Lecture 1 Othello the Moor of Venice

by William Shakespeare

World of Othello; Othello’s World

Areas of focus

Introductory remarks; A different time; a different place Historical and cultural factors A word on Shakespeare’s Theatre Shakespearean Drama Shakespearean Tragedy; and Tragic Hero Literary, linguistic, rhetorical elements Key Concepts

Introduction: Note the title

Othello the Moor of Venice

Introduction (cont)

To study Shakespeare enables you to acquire all kinds of knowledge, ideas, insights, skills, and most of all, wisdom

Increased vocabulary, and use of English Enriched historical & cross-cultural awareness

and intellectual understanding Enhanced personal development—growth of

self confidence and self-esteem Fosters critical thinking

‘It sometimes seems to me that the whole of philosophy is only a meditation of Shakespeare.’

- Emmanuel Levinas

Words of Wisdom

Good name in man or woman, dear my lord,

Is the immediate jewel of their soul,

Who steals my purse steals trash, ’tis something,

nothing

‘Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands;

But he who filches from me my good name,

Robs me of that which not enriches him,

And makes me poor indeed.

Drama and Conflict

In Othello, as with any play—

Conflict is the essence of drama.

Themes / Issues / Concerns

Insiders and Outsiders; Locals and Foreigners Racial Prejudice; Racism The Weak and the Strong; the Smart and the

Stupid; The Struggle of Existence; Life as a Struggle Good and Evil; Love and Hate Appearance and Reality; Sight and Blindness

Introduction: Reading and Studying

As with any play, Othello should be treated as a script to guide a live performance on stage;

For active, imaginative, and co-operative inhabitation of Shakespeare’s world

His language is an invitation to imaginative, dramatic enactment

Play reading: Must visualize the script of the play in your mind;

A different time, different place

Clearly a different world; yet not so different; The Elizabethan England of Shakespeare Must distinguish clearly between

Shakespeare’s English world and the European world of his play Othello— Venice, the ‘Hollywood’ of 16th century West

Venice: glamorous, daring, brilliant, wicked city—a city of pearls and perils

The world of Shakespeare's Othello

Notice the names of the characters: Roderigo; Brabantio; Cassio; Iago; Othello

Clearly, Italian sounding names; (though name ‘Iago’ is Spanish for James) Venice (Venetian); Florence (Florentine) Venice—a powerful European city-state Important commercial centre; and to the whole

of Christendom as a protector of the Christian faith against Turkey

16th Century city-state of Venice

Venice is the landless city where different kinds and races meet each other;

The sea is the medium of their wars as money is the medium of their wealth

Venice is for Shakespeare an anthropological laboratory—

Suspended between sea and sky, it receives and utilizes all kinds of people

‘This is Venice’ – Brabantio

Audiences had good reason to see this region of Europe as a natural background to sensational dramatic events

On the one hand, ‘Italy’, and more particularly, city states like Venice and Florence were centres of civilization

Earliest home of the European Renaissance A model of learning and sophistication

Moors? and Othello, the Moor

Issue of Othello’s race: Arab or Negro? Moor (standard definition): a member of the

mixed Arab and Berber people of Morocco (North Africa) and the Barbary coast

However, evidence for the kind of Moor Othello is, in the play, difficult to interpret

In any case, a dark, or black / white opposition is built into the play at every level

Theatre in Shakespeare’s time

Shakespeare's theatre did not possess the complex stage machinery of modern theatre

to create elaborate sets, lighting, and sound effects;

Thus atmosphere and setting is suggestively created through the power of language—

Scene painting is done in and through words Lighting and Sound effects also achieved

through language; words

Re- Theatre (cont)

Fullest experience of any Shakespearean play — created through words

In Othello, language is used to evoke tempests as in Scene 1 of Act 2

Language is used to create a sense of light and darkness; day and night;

Language used even to create a sense of place;

Features of Shakespearean Drama

Every play has its own distinctiveness; Much of Shakespeare’s plays written in poetry — that

of blank verse; As well as its distinctive use of prose; Blank verse is a very flexible medium; like normal

English speech, capable of a wide range of tones; Speaking Shakespeare—

Iambic pentameter—divide into five feet; Sound Patterning and Rhythm; Imagery – central to the language of Poetry

Features of Shakespearean drama (cont)

High life characters speak in poetry; low life characters speak in prose

Structure: Five act plays, divided into scenes Soliloquies, Asides, and Set Speeches Long speeches—Copia Verborum (abundance,

plentiness of words) Tropical plenitude The nature of Shakespeare’s stage directions

A sense of Shakespearean Tragedy;Aristotle’s Concept of Tragic Drama

Genre? Kind / type of play: Othello is a tragedy In Tragedy (tragic drama), there is always the fall of a

great man who is potentially a person of noble character; The playwright is concerned with its causes, the way it works, its effects

Associated with Tragedy is the notion of the ‘boomerang’

The effect of the Tragic Hero’s actions on himself; totally different effect to that intended

The Concept of Tragic Hero

For the tragic hero, there is also the concept of the acquisition of self-knowledge;

This refers to the knowledge of himself that comes to the Tragic Hero through suffering

In Tragedy—must be a Tragic Hero

Whose situation changes from well-being to misfortune (peretpateia)

Brought upon him by some error of judgment on his part, arising from a flaw in his character, some human weakness (hamartia)

Essential he contributes to some extent to his own downfall

Who must suffer for his wrong-doing on this earth until he has expiated his offences

Definition of Tragic Hero

The Tragic Hero is a potentially noble person Who, through some flaw in his character Helps to bring about his own downfall, a And who by suffering acquires self-

knowledge And so purges his faults

Literary elements

Rich and varied patterned use of poetic imagery Symbolism e.g. the tempest Personification Rhythm e.g. the steady rhythm of Othello’s blank

verse in the earlier scenes of the play; Sound repetition: Assonance, Alliteration, and

onomatopoeia; Rhyme (Sound Patterning) Paronomasia / Puns [The Elizabethans delighted in

witty wordplay] Dramatic irony: Verbal; Situational;

Literary elements—we note Iago uses

Bombastic, patterned, balanced language, abounding in latinisms

when he is speaking to Roderigo For example, ‘it was a violent commencement,

and thou shalt see an answerable sequestration’ – Iago in Act 1, Scene 3, lines 345-346

Use of patterned dialogue - Speeches characterized by Animal Imagery

Linguistic elements

Use of pronouns: ‘You’ and ‘Thee’ Shakespeare’s use of thee, thou, thy, thine Thou can imply either closeness or contempt ‘You’ is more formal and distant form of

address suggesting respect for a superior or courtesy to a social equal

Use of transitive verbs Use of aptly chosen adjectives

Shakespearean / Elizabethan English

Tush - rubbish; Sblood - by God’s blood Forsooth Hath Full hard Marry (swears by the Virgin Mary) Hotly - urgently Moons - months Prithee - pray you Haply - perhaps Note: Words that have changed in meaning

Rhetoric: Art of Persuasion

All the ways of using language to convince others, or move someone to action

Use of particular linguistic techniques to gain the confidence of listeners, appeal to their reason, their emotions, and their imagination

In Othello, as in all plays, powerfully persuasive voices are heard as characters try to convince other characters;

Rhetorical techniques / devices

Lengthy set speeches—copia verborum Bombast (inflated language) Powerful antithesis (a key technique); Hyperbole All kinds of repetitions, and lists (enumeration) Anaphora: the same words beginning successive

sentences Epizeuxis: repeating words in immediate succession Antanaclasis: punning on a repeated word to obtain

different dramatic effects

Some central Concepts

Individual; Outsider; Society; Culture Conflict; Tragedy; (Shakespearean Tragedy) Tragic hero; Concepts of Heaven and Hell; Concepts of Good, and Evil; Love and Hate Concepts of Appearance and Reality Concept of Belief and Knowledge Concept of Cause; Reason and Evidence Concepts of Order and Chaos; Concept of Antithesis

Finally, remember……???

Read the play…carefully, closely and thoroughly In reading the play, (may we suggest) you acquire

and use a CD (aural dramatization) to enable you to follow and make better sense of the context of the play’s text.

Seek opportunities to see the play in performance, to experience it theatrically

Seize opportunities to read literary criticism… Seek opportunities to discuss the play