play. These terrible feats are remote and impersonal to Macbeth as they are personal and immediate to the audience. These crimes were followed by suffering scenes of self-torment and thus, the bloody execution of regicide in civilian life and past military life , he does not understand his own character-he does not know what will be the effects of the evil act on his future happiness. Macbeth is a brave warrior, a moral coward and a brutal murderer who is racked by feelings of guilt.
Write a brief note examining the significance of witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
Witches’ materialistic and cannibalistic ritual of womb-like cauldron’s mouth and flinging of poisonous and ravenous beasts (toads, snakes, dragons, wolves, sharks and tigers) and parts representing the erotic and sensory powers of non-Christian (Jew’s liver, Turk’s nose, Tartar’s lips) -and those lowers senses of smell and taste involved in feeding. Witches in Macbeth are loathsome and malevolent and their magical powers causes tempests that afflict voyagers, and they are associated with murderous treachery, tyrannical butchery, slaughtering violence and unnatural disturbances of many kinds. These are wayward weird sisters, Goddess of destiny or some fairy nymphs in otherworldly and wild apparels. The witches are grossly unnatural in their appearance, being female but bearded; they relish blasphemy, infanticide and filth; and they inflict storms and disruptions. Witches walk of the hurly burly of the battle and their distorted gender creating a murky atmosphere of blurred distinctions and mingled opposites wherein the masculinity arches and contends over femininity of moral ambivalence and of chaos: ‘fair is foul and foul is fair’ , and ‘things hover through the fog and filthy air’. The witches cauldron, this hell-broth betokening of chaos and destruction, is an antithesis of the fertile womb producing poison and death instead of health and new life.
Further Reading and Works Consulted
Macbeth As A Tragic Hero Wayne C. Booth, Source: The Journal of General Education, October 1951, Vol. 6, No. 1 , October 1951, pages: 17-25 Penn State University
Macbeth’s Three Murders Robert Lanier Reid pages: 117-130 Harold Bloom’s Shakespeare’s Literary Criticism
Wordsworth Classics Edition Cedric Watts Introductory Note of Willaim Shakespeare’s Macbeth
Macbeth Piotr Shadowski pages: 151- 161 Harold Bloom’s Shakespeare’s Macbeth Modern Literary Criticism
Examine the opening scene of Shakespearean tragedy Macbeth.
Act I celebrates Macbeth as a military leader, but the subtler dramatic value is in his struggle to deal with temptations that high public honours will place on his integrity and personal honour. His soliloquies show him struggling with something strangely unfamiliar. Hudibrastic language and burlesque meter of the superstition and magical fantasy characters-the genderless witches are introduced within the opening scene of Macbeth “Fair is foul, and foul is fair, Hover through the fog and filthy air.. Their prophecy of Macbeth’s future dukedom, earldom and kingship of Cawdor and Scotland after his eventual crowning of Glamis strikes him and Banquo with the procrastination in meditative contemplation. Banquo’s and Macbeth’s soliloquy can be interpreted in the vein:
“The instruments of darkness tells us truths,
Wins us with honest trifles, to betrays,
In deepest consequence.”
Puzzlement springing forth into moral anxieties of those malicious agents of wickedness in Banquo’s presence of referencing Macbeth’s uncertain future: strangeness of the calamitous situation.
“Cannot be ill, cannot be good, if ill,
Why hath it given me earnest of success,
Commencing in a truth?
Unraveling mysteries inclines to antithesis, Macbeth soliloquises the certainties of psychological truth between horrible imaginings. Duncan’s humanizing kingship with his subject, “The Prince of Cumberland ” endowment to establish his political hegemony can be critiqued to a detailed entrenchment.
“Stars, hide your fires,
Let that light never see my black and deep desires,
The eye winks at the hand. Yet let that be,
Which the eye fears when it is done to see.”
Goodness itself is too frail to challenger the world of darkness and the horror Lady Macbeth is invoking, “Come you spirits…Come to my woman’s breast…Come, thick night!”
“The raven himself is hoarse,
That croaks the entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements.” and further “Great Glamis, worthy Cawdor, Greater than the both by the all -hail hereafter.
Banquo’s continuance of ominous foretellings inferring natural imageries of martlet and birds to Jacobites engenders deceits and hypocrisy, “Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed the air most delicate. False face must hide, what the false heart doth know.”
Dr Samuel Johnson’s shrewd observance of Shakespare’s Macbeth reads: “This play is deservedly celebrated for the propriety of its fictions, and its solemnity, grandeur, and variety of its actions; but it has no nice discriminations of character, the events are too great to admit the influence of particular dispositions, and the course of the action necessarily determines the conduct of the agents.” Having evoked the play’s distinctive atmosphere Bradley exclaims, “From this murky background stands out the two very great terrible figures, who dwarf all the remaining characters of the drama. Both are sublime, and both inspire, fare more than the other tragic heroes, the feelings of awe.” Bradley felt that Shakespeare wrote Macbeth after great pain, tumult and loss and the play’s ending give a sense that the order has been restored.
Terry Eagleton’s observation of the weird sisters of sorcerers and witchcraft in the language: They are poets, prophetesses and devotees of the female cult, radical separatists who scorn male power and lay bare the sound and fury at its core.
Cambridge Student Guide Shakespare Macbeth Stephen Sidall
“Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood
……………………………………….
Making the green one red.”
These are magnificent poetic lines extracted from Macbeth Act II Scene II Lines: 59-62 immediately after the horror striking and terror thundering slaughter of Duncan by Macbeth. The regicide grimaces grimy staining of Macbeth as a traitorous villain and disloyal minister to the government of the monarchy. Macbeth’s character assassination cannot be salvaged by the multitudinous seas taken together with reference to its innumerable waves and the countless masses of water on the surface of the globe(Malone). “The long latinised verbs preceded and followed by monosyllables gives the effect of a boundless sea.” (Wilson) And “the imagination of Macbeth dwells upon the universal conversion of the red one into green. (Elwin). The hyperbole of hysteria culminating in the pinnacle of the drama reflects Macbeth’s aghast and agonized soul at its moral defeat-a hallucination of greater emotional power than that of the dagger.
Here’s Macbeth’s soliloquy in full:
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Analyze Macbeth’s soliloquies in relation tot he development of his character in the course of the play. [Calcutta University Honours. 1989]
Macbeth’s soliloquies manifests the interior dramatic monologue revealing thoughts, feelings, emotions and sentiments surrounding the happenings on stage and off stage by the subsequent pursuit of consecutive murders. His poetic lyrics embellish the subconscious state of mind and soliloquies are the best means of presenting the essential self of the character which is disintegrated and disrupted by the temptation.
The conflict of Macbeth’s mind between the impulse to action and conscience. His mind is working on two planes as he is getting his reasons and motives hopelessly wrong. Wilson Knight notes of Macbeth’s interior dilemma as soon as he proceeds to murder Duncan, “Macbeth whose conscience revolts from the crime persuades himself that he is a most cold-blooded villain and fears of the actual and personal punishment.”
Macbeth contemplates the immediacy of the action and procrastinates the approach stepping to resolution and the implications of a future life. Justice is impartial and our crimes recoil upon us. Duncan is Macbeth’s blood relation and monarchical courtier which are the strong reasons against his contemplated regicide. His bindings to the sacred pledge of hospitality succumbs by the temptation to gain power by affording to bear the dagger himself.
Duncan whose acclaimed nobility and renowned eminence can be appertained to his exercise of power with modesty and meekness. “Will plead like angels, trumpet tongued , Against the deep damnation of thy soul” Overambition vaults unsurpassingly and overreaches itself just as a reckless rider may overleap and miss the saddle. Macbeth is afraid of his vaulted ambition and the soliloquy reveals “a mind trying to get its own motives clear”. Macbeth cannot pronounce murder which sticks in his throat and Macbeth fears eternal the intended crime, knowing that Duncan would be pitied as a ‘newborn babe’ and Duncan’s virtues are like angels who will proclaim the horrid deed and will be condemned through the sightless couriers of the air.
Helen Gardner in a fine analysis of the last art of the soliloquy remarks: “It is not terror of heaven’s vengeance which makes him pause; but the terror of moral isolation. The babe image merges into the cherubim, not because Shakespeare means Macbeth to be feeling both pity and fear of retribution at the same time but because Shakespeare believes in the holiness of the heart’s affections. It is the judgment of the human heart that Macbeth fears here, and the punishment which the speech foreshadows is not that he will be cut down by Macduff, but having murdered his own humanity, he will enter into a world of appalling loneliness, of meaningless activity, unloved himself and unable to love.”
“Beware of Macduff Beware the Thane of Fife”. Bring out the effect of this warning on Macbeth’s character and conduct in the last two acts of the play. [Calcutta University Honours 1994]
Macbeth’s desperate and belligerent actions of slaughtering England fled Macduff’s family including mistress and children demonstrate his inhumane character flawed by the frailties of temptation to the throne’s accession. Superstitious witches proclaim Macbeth’s fatal plight endangered by the prophecy, “Beware of Macduff….Thane of Fife”. “Each new morn new widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows strike heaven on the face”
…dead butcher Macbeth’s foreboding damnation incidents as soon as the English soldiers are ready to help the Scottish nobles who have deserted Macbeth. Macbeth acknowledges his impulses with the dread, and submits to them half knowing the consequences and watches himself destroying himself in a long suicide of the soul. His heartsickness and restlessness will not submit to the mounting tempo of rebellion and retribution, he fortifies his castle against his rivals.
Eventually, Macbeth’s deteriorating heartsickness turns into a malicious malady of “My way of life is fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf.” Macbeth knows that Scotland is ruined, and the doctor cannot ‘purge it to a sound and pristine health’. In his desperate recklessness and the brink of despairing heartsickness-he has been led by illusions-each tomorrow comes and goes, each to-morrow becomes a yesterday befooling man and leading him to death. He has come to realize the vanity of vanities by the ‘juggling fiends’ In the course of his degeneration and downfall, the retains the spirit of grandeur and his weariness, his despair, and his sense of utter loneliness touches us pity while his defiance and fury strike us with awe.
Discuss the dramatic presentation of Macduff in the play, Macbeth.
Or
Attempt an analysis of the character of Macduff and discuss his role in the play, [Calcutta University Honours 1985]
Or
“Least our old robes sit easier than our new!” Examine the character of Macduff as the contrasting foible to Macbeth.
Or Macduff is the antihero to make the time free from tyranny and nightmare for Scotland. Explain and elaborate.
Or
“O Banquo O Banquo/Our royal masters murdered.” “O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart cannot conceive or name thee.” Examine the character of Macduff in the light of this speech
Or
Macbeth is a dwarfish thief in a giant’s robe. Macduff presents the beheaded head of Macbeth to Malcolm and establishes the restoration of the divine rights of king. Examine the character sketch of Macduff.
Macduff’s noble integrity and patriotic spirit makes him an ideal foil and antagonist to lead the army against Macbeth. Macduff in the banks and shoal of banqueting discovers the grotesquery of gothic regicidal bloodshed- villainy and hypocrisy of Macbeth as reflected in the words, “Wherefore did you so?” This happens as soon as Macbeth’s murders the chamberlains and thereafter the innuendo suggests of falsely implicating Malcolm and Donalbain as the suspected perpetrators of the heinous crime since they have fled to England. Here Macduff’s stalwart pledge to the allegiance of monarchy disenchants him from the banqueting coronation of the unholy king and thereafter seeks assistance from the holy king of England (Divine Rights of King).
This Macduff fears his life because by the time Macbeth has become a tyrant Macbeth has Banquo killed and so, Macduff flees to England to arouse the rebellion in association with Malcolm beleaguring the Scottish nobles. Macduff later reveals to Macbeth that he is, “even that thy wizards have told thee of who was never born of my mother, but ripped out of the womb.”
In the meanwhile of the capturing of Dunsinane Castle, Macduff’s wife and children bravehearted lionizes themselves with audacity before the tyrant Macbeth’s interview. Lady Macduff’s feelings for Macbeth appear in her spirited reply to the murderer’s questions: “Where’s your husband?” “I hope in no place so unsanctified where such as thou may’st find him.” To the murderer’s remark that Macbeth is a traitor the lad gives an angry reply: “Thou lies, thou shag-haired villain.” The sweet and affectionate family bliss of Macduff and Lady Macduff can be contrasted with the harsh and cruel life of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.
Macduff’s reaction to the news of the family’s slaughter throws him in sheerness grief and lamentation in poignantly brief words, “My children too?…And I must be from thence!” “My wife killed too?…”all my pretty chickens and their dam at one fell swoop.” He must be afflicted with tormented by pathetic anguish of his soul after the bereavement of his dearly family and ‘his voice is in his sword’/’Front to front/ Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself.”
Discuss the character of Duncan. What dramatic purpose is served by Shakespearean characterization of Duncan.
Duncan was a true legend of humanist monarch of Scotland whose conscience always worked for the welfare of the subjects. The beginning of Duncan’s reign was a peaceful sovereignty without notable chaos, but after it tumultuous turmoil caused dissenters and protestants occasion thereof to disrupt the peace and quiet state of the commonwealth.
Shakespeare makes Duncan honest and noble in order to intensify the tragic irony through the vivid impression of his angelic innocence and least life span. Jesus College Fellow and Master E. M. W Tillyard’s criticism can be justified in the estimation of Macbeth: “Shakespeare has consciously refused to allow Duncan to become an individual.” Both Macbeth and Macduff have optimistic critical reception appreciative of Duncan’s character proclaiming, “Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been so clear in his great office, that his virtues will plead, like angels trumpet tongued…” and “Thy royal father was a sainted king.”
Duncan’s naivety and innocence makes him a double victim of both the Thane of Cawdor and Macbeth. His trustworthiness of “honoured hostess” is staked to be betrayed in case of Lady Macbeth’s devilish cloaked hospitality. Duncan’s humility, nobility, generosity and strength are to be historic charismatic qualities of justice. He wishes to reward Macbeth in proportion to his achievements and thank Lady Macbeth more than he is able to. There is a strain of sentimentality in traits since this is manifested in his exuberance and sentimentality to proclaim gratitude of the hospitality of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Though he sheds tears upon receiving Macbeth and Banquo yet he is firm and resolute in declaring the heir apparent Malcolm to the throne. He is contrasted with Macbeth whose tyranny will unleash the forces of disorder and disloyalty in the country.
Duncan’s spirituality and royalty is perennial presence of Macbeth’s mind, and he remembers his meekness, humility and fairness and procrastinates to dagger him but later his masculinity was provoked by Lady Macbeth to commit the most sacrilegious murder. He harps on the word hostess and kisses Lady Macbeth’s cheek in gratitude-a fine ironic touch because Lady Macbeth has already by persuading Macbeth to murder given him the kiss of death. He is painted in angelic terms to emphasize his ideal kingly qualities and to highlight the enormity of the crime of Macbeth. No human sympathies are aroused at his murder although Lady Macbeth grieves of her father figure upon this execution of the terrible feat. Audience is more interested in the murderer than in the murder.
Write a note on the significance of the porter’s speech in Scene III, Act II. Point out the contemporary topical allusions in the speech. Examine in this connection the arguments of those who object to the porter’s monologue and to his following dialogue with Macduff. [Calcutta University Honours 1990]
After committing the heinous crime -the most blasphemous murdering of Duncan following Act II Scene II Macbeth hears voices and sees visions. He is unsure whether these voices and visions being real or imaginary .
The porter in his drunkenness fancies himself to be ushering the sinners of hell including farmer, jesuit equivocate and an English tailor. The first candidate is in expectation of hoarding corn to earn abnormal profits, later discovers that prospects of good harvests have dwindled his profits into unexpected loss. Jesuits were accused of alternately swearing and foreswearing. And the English tailor cut cloth out of a French hose which is a traditionally close-fitting. The porter imagines all these under the influence of wine and hen his drunkenness goes off, his visions fades, and as the cold bites him, he comes slowly into an awareness of the reality around him.
Elizabethan tragedy introduces comic relief to the tragic tension and terror and the Calvinistic fashion of damnation depicted by the porter’s scene is no further exception. He is indeed the porter of the hell gate and Macbeth is the Devil residing in his castled Hell. His ramblings effectively delay the discovery, so that his lascivious humour and his stumblings and natural comic effect, a degree of tension is built up in the audience and the readers. Instead of providing mere comic relief, it increases the horror of the situation. We are never allowed to forget of the bloody execution and this emphasises the horror by the grimness of the contrast. The farmer, equivocator and the tailor are symbols of Macbethwho has overreached himself like them and so go to hell.
Porter’s scene can be integral theatrical part of the drama engrossed in exemplification as the comical relief and comical contrast. Professor Hales defends the scene and gives reasons for justifying its genuineness. Belzebub, Devil and Hell are painted in the porter’s imagination and De Quincey’s famous exposition has silenced the challenging critics: “The knocking at the gate is heard and it makes known audibly that the reaction has commenced, the human hath made its reflux upon the fiendish, the pulses of life are beginning to beat again and the reestablishments of the goings on of the world in which we live makes us profoundly sensible of the awful parenthesis that has suspended them. (On the knocking at the gate).
The porter’s monologue and dialogue were supposed to be actor’s interpolations intended for the entertainment of the groundlings apart from the necessity of transitioning to apparel and costume timing. Proasic language with bawdy and vulgar colloquialism the porter’s speech provides antithesis between appearance and realty, purpose and fulfillment, conception and execution. The allusive reference to the poor condition of high yielding corn merchant sunken poverty of 1606. Henry Garnet, a jesuit was hanged with the treason of gunpowder plot in the reign of James I and these Jesuits were objects of attack by preachers in Elizabethan England for their oath of swearing and forswearing.
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Analyze the banquet scene and discuss its importance (Act III Scene IV). What light does it throw on the characters of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth? [Calcutta University Honours 1964, ‘78, ‘80, ‘86, ‘93]
Or
Scenically, the ghost of Banquo is not a pure hallucination like the dagger. The reailty of air drawn dagger is questioned by him. The ghost was visible objectivity of the stage directions. Justify the argument of the passage.
Macbeth invites the noble lords, earls and dukes of Scotland to the ceremonial feasting of his coronation banquet. The guests have graced except Banquo’s son Fleance escapes and Macduff flees to England. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are further examined in depth in the light of this scene. The banquet scene shows that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are ‘yet but young in deed’. Banquo’s ghost appears as visionary ironical illusion and Macbeth’s nervous tension and mental tortures by the nemesis of his own imagination. As a result, Lady Macbeth unceremoniously dismisses the party wishing these invitees happy good night.
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are left alone. Macbeth is out of the world while Lady Macbeth is fatigued by wearisome dread. Macbeth’s conscience stings him and he is full of scorpions. He resolves to defend crime by crime and entrust the nemesis to the witches. The irony is that only Macbeth sees the vision. [‘What sights, my Lord’, asks Rosse] and the scene is saturated with irony when Banquo complies to Macbeth’s wishes “Fail not our feat”, to which Banquo replies, ”My Lord, I will not.” “Shakespeare took ghosts as he took witches from popular superstitions and psychologised them, so far as the conditions of the stage allowed. The ghost is indeed real but “of all Shakespeare’s ghosts it is the most ghostly.” [Grierson] W Rosen speaks of another irony which consists in the discrepancy between Macbeth’s expectations and the occasion’s actuality: “When Macbeth chafes at Banquo’s absence, when he would drink to Banquo’s health knowing well the man is dead, he confidently expresses the unuttered belief that he is capable of controlling his own destiny. But the audience, aware that Banquo’s spirit has risen, knows this belief to be an illusion. It is this moment of ironic reversal that establishes a close bond between actor and spectator, and accounts for pity and terror, for Macbeth’s situation is typical tragic human destiny. At the moment of his supreme confidence, we see the precariousness of the human condition.” [Shakespeare and the Craft of Tragedy pp. 88-89]
Poetry from John Culp
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Oh, Really
This Fresh Creation
of Works without form
Says without Starting
and Starts before Born
This has no reflection
Yet said to reflect
Then carry one's Heart
towards what to expect
Freshly creates
Where time holds in stance
Life carries Completion
The form is a Dance
At the end of each Dance
LOVE'S Spirit Remains
You Like it , just name it.
Gifts come without names
...
by John Edward Culp
December 10, 2016
Poetry from Erkin Vohidov
Erkin Vohidov
Homeland missing Do not travel to any higher place No matter how far away the shore, "Hello" he smiled One of my Uzbek cousins will surely oppose it. The morning when in Colombo we landed, For the first time, he became a propeller. Then this city is stinky and humid, It was Fergana that caught my eye. In Madoras, the translator is Uzbek They spoke the same words in eight languages. He is dressed in a white robe, He used to put ointment on the Afghan child. After rebuilding the castle of light, He crossed the Euphrates Arab room liked the sun. He grew cotton by taking water from the Nile, In the heart, Africa is strong. He appeared like Joseph in Egypt, In Yemen, it seemed to me Hotam. This is a clear feeling - no matter what One's own person is thrown into the eye like fire. Today, when I returned from a long trip In my first line I made you inevitable - Hey, you, my friends, are far from the country A belt tied to the service of the country! I know what a burden of suffering hijran is, What painful months and years to wait. I know that you miss Uzbekistan, Always awake in the depths of your eyes. It is a world within a world, One sight is a lifelong obsession. Earth's gravity is easy to overcome The love of Mother Earth cannot be separated. Stay healthy my friends, Return home safely from a distant place. I wish, never, never fate Do not separate us from Uzbekistan...
Translator: Nilufar Rukhillayeva(1st year student of the Faculty of Foreign Philology of the National University of Uzbekistan named after Mirzo Ulugbek)
Poetry from Jake Cosmos Aller (one of nine poems)
God's Confession I was sitting alone In a god-forsaken bar the Cosmos Bar in Soi Cowboy Bangkok, Thailand On the lunatic fringes of society Twenty drinks too sober In the ass end of a Friday night booze binge On the bad part of town Over by railroad tracks Heading to hell As fast as I could drank it down Enjoying my lonely drink Drinking by my lonesome self With my partners Jimmy Bean, Jack Daniels, The Walker brother Evan Williams And his old Granddad Just drinking one bourbon, one scotch, and one beer and hanging with Jack Daniel's gentlemen’s club A crazed bum With a thousand-year stare Walks up to me He begins Muttering to himself Nutty nonsense Crazy words In a lunatic's voice He had the look Of one possessed By his demons Only he can see Or hear Possessed by a secret knowledge Only he knew Despite myself I was fascinated By this lunatic's tale So I stopped him And said “Say, crazy little Dude! So what's your game, Anyway?” The short little dude Stopped his insane prattle Starting at me With that thousand-year-old stare Just another washed-up lunatic Too many drugs His mind blown away Down too many rabbit holes Too many bad nights On the wrong side of life An ACID causality From the 60s Been down so long It looks like up to him He looked at me And proclaimed his story He reared up And filled up the room And lifted the bar On his finger And stared down at me From the sky And said “Since you asked I am Allah The Alpha and Omega Ganesh Kali Jupiter Jehovah Shiva Zeus And a billion other names The real deal The original dude of dudes The Sultan of Swing God of hosts And the father of that Jesus dude But no one knows me Any more No one cares They think I am irrelevant They think I am dead They think I am a fairy tale From some olden, ancient time That my work is done I looked at him Carefully now And what did I see An old man With that lunatic look But there was something else He was crazy Sure. Yeah Out there Bat sh… looney tunes But perhaps he was the real deal I mean why not In this materialistic age Why would God not be a wandering lunatic wandering around loose Talking to low lives like me In a bar On the highway to hell So I looked at him And invited him to share His tale of cosmic woe God tells me “Well, it's like this Many a year ago People believed in me But one day They quit believing in me they moved on And they went on without me As they left me My powers got weaker and weaker And so eventually I became What you see today A broken-down drunk Hanging out Looking for a handout Looking for some company Or at least a free dinner” And he laughed and laughed And I looked at him And saw the beginnings of the end And the ends of the beginnings I saw a million planets Flash by Trillions of people Thinking all at once Thoughts filled my head Lights flashed And I knew He was telling the truth But it did not matter In this day and age Of materialism God has no role God is truly dead And so I bought him a drink And walked out of the bar still twenty drinks too sober Profoundly saddened From what I had seen God was dead And we had all conspired To kill him Long live God