~ Handbook: Analysis ~

The more deeply you mine Shakespeare's language, the better. Quotation alone is seldom sufficient to make your point. Analyze the language and explain how and why a quotation supports your argument. If you've ended a paragraph with a quotation, check whether you've forgotten to analyze and explain.

For instance, Banquo says that there are lots of birds around Macbeth's castle. But this is how he says it:

This guest of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet, does approve
By his loved mansionry that the heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here. No jutty, frieze,
Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird
Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle.
Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed
The air is delicate. (1.6.3-10)

In light (or gloom) of what we know about Macbeth's and Lady Macbeth's plans, the speech is more than long-winded ornithology. If you were discussing it, perhaps to make a point about dramatic irony, you might want to call your reader's attention to the the phrase "guest of summer" (as opposed, for instance, to "hot-weather bird"), where "summer" is personified as a good host, unlike Macbeth who bears the knife rather than shuts the door against his guest's murderer (1.7.14-16). You might notice that Banquo says the air smells "wooingly" (instead of "unpolluted" or "flowery"), which reminds us that "breed[ing]" (associated with marriage, which is associated with wooing) is an issue in the play. You might analyze the rich metaphors in the phrase "pendent bed and procreant cradle" and notice how different this bird's nest is from, say, a regicide's castle.