othello Flashcards
(50 cards)
how do you identify prose?
runs margin to margin
why would verse be used over prose?
prose is too regular for expressing madness
what is blank verse?
iambic pentameter, to add song-like quality to ordinary English
the use of Venice to Cyprus then being narrowed to a single bedroom implies what?
claustrophobia. mimics the singular concern
what does the setting of Venice imply?
cultural sophistication, power, wealth, order
what was Cyprus acknowledged as during the Jacobean era?
a “halfway house” between civilisation and the heathen world
what might the storm in scene 2 be described as?
deus ex machina
what can Iago be considered as?
a Machiavellian malcontent - a ruthless and deceitful character who is dissatisfied with society and therefore delight in their manipulative evil
what is the concept of a Machiavellian malcontent credited to?
Machiavelli.
advocated for political deceit and manipulation to benefit someone
what is a malcontent able to do?
comments on the action and may even acknowledge they’re in a play
who was the Battle of Lepanto between?
Christian Republic of Venice and Muslim Ottoman Empire
who wrote the original Othello and what changed?
Cinthio
Battle of Lepanto
who won the Battle and what did this do?
Christian Republic of Venice
restored Christian control
what was the effect of the Battle of Lepanto mirroring the tensions of the Venetians and Ottomans?
audience understands the level of tension
Dr Johnson
“from the first scene to the last hated and despised.”
Charles Lamb
“the ambition, the aspiring spirit, intellectual activity which prompts them to overleap moral fences.”
Honnigmann on Iago’s jokes
“practical joker of a peculiarly appalling kind”
“plays chief humourist”
Honnigmann on Iago and the audience
we “may come close to sympathising with a villain.”
Honnigmann and friendship
“he has never felt nor understood the spiritual impulses that bind ordinary human beings together, loyalty friendship, respect and compassion.”
Leavis on Othello stabbing Desdemona
“the noble Othello is now seen as tragically pathetic”
Leavis on Othello’s reputation
“Othello is, we cannot doubt, the stoic-captain whose few words know their self-sufficiency”
Loomba
the myth of Venice - the model of civility
Queen Elizabeth said…
public speech about the issues of “Blackamoors”
what stereotype did Leavis look at?
“sensual possessiveness, appetite”
genetically prone to uncontrollable sexual jealousies and urges
