Act+III

Macbeth Act III Literary Terms and Rhetorical Devices Casey Koch, Luci Mason, Kyle Moran, Renee Tornea 

1. ALLITERATION: “Tis safer to be that which we destroy/Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.” III.ii.6-7  2. ALLUSION: “Mark Antony’s was by Caesar.” III.i.57  3. ALLUSION: “Of the most pious Edward…takes from his high respect.” III.vi.27-29  4. ANAPHORA: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">“This is the very painting of your fear/This is the air-drawn dagger…” III.iv.61-62 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 12pt;">5. ANAPHORA: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">“Your vessels and your spells provide/Your charms and everything beside.” III.v.18-19

6. APOSTROPHE: “O slave!” III.iii.17 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 12pt;">7. ASYNDETON: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">“As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs/Shoughs, water-rugs…are clept.” III.i.93-94

8. ASYNDETON: “Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle/The housekeeper, the hunter…” III.i.96-97

9. ASSONANCE: “Or show the glory of our art?” III.v.9

10. ASSONANCE: “Makes wings to the rooky wood/Good things of day.” III.51-52

11. CHIASMUS "For them the gracious Duncan have I murdered/Put rancors in the vessel of my peace/Only for them." III.i.66-68

12. COLLOQUIAL: "What's done is done." III.ii.12

13. CONSONANCE: “Whose heavy hand hath bowed you to the grave.” III.i.90

14. DIACOPE: "Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly fly!" III.iii.17

15. ELLIPSIS: "Thither Macduff/Is gone to pray the holy King..." III.vi.29-30

16. EPANALEPSIS: “It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood.” III.iv.122

17. FORESHADOWING: "Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown/And put a barren scepter in my gripe/Thence to be wretched with an unlineal hand/No son of mine succeeding." III.i.60-63

18. FORESHADOWING: "It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood/Stones have been known to move and trees to speak." III.iv.122-123

19. HYPERBOLE: “With twenty trenched gashes in his head/The least a death to nature.” III.iv.27-28 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 12pt;">20. IMAGERY: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">“Oh, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife.” III.ii.37

21. IMAGERY: “My little spirit, see/Sits in a foggy cloud.” III.v.34-35

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">22. IRONY: “Duncan is in his grave/After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well. Treason has done his worst; nor can steel, nor poison…nothing touch him further.” III.ii.23-25

23. JUXTAPOSITION: “Better be with the dead/Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace/Than on the torture of the mind to like/In restless ecstasy.” III.ii.19-22

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">24. JUXTAPOSITION: “The mistress of your charms/The close contriver of all harms.” <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 12pt;">III.v.6-7 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 12pt;">25. METAPHOR: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">“There the grown serpent lies; the work that’s fled/Hath nature that in time will venom breed/No teeth for the present.” III.iv.29-31

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">26. METONYMY: “Thither Macduff/Is gone to pray the holy king, upon his aid/To wake Northumberland…” III.vi.29-31

27. MOTIF: "If charnel houses and our graves must send/Those that we bury back, our monuments/Shall be the maws of kites." III.iv.71-73 "Augurs and understood relations have/By magot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth/The secrest'st man of blood." III.iv.124-126

28. PARALELLISM: "To be thus is nothing/But to be safely thus... III.i.48-49

29. PARALELLISM: "Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace..." III.ii.20

30. PARENTHESIS: [aside] "Then comes my fit again; I had else been perfect..." III.iv.21 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 12pt;">31. PARENTHESIS: [aside] “Are you a man?” III.iv.58

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 12pt;">32. PERIODIC SENTENCE: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">“The son of Duncan/From whom this tyrant holds the due of birth/Lives in the English court…” III.vi.24-26

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">33. PERIODIC SENTENCE: “Fleance, his son, that keeps him company/Whose absence is no less material to me than is his father’s/Must embrace the fate of that dark hour.” III.i.135-138 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">34. PERSONIFICATION: “Come seeling night/Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day.” III.ii.46-47

35. PERSONIFICATION: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">“Stones have been known to move and trees to speak.” III.iv.123

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">36. RHETORICAL QUESTION: “Why by the verities on thee made good/May they not be my oracles as well/And set me up in hope?” III.i.8-10

37. RHETORICAL QUESTION: “Have I not reason, beldams as you are, saucy and overbold?” III.v.2-3

38. SARCASM: “Whom, you may say, if’t please you, Fleance killed/For Fleance fled; men must not walk too late.” III.vi.6-7

39. SIMILIE: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">“Whole as the marble, founded as the rock/As broad and general as the casing air.” III.iv.22-23

40. SIMILIE: “Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear/The armed rhinoceros…” III.iv.100-101