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Copy of Study Guide: Macbeth: Analysis

Writing Style

Blank Verse and Prose

Here's what you should remember about Shakespeare's plays: The nobility tend to speak in "blank verse," which is essentially unrhymed poetry. The commoners tend to speak just like we do, in regular old prose.

Blank Verse or, Unrhymed Iambic Pentameter (The Nobles) - Read more...

The Language of Macbeth

Tone

Take a story's temperature by studying its tone. Is it hopeful? Cynical? Snarky? Playful?

Murky, Somber, Sinister, and Foreboding

Macbeth opens with three witches conjuring on a heath amidst thunder, lightning, "fog and filthy air" and then proceed to throw around sinister prophesies, so, yeah, we're going to go ahead and say that this is one dark and foreboding play.

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