Othello

Question 1

AO5 - Which critic says Tragedy helps us learn “emotional truths”?

Answer 1

Kazan

Question 2

AO5 - Which critic said that madness can be “a punishment” or as a “unique ability to tell the truth”?

Answer 2

Mack

Question 3

AO5 - Which critic said that audiences gain “tragic joy” from tragedy?

Answer 3

Nuttall

Question 4

AO5 - Which critic described Othello as full of “histrionic intent”?

Answer 4

Leavis

Question 5

Which production had the director play Othello in blackface?

Answer 5

1965 Laurence Olivier film

Question 6

In which production does Othello whistle and point at the floor to summon Desdemona?

Answer 6

The 2023 National Theatre Production directed by Clint Dyer

Question 7

In which production is Iago played by a black actor?

Answer 7

2015 RSC Khan Production

Question 8

Give examples of context surrounding tragedy

Answer 8

• Jacobean and Elizabethan audiences enjoyed shocking performances
• bloodshed was staged with maximum realism
• Shakespeare often deviated from his source (Cinthio) to include more violent details

Question 9

Give examples of modern interpretations of Othello

Answer 9

• modern audiences may be more shocked at the domestic/gendered violence in the play due to modern movements such as #MeToo
• modern audiences are often more repulsed by gore and brutality than Shakespeare’s contemporary audiences

Question 10

In which production does Othello lift Desdemona off the stage in a headlock while Desdemona struggled?

Answer 10

The 2023 National Theatre Production

Question 11

Which critic said “violence is an inherent feature and form of patriarchy”?

Answer 11

Cohen

Question 12

What does the 2023 National Theatre production include in Othello?

Answer 12

The inclusion of ‘The System’ - a chorus onstage throughout the play which heckled Othello with racial slurs as they represented systemic racism

Question 13

Which critic says Othello’s final speech is a “superb coup de theatre”?

Answer 13

Leavis

Question 14

Define the features of a Tragic Hero

Answer 14

• be noble
• have hamartia (a fatal flaw)
• suffer peripeteia (a reversal of fortune)
• end with anagnorosis and provide the audience with a feeling of catharsis

Question 15

Which critic describes Iago as “a being next to devil”?

Answer 15

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Question 16

Which critic describes Iago as being driven by “motiveless malignancy”?

Answer 16

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Question 17

Which critic believes Iago has “latent homosexual desires that drive his obsession with Othello”?

Answer 17

Wangh

Question 18

Which critic says Othello is “both a fantasy of interracial love and social tolerance and a nightmare of racial hatred and male violence”?

Answer 18

Ania Loomba

Question 19

Which critic says Iago is the “joker of the pack” and a “practical joker of a peculiarly appalling kind”?

Answer 19

W.H. Auden

Question 20

Which critic says “The character of Iago is so conducted that he is from the first scene to the last hated and despised”?

Answer 20

Dr Johnson

Question 21

Which critic says “dramatic perspective compels us to see with his eyes, and to share his ‘jokes’” about Iago?

Answer 21

E.A.J Honigmann

Question 22

Which critic described Othello as “no more than a domestic drama”?

Answer 22

Thomas Rymer

Question 23

Which critic said “Othello is a victim of imperialism”?

Answer 23

Greer

Question 24

Which critic said Othello is a victim of Iago’s “irresistible force”?

Answer 24

A.C Bradley

Question 25

Which critic said that Othello’s love for Desdemona “Is the love of a possession. She is a prize, a spoilt of war”?

Answer 25

Phillips

Question 26

Which critic says Desdemona’s smothering is an “Example of the silencing of the female political voice.”?

Answer 26

Tennenhouse

Question 27

Which critic says “Her (Emilia) handing over the napkin was stupidity and nothing worse.”?

Answer 27

Bradley

Question 28

Which critic said “Either Shakespeare wants us to consider Emilia incredibly dimwitted or he made her too afraid of Iago to challenge him until it’s too late”?

Answer 28

Honigmann

Question 29

Which critic said “Desdemona is a fool for marrying a blackamoor” and called the play “A bloody farce”?

Answer 29

Rymer

Question 30

Summarise Key Quotes from Act 1 Scene 1

Answer 30

- “I am not what I am.”, Iago, pg36 - “An old black ram is tupping your white ewe!”, Iago, pg37 - “To the gross clasps of a lascivious Moor”, Roderigo, pg 38 - “O treason of the blood!”, Brabantio, pg39

Question 31

Summarise Key Quotes from Act 1 Scene 2

Answer 31

- “My parts, my title and my perfect soul shall manifest me rightly.”, Othello, pg41 - “I love the gentle Desdemona.”, Othello, pg41 - “Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them.”, Othello, pg42 - “O thou foul thief, where hast thou stowed my daughter?”, Brabantio, pg42

Question 32

Summarise Key Quotes from Act 1 Scene 3

Answer 32

- “She is abused, stol’n from me…sans witchcraft could not”, Brabantio, pg45 - “I won his daughter.”, Othello, pg46 - “The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders.”, Othello, pg48 - “If thou hast eyes to see: She has deceived her father, and may thee.”, Brabantio, pg52 - “I hate the Moor.”, Iago, pg53/54 - “Thus do I ever make my fool my purse.”, Iago, pg54 - “Hell and night must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light.”, Iago, pg54

Question 33

Summarise Key Quotes from Act 2 Scene 1

Answer 33

- “The divine Desdemona.”, Cassio, pg57 - “The riches of the ship is come on shore!”, Cassio, pg57 - “Do not learn of him, Emilia, though he be thy husband.”, Desdemona, pg59 - “You may relish him more in the soldier than in the scholar.”, Cassio, pg59 - “With as little as a web as this will I ensnare as great a fly as Cassio.”, Iago, pg60 - “I do suspect the lusty Moor hath leaped into my seat.”, Iago, pg63

Question 34

Summarise Key Quotes from Act 2 Scene 3

Answer 34

- “Iago is most honest.”, Othello, pg64 - “Not tonight, good Iago; I have very poor and unhappy brains for drinking.”, Cassio, pg65 - “Worthy Othello.”, Montano, pg69 - “I had rather have this tongue cut from my mouth than it should do offence to Micheal Cassio.”, Iago, pg70 - “Reputation, reputation, reputation!.. I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial.”, Cassio, pg71 - “How am I then a villain” Iago, pg73 - “Divinity of Hell! When devils will the blackest sins put on, they do suggest at first with heavenly shows, as I do now.”, Iago, pg73 - “I’ll pour this pestilence into his ear.”, Iago, pg73 - “Will I turn her virtue into pitch and out of her own goodness make the net that shall enmesh them all.”, Iago, pg73

Question 35

Summarise Key Quotes from Act 3 Scene 1

Answer 35

- “I never knew a florentine more kind and honest.”, Cassio, pg76 - “I will bestow you where you shall have time to speak your bosom freely.”, Emilia, pg76 - “I am much bound to you.”, Cassio, pg76

Question 36

Summarise Key Quotes from Act 3 Scene 3

Answer 36

- “I’ll intermingle everything he does with Cassio’s suit.”, Desdemona, pg78 - “When I love thee not, chaos is come again.”, Othello, pg80 - “O beware, my lord, of jealousy: it is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock the meat it feeds on.”, Iago, pg82 - “To seel her father’s eyes up close as oak, he thought twas witchcraft.”, Iago, pg83 - “Haply, for I am black.”, Othello, pg85 - “If she be false, O then heaven mocks itself!”, Othello, pg85 - “Farewell the tranquil mind.”, Othello, pg87 - “Give me the ocular proof.”, Othello, pg88 - “Damn her, lewd minx.” Othello, pg91 - “Now art thou my lieutenant.”, Othello, pg91

Question 37

Which critic said Iago possesses “The ambition, the aspiring spirit, the intellectual activity.”, allowing him to “Overleap those moral fences.”?

Answer 37

Charles Lamb

Question 38

Which critic argues Iago “Enjoys a godlike sense of power.”?

Answer 38

Honigmann

Question 39

Which critic argues “Emilia’s love (of Desdemona) is Iago’s undoing”?

Answer 39

Honigmann

Question 40

Which director said Othello is a “Play about misogyny”?

Answer 40

Clint Dyer - Director of the 2023 NT Production