Methods & Form Flashcards
All 13 cards in this deck
What genre is Macbeth?
Tragedy.
What is Macbeth’s fatal flaw (hamartia)?
Ambition.
What verse form do noble characters mostly speak in?
Blank verse: unrhymed iambic pentameter.
What metre do the witches mostly chant in?
Trochaic tetrameter, in rhyming couplets.
Which character speaks in prose while sleepwalking?
Lady Macbeth (Act 5 Scene 1).
Which scene gives comic relief straight after Duncan’s murder?
The Porter scene (Act 2 Scene 3), written in prose.
What device is Macbeth’s speech “If it were done when ’tis done”?
A soliloquy (Act 1 Scene 7).
What device lets Macbeth say “The greatest is behind” without Ross and Angus hearing?
An aside (Act 1 Scene 3).
What device is at work when Duncan says Macbeth’s castle “hath a pleasant seat”?
Dramatic irony: he will be murdered there (Act 1 Scene 6).
What is the name for the rapid one-line exchanges after the murder, such as “When?” “Now.”?
Stichomythia (Act 2 Scene 2).
What device is “Fair is foul, and foul is fair”?
A paradox, built from antithesis.
What weather opens the play?
Thunder and lightning: pathetic fallacy.
What rhyming couplet ends Macbeth’s dagger soliloquy?
“Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell / That summons thee to heaven or to hell.”