context

Question 1

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

Answer 1

• Ensign was motivated by lust for Disdemona

- added Roderigo and Brabantio

Question 2

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

Answer 2

• North African

- Sub-Saharan African

Question 3

what was 16th century Venice like?

Answer 3

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

Question 4

How were black people treated in th early 1600s?

Answer 4

• 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

Question 5

what ideas of monsters were there at the time?

Answer 5

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

Question 6

What ideas of poison was there in early modern england?

Answer 6

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

Question 7

why is Cyprus significant?

Answer 7

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

Question 8

what were cuckholds?

Answer 8

• 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

Question 9

Who was Leo Africanus?

Answer 9

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

Question 10

who was the first man to play Othello?

Answer 10

-probably Richard Burbage (white actor)

Question 11

Who was Thomas Rymer?

Answer 11

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

Question 12

Who was Samuel Taylor Coleridge?

Answer 12

-commented on Iago’s ‘motiveless malignity’

Question 13

who was Ira Aldridge?

Answer 13

American actor

first black man to play Othello (1825)

Question 14

how does female speech relate to Othello’s jealousy?

Answer 14

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

Question 15

how does the patrileanial society effect women?

Answer 15

• unchastity subverts patrilineal inheritance

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

Question 16

how did sexual promiscuity effect women?

Answer 16

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

Question 17

how did the church view women?

Answer 17

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

Question 18

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

Answer 18

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

Question 19

Were black people common in 18th century England?

Answer 19

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

Question 20

What is interesting about the marriage between Othello and Desdemona?

Answer 20

• 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

Question 21

Who was Machiavelli?

Answer 21

• 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

Question 22

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

Answer 22

• Twelfth night = 60% prose

- Othello = 80% verse

Question 23

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

Answer 23

Iago = 31%
Othello = 25%
Hamlet = 37%

Question 24

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

Answer 24

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

Question 25

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

Answer 25

- 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

Question 26

How does the setting relate to Othello's religion?

Answer 26

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

Question 27

What does Moor REALLY mean?

Answer 27

- (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

Question 28

How does the Ottoman empire relate to the play?

Answer 28

- 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

Question 29

what is the true role of the clown?

Answer 29

- not directly Shakespeare or Othello's voice --> political message - eases tension - truth tellers that reflect on other characters

Question 30

what happens in the stage production by Lawerence Oliveirre?

Answer 30

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

Question 31

Who is Forello?

Answer 31

- 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

Question 32

How does 'Othello' contrast 'King Lear'?

Answer 32

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

Question 33

What are the origins of Iago's name?

Answer 33

- Spanish Saint 'Iago' (giving name Santiago) = known conquerer of Moors - -> suggests racial agenda

Question 34

How could the play be defended as not racist?

Answer 34

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

Question 35

What is meant by 'Syntactic vs Semantic'?

Answer 35

- 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

Question 36

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

Answer 36

- 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