I enjoyed reading and learning about Macbeth, and all the activities we did in class to accompany it were entertaining as well; Reading lines, watching the different versions, and making shoebox sets of some of the scenes. I even had a kilt for the final movie project that we did. It was more fun that I thought it would be, considering how tragic the book actually is.
Macbeth has a good plotline, and lots of room for adaptation and change, which makes it such a great novel/play to study in English. I think that learning about this work in particular really changed the way that I look at Shakespeare (I had previously only read Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo & Juliet, The Tempest, Hamlet, and Taming of the Shrew). I hadn't really read one of his true "tragedies" (Romeo & Juliet doesn't really count). Macbeth is different, in that, while it's a very refined piece of writing, the subtext always tends toward a more ominous connotation. I'm glad I read it, and I'm glad we spent as much time on it as we did.
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Yes, they are easy to adapt and change, but sometimes I think that people take it too far. They will change things dramatically and it is not good for the original version, if you ask me. Sometimes people just take it a tad too far, and ruin the story for me. However, it can also sometimes be a good thing, and change it for the better.
ReplyDeleteMarie's Post:
ReplyDeleteI am on the same page as Matt when he says that this is really the first of Shakespeare's tragedies that I have read. As Matt said, I dont think Romeo and Juliet really counts as a tragedy and when compared to Macbeth, there are obvious differences to support that. There is an almost ominous atmosphere present throughout Macbeth, where Romeo and Juliet is fairly light until the end. The context itself is also darker in Macbeth and there is far more subtext and context clues to indicate that it is in fact a tragedy.