We enter the scene with witches, and Banquo and Macbeth, two noblemen of Scotland are sidetracked from a war and get their fortunes told. Macbeth is told he will become king. Banquo is told his sons with be kings. They wonder between themselves, "can the devil speak true?" but later they are brought back to the important present, where the king deeds them very important men.
But with a letter from Macbeth in hand, his wife conjures up a mortal plan to kill the king, and make fate come faster. And.."the king comes here to-night" cries a messenger. Lady Macbeth goes crazy with delight and mischief, and when Macbeth comes home convinces him that that night shall be the death of King Duncan, and relates her plan to him. The king has his doubts, and sings a long speech about it, but his wife convinces him that they cannot fail. CANNOT. "Screw your courage to the sticking place and we'll not fail."
So they prepare for the night, to kill the man who loves old Macbeth like a son. But what dos he know of his wife???
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Macbeth ~ Act IV & V
In these two acts, the downhill swoop of the play, the fatal parts of the action, Macbeth starts by going back to the witches. Since seeing Banquo's ghost he is frightened and wants to know his future. He is frustrated by them: "though you untie the winds and let them fight against churches, though the yesty waves confound and swallow .... answer me to what I ask you," and though they persist he leaves them knowing that Macduff is a threat, no woman born man can kill him, and that until the forest around his castle comes to his door he will be safe.
This information gives him a sense of pride and resolution, but still he wants to make sure he is okay, so he hires some more murderers and kills Macduff's family while he is away in England. Macbeth has truly become a tyrant in Scotland. We find in the last act, the soldiers say, "he's made; others, that less hate him, do call it valiant fury; but for certain he cannot buckle his distempered cause within the belt of rule." He's gone about murdering dissenters, ignoring everything rational and/or good in his self-absorbed fury, greed, and guilt.
His actions are not ignored though, and Macduff, Malcom, and some other Scottish ex-patriots in England decide to take action along with the English army and get Macbeth out of office. Macbeth, on hearing the news is not afraid with the knowledge that the witches gave him, but he is punished for assuming and dies under the hand of Macduff (a c-section baby). Malcom becomes king, the rightful heir in the first place, and we trust he will be better than the last.
At the end, the story of Banquo's royal progeny goes unresolved but we are led to believe that it will be so someday, because the witches, no matter how cleverly put or complexly assembled, say the truth.
In Macbeth, there is lots of evidence of moral. When Macduff's wife is questioning her assending murder: "I have done no harm. but I remember now I am in this earthly world, where to do harm is often laudable, to do good sometime accounded dangerous folly" which follows the "fair is foul, foul is fair" theme that the witches presented at the beginning of the play. Her conversation with her son about traitors, also, s almost Socratic! The doctor in Act V condemming Lady Macbeth's illness not of the physic but it is "the heart [that] is sorely charged." There is abig lesson of guilt in Macbeth. Both personal guilt and also basic human guilt, for communal deeds done. Often in this play, the good felt guilty for knowing secrets they shouldn't (like Banquo) and were depressed by the facts that should have been reversed. Of course the guilty were guilty too, but it was not kept to them; it affected everybody.
This information gives him a sense of pride and resolution, but still he wants to make sure he is okay, so he hires some more murderers and kills Macduff's family while he is away in England. Macbeth has truly become a tyrant in Scotland. We find in the last act, the soldiers say, "he's made; others, that less hate him, do call it valiant fury; but for certain he cannot buckle his distempered cause within the belt of rule." He's gone about murdering dissenters, ignoring everything rational and/or good in his self-absorbed fury, greed, and guilt.
His actions are not ignored though, and Macduff, Malcom, and some other Scottish ex-patriots in England decide to take action along with the English army and get Macbeth out of office. Macbeth, on hearing the news is not afraid with the knowledge that the witches gave him, but he is punished for assuming and dies under the hand of Macduff (a c-section baby). Malcom becomes king, the rightful heir in the first place, and we trust he will be better than the last.
At the end, the story of Banquo's royal progeny goes unresolved but we are led to believe that it will be so someday, because the witches, no matter how cleverly put or complexly assembled, say the truth.
In Macbeth, there is lots of evidence of moral. When Macduff's wife is questioning her assending murder: "I have done no harm. but I remember now I am in this earthly world, where to do harm is often laudable, to do good sometime accounded dangerous folly" which follows the "fair is foul, foul is fair" theme that the witches presented at the beginning of the play. Her conversation with her son about traitors, also, s almost Socratic! The doctor in Act V condemming Lady Macbeth's illness not of the physic but it is "the heart [that] is sorely charged." There is abig lesson of guilt in Macbeth. Both personal guilt and also basic human guilt, for communal deeds done. Often in this play, the good felt guilty for knowing secrets they shouldn't (like Banquo) and were depressed by the facts that should have been reversed. Of course the guilty were guilty too, but it was not kept to them; it affected everybody.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Mentor Log
I- September 30, 4:00-5:30
The first visit with Jason Locklin, a chemistry researcher and graduate student professor at the University of Georgia, began with me, full of fear, as usual in these sorts of situations. I had a bit of a time trying to get to him, because the building in which he works, on Riverbend Road, has tinted windows, double air locking doors, and no signs. The whole way around the building. He told me late, after congradulating me for finding him, that this building was only built a year ago especially for extra-security disease research on the nanotechnology level. At the moment, only four major people are working there, with their labs and their graduate students -- all focusing on nanotechnology.
Locklin says he focuses on "organic electronics" which is the science of making semi-conductors, electronically chargable materials out of organic molecules, dyes, objects, and the like. That is, things found naturally ready to be electronically conducting materials. His science is way beyond me, but I try, and I think he does to, to actually connect and understand (in his case, make me understand) what he's talking about.
He had lots of ideas about products to make. He showed be a proposal to make a solar blackberry-dye cell that powered a fan. It was a kit, I might do it, but it costs $40.
II-October 18 4:30-6:00
This visit we discussed a different product idea he had emailed be about -- a solar mechanical entropy engine. Probably more simple to make, but very different from the things Jason works on. He was very busy but had time to explain to me exactly how a solar photovoltaic cell works. I didn't exactly get it, and I still don't get the basics, like electronics in general probably, but now I completely understand all the little details. He told me why there are certain materials that conduct electricity with light and some that don't, and he told me why. It is due to how much light a material can absorb. He also said: light = energy. A very important concept to swallow.
Earlier he also told me how much of a business the research world was. They spend billions a year, and have a bunch of work to do with how they get their money as well as all the new equipement that they have to acquire, etc. Also, the first time he showed be his lab and introduced me to all his students. this time he also explained to be photolithography, how they can organize molecules into nano-rods and really, really, really small things. Interesting..
The first visit with Jason Locklin, a chemistry researcher and graduate student professor at the University of Georgia, began with me, full of fear, as usual in these sorts of situations. I had a bit of a time trying to get to him, because the building in which he works, on Riverbend Road, has tinted windows, double air locking doors, and no signs. The whole way around the building. He told me late, after congradulating me for finding him, that this building was only built a year ago especially for extra-security disease research on the nanotechnology level. At the moment, only four major people are working there, with their labs and their graduate students -- all focusing on nanotechnology.
Locklin says he focuses on "organic electronics" which is the science of making semi-conductors, electronically chargable materials out of organic molecules, dyes, objects, and the like. That is, things found naturally ready to be electronically conducting materials. His science is way beyond me, but I try, and I think he does to, to actually connect and understand (in his case, make me understand) what he's talking about.
He had lots of ideas about products to make. He showed be a proposal to make a solar blackberry-dye cell that powered a fan. It was a kit, I might do it, but it costs $40.
II-October 18 4:30-6:00
This visit we discussed a different product idea he had emailed be about -- a solar mechanical entropy engine. Probably more simple to make, but very different from the things Jason works on. He was very busy but had time to explain to me exactly how a solar photovoltaic cell works. I didn't exactly get it, and I still don't get the basics, like electronics in general probably, but now I completely understand all the little details. He told me why there are certain materials that conduct electricity with light and some that don't, and he told me why. It is due to how much light a material can absorb. He also said: light = energy. A very important concept to swallow.
Earlier he also told me how much of a business the research world was. They spend billions a year, and have a bunch of work to do with how they get their money as well as all the new equipement that they have to acquire, etc. Also, the first time he showed be his lab and introduced me to all his students. this time he also explained to be photolithography, how they can organize molecules into nano-rods and really, really, really small things. Interesting..
Macbeth: Act III
Here we are at the height of the action, the height of the conflict, Banquo is seen with "fear sticking too deep" (III, i) and thus must be done away with. Three gruesome murderers enter the scene, Macbeth is anxious, trembling, worried and only slightly paranoid. there is a party, "Macbeth as king" must celebrate, his wife is though forced to control him, his outbursts, the fear and guilt overwhelming him -- Banquo is taking new form.....a ghost. A clever ghost who works the spirit into such whim and wit its crazy. The party-goers are getting suspicious. The wife is futilely covering everything up, Macbeth has stopped caring. Macbeth: "Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too. If charnel houses and our graves must send those we bury back, our monuments shall be the maws of kites" (III,iv). "Banquo, whom we miss" is not present, he is dead. Macduff is absent, but still lethal. Lennox, a lord, has called to him -- Macduff with uncover things anon.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Macbeth Act II
Macbeth starts to go crazy in this act. Banquo is still hurting about the witches premonitions, worrying through the night and losing sleep, but Macbeth has deeper troubles now.
After his Lady has dragged him into a plot of murder, Macbeth is sickened with guilt of the crime to come. Can he succomb to do a dead that would lead him to hell? Would rack his life with guilty?
Yes.
It amazes me that Macbeth could go through with something that was so against his morals at first and then pull off a blank face, a surprised expression, a both curious and horrified reaction to the murder of his king. "That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold" states Lady Macbeth in scene II; where Macbeth go crazy with guilt and lies, Lady Macbeth has her sanity stolen by something all together different. By her ambition, I once heard said, and there is definitely some hidden motive around Lady Macbeth that hasn't been revealed to us yet.
The strange occurances in nature the night of the King's death, and how it is felt by everyone around makes me think that there is something really wrong about the king dying.
In the reaction scene, when everyone finds out about Duncan's death, how can we tell who is sincere or not? When the Macbeths seems so sincere and worried in their speech....
After his Lady has dragged him into a plot of murder, Macbeth is sickened with guilt of the crime to come. Can he succomb to do a dead that would lead him to hell? Would rack his life with guilty?
Yes.
It amazes me that Macbeth could go through with something that was so against his morals at first and then pull off a blank face, a surprised expression, a both curious and horrified reaction to the murder of his king. "That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold" states Lady Macbeth in scene II; where Macbeth go crazy with guilt and lies, Lady Macbeth has her sanity stolen by something all together different. By her ambition, I once heard said, and there is definitely some hidden motive around Lady Macbeth that hasn't been revealed to us yet.
The strange occurances in nature the night of the King's death, and how it is felt by everyone around makes me think that there is something really wrong about the king dying.
In the reaction scene, when everyone finds out about Duncan's death, how can we tell who is sincere or not? When the Macbeths seems so sincere and worried in their speech....
The Restoration and its effects, running chaotically behind it
The Glorious Revolution of 1688 occurred with the overthrow of King James II and the ascension to power by the new king William (and his wife Mary) who changed England forever, taking away the absolution of the monarch's power and installing the Parliament with a bill of rights. It also decidedly gave England no hope of a future Catholic rule, all the protesters of the old monarchy being avid Protestants. Even nonconformist Protestants were barely tolerated. The revolution was conspired by William and Mary, both not wanting it to seem like a foreign invasion, but a public overthrow.
Though the Glorious Revolution is also sometimes called the Bloodless Revolution and noted in books by its easy transition, that term ignores the fighting that went down in Ireland and Scotland, and also the war at the time in Europe.
This change in the English government is especially important because it started the slow but steady decline of the king/queen's power contrasted by the increase of parliamentary power. This became the first example of the parliamentary democracy, the first government to state the rights of the public individuals, and the outright opposition of Catholicism. Although most of these changes sounded very good, there was a lot of suppressed opposion, especially presuasive in Ireland and the farther reaches of England.
Satire is humor as criticism.
Often, though satire is supposedly a form of writing or drawing or spoken word that makes people laugh, there is a deep, sad root to their art that in nature is trying to reform something, or correct a human vice.
In A Modest Proposal, Swift proposes that the population of Ireland better the conditions of the poor by using their children as a new fancy meat for the landlord's and "people of quality" of the country. One cannot tell how un-serious he is because he writes with utter sincerity: "I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least personal interest in endeavoring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the public good of my country" but in some places his rationality, his scientific reasoning, his enumerated benefits, all seem a little too sincere and a little too naive. "I can think of no one objection, that will possibly be raised against this proposal."
This is prime satire: everyone is looking for a way to lower the over-population, lots of people can't stand the Catholics, or "papists" as he calls them, so Swift presents a sure-fire way to horrify or amuse while showing that their are humanitarian concerns and complexities in solving problems. The good of the society also balances of the good of the individual.
Though the Glorious Revolution is also sometimes called the Bloodless Revolution and noted in books by its easy transition, that term ignores the fighting that went down in Ireland and Scotland, and also the war at the time in Europe.
This change in the English government is especially important because it started the slow but steady decline of the king/queen's power contrasted by the increase of parliamentary power. This became the first example of the parliamentary democracy, the first government to state the rights of the public individuals, and the outright opposition of Catholicism. Although most of these changes sounded very good, there was a lot of suppressed opposion, especially presuasive in Ireland and the farther reaches of England.
Satire is humor as criticism.
Often, though satire is supposedly a form of writing or drawing or spoken word that makes people laugh, there is a deep, sad root to their art that in nature is trying to reform something, or correct a human vice.
In A Modest Proposal, Swift proposes that the population of Ireland better the conditions of the poor by using their children as a new fancy meat for the landlord's and "people of quality" of the country. One cannot tell how un-serious he is because he writes with utter sincerity: "I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least personal interest in endeavoring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the public good of my country" but in some places his rationality, his scientific reasoning, his enumerated benefits, all seem a little too sincere and a little too naive. "I can think of no one objection, that will possibly be raised against this proposal."
This is prime satire: everyone is looking for a way to lower the over-population, lots of people can't stand the Catholics, or "papists" as he calls them, so Swift presents a sure-fire way to horrify or amuse while showing that their are humanitarian concerns and complexities in solving problems. The good of the society also balances of the good of the individual.
In the Diary of Samuel Pepys, Mr. Pepys describes some days of his life in the early reign of King Charles II, including his coronation. Pepys is a decently rich man, not an aristocrat but enough a part of the aristocratic life that he went to the parties and stayed home with his friends from the parties, and got drunk after the king's coronation ceremony. He seemed very happy with his life. There were lots of people in his daily transactions, heworked for a lord that was related in some professional way to the king, but Pepys did not live directly in London. His fears are fears of a rich man, not of the poor and only in entry of his did he mention, after fears of a late night burglar, "the fears of all rich men that are covetous and have much money by them" were his such fears. Obviously a confident young man, unheeded by financial worries, I doubt that his kind were the most common place in England of the late 1600s.
He also experienced the London fire of 1668, but did get all his most precious belongings saved by his wealthy friend who lived beyond the reaches of the fire. "I am eased at my heart to have my treasure so well secured." He was pretty well roundedly secured in all aspects of his life and the fact that he didn't have "any sleep all this night" a few nights during the fire and because of some barking dogs, his life in England was a steady, happy stream of events.
According to these readings, of Swift and Pepys, and from basic research, life in England was a major transition, and things, though they might not have seemed tumultuous to the people living in those times, were producing great change. The fights between the Protestants and the Catholics, the Irish and the English; there were many decisions and choices about the future of the English rule, and the lives of the people of England.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Reading long ago log
Solar Energy consumed me. In every way; I was surrounded by it and I surrounded myself in it. I was reading about solar solar solar solar solar, and I can't even remember what else. Terrible, isn't it? A few weeks ago I picked up Ralph Waldo Emerson and read a couple of his essays (History, the entirety of Self-Reliance, and Friendship). I found his optimism very comforting and his ideas for living quite attractive.
Also, two sundays ago I found a Jack Kerouac book I'd never read at a free fair and picked it up and read it: Lonesome Traveller. Tells about all his travels and work on the railroad and on an ocean cruiser and as a writer simple and happy in Tangiers, Paris, London. His first European voyage. Included in that book is also a nice piece on the American HoBo. Its nice. Jack Kerouac is so sincere, so honest, so happy, but lonely. I really like him. (But I do think that this book, published late in his career, was sort of a writing dug out for avid publisher fans, not out of the top of genius).
Now, I read the best novel I've read in years: The Children's Hospital by Chris Adrian. It is about the end of the world by water and the only thing that is saved. Complex, intense, sad but beautiful. 600 page book, I'm only 100 in.
Also, two sundays ago I found a Jack Kerouac book I'd never read at a free fair and picked it up and read it: Lonesome Traveller. Tells about all his travels and work on the railroad and on an ocean cruiser and as a writer simple and happy in Tangiers, Paris, London. His first European voyage. Included in that book is also a nice piece on the American HoBo. Its nice. Jack Kerouac is so sincere, so honest, so happy, but lonely. I really like him. (But I do think that this book, published late in his career, was sort of a writing dug out for avid publisher fans, not out of the top of genius).
Now, I read the best novel I've read in years: The Children's Hospital by Chris Adrian. It is about the end of the world by water and the only thing that is saved. Complex, intense, sad but beautiful. 600 page book, I'm only 100 in.
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