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Othello > context > Flashcards

context Flashcards

1
Q

How did Shakespeare change the plot of Cinthio’s story?

A
  • Ensign was motivated by lust for Disdemona

- added Roderigo and Brabantio

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2
Q

What were the connotations of the word ‘Moor’ in the Shakespearean era?

A
  • North African

- Sub-Saharan African

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3
Q

what was 16th century Venice like?

A
  • extremely multi-cultural, especially in the trading centre (Rialto)
  • famous for its high class prostitutes/ courtesans
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4
Q

How were black people treated in th early 1600s?

A
  • The moroccan ambassador visited Londfo in 1600 to negotaiate a military alliance with the queen
  • a draft proclomation in 1601 asked for the deportation of black people
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5
Q

what ideas of monsters were there at the time?

A

-The Travels of John Mandeville was one of the most popular travel books, detailimg the wondorous races and creatures around the world

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6
Q

What ideas of poison was there in early modern england?

A
  • people were keenly aware of the dangers and benefits of plants as remedies and poisons
  • Herball by John Gerard
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7
Q

why is Cyprus significant?

A
  • 1571 sea battle of Lepanto - victory of the Chrisitans over the Ottomans
  • -> political resonance
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8
Q

what were cuckholds?

A
  • men depicted with animal horns as a shameful sign
  • running joke in any early modern ballads, plays and pamphlets
  • -> Othello’s fear of cuckholdery links him to a society that his race makes him feel an outsider from
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9
Q

Who was Leo Africanus?

A
  • used reductive racial stereotypes to describe vices of Africans in 1550
  • -> ‘no nation in the world is so subject to jealousie’
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10
Q

who was the first man to play Othello?

A

-probably Richard Burbage (white actor)

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11
Q

Who was Thomas Rymer?

A

-a critic who cuttingly asked why Othello wasn’t named ‘the tragedy of the handkerchief’ as it was a tragedy of ‘trifle’

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12
Q

Who was Samuel Taylor Coleridge?

A

-commented on Iago’s ‘motiveless malignity’

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13
Q

who was Ira Aldridge?

A

American actor

first black man to play Othello (1825)

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14
Q

how does female speech relate to Othello’s jealousy?

A

-the misogynist association of uncontrolled female speech with uncontrolled female sexuality fuels Othello’s jealousy

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15
Q

how does the patrileanial society effect women?

A
  • unchastity subverts patrilineal inheritance

- predating paternity tests, England had a cultural obsession with controlling women’s bodies

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16
Q

how did sexual promiscuity effect women?

A

charge of sexual promiscuity was the most readily available form of assault on a woman’s reputation

17
Q

how did the church view women?

A
  • untrustworthy, due to original sin and eve’s role in the fall of mankind
  • marriage tracts focused on wifely submission (parental permission, discretion)
18
Q

what similarities can be drawn between Much Ado About Nothing and Othello?

A

-most mischief and drama happens in an outpost of civilisation (the forest in MAAN)

19
Q

Were black people common in 18th century England?

A

-few people outside of London would have ever seen a black person

20
Q

What is interesting about the marriage between Othello and Desdemona?

A
  • eloped, and therefore illict in the eyes of Venice
  • -> But shakespeare views there love as not illict, and the play regards them as fully entitled
  • -> they don’t see that they are prisoners of a time of racial prejudice and sexual inequality
  • -> Iago personifies the venemous rage of society
21
Q

Who was Machiavelli?

A
  • desired to occupy political office, and worked hard for 14 years, but the Florence came over Papal control again (with help from Venice) and Machiavelli was fired, arrested and tortured.
  • -> Wrote ‘the prince’, a scathing review of human nature and how duplicity and manipulation is the road to political success
  • -> believed it was more important to be feared than loved
  • -> ‘good’ in the christian sense brings weakness
22
Q

How do verse and prose compare in Shakespeare’s comedies and tragedies?

A
  • Twelfth night = 60% prose

- Othello = 80% verse

23
Q

How does line distribution among the men compare across Shakespeare’s tragedies?

A 
Iago = 31%
Othello = 25%
Hamlet = 37%
24
Q

How does line distribution among the women compare across Shakespeare’s tragedies?

A

Desdemona = 11%
Lady Macbeth = 11%
Ophelia (Hamlet) = 4%

25
Q

What was the effect of the drinking scene on the contemporary audience?

A
  • ironic ‘foreign’ perspective on the English (who were very nationalistic)
  • reputed madness and excessive drinking habits of the English were a stock joke on the London stage
26
Q

How does the setting relate to Othello’s religion?

A

-dramatises the singular vulnerability of the Moor, a figure who is alien despite being a convert to Christianity

27
Q

What does Moor REALLY mean?

A
  • (subtitle of Play = ‘the Moor of Venice’ and emphasizes his exotic nature)
  • A muslim of North Africa
  • -> handkerchief is a treasured relic from his past, and from Egypt
  • -> possibly pronounced Otello on early stage and so sounds like Ottoman
28
Q

How does the Ottoman empire relate to the play?

A
  • set in 1570s, during an ongoing conflict between the European christian powers and the Islamic Ottoman empire
  • English writers like Knolles deamonised the Ottomans as barbaric and cruel, but Shakespeare undercuts this binary opposition by making his hero Venetian and his hero an outsider

-suicide = service as christian convert to kill the inner Turk

29
Q

what is the true role of the clown?

A
  • not directly Shakespeare or Othello’s voice –> political message
  • eases tension
  • truth tellers that reflect on other characters
30
Q

what happens in the stage production by Lawerence Oliveirre?

A
  • Othello rips a cross off of his neck when converting to madness
  • -> Christian = good and Muslim = improper
31
Q

Who is Forello?

A
  • a jealous husband in the play ‘every man in his humour’

- -> naming Othello after him suggests that Othello’s jealousy is more important than his race

32
Q

How does ‘Othello’ contrast ‘King Lear’?

A

In King Lear, the motives are clearly laid out (Villain = Edmund)

33
Q

What are the origins of Iago’s name?

A
  • Spanish Saint ‘Iago’ (giving name Santiago) = known conquerer of Moors
  • -> suggests racial agenda
34
Q

How could the play be defended as not racist?

A

-It interrogates racism rather than being racist, just as the taming of the shrew interrogates sexism

35
Q

What is meant by ‘Syntactic vs Semantic’?

A
  • Syntactic: structure of tragedy i.e. downfall and catharsis
  • Semantic: tonal ideas of tragedy i.e. serious and sad

-largely, Othello is a syntactic but not a Semantic tragedy

36
Q

In what ways does ‘Othello’ draw on the framework of comedy?

A
  • Iago is witty
  • Plotting occurs more in comedy than tragedy
  • In classic tragedy events are down to fate and gods. In Othello they are down to human interventions

Othello (3 decks)

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