Context

Question 1

What Age is Shakespeare’s work indicative of? How is it described?

Answer 1

Golden Age

Transcendental

Question 2

What/Where was Shakespeare born? What monarch was in reign?

Answer 2

1564/Stratford

Elizabeth I

Question 3

What age did Shakespeare get married? Who to?

Answer 3

18

Anne Hathaway

Question 4

What theatre troupe did Shakespeare become a member of? Under what monarch did it become famous?

Answer 4

Lord Chamberlain’s Men

James I

Question 5

What status did James I grant? Why did he?

Answer 5

The King’s Men

They performed privately in his court

Question 6

When did Shakespeare die?

Answer 6

1616

Question 7

What were the 3 types of plays Shakespeare wrote?

Answer 7

Comedies/Tragedies/Histories

Question 8

When did Shakespeare start writing tragedies? What could have possibly inspired it?

Answer 8

End of 16th Century

Possibly inspired by child’s death in 1596

Question 9

When did James I become king? When was Othello first performed?

Answer 9

1603

1604

Question 10

What inspired dramatic tragedies?

Answer 10

Conflict of the Jacobean Era

Question 11

Why is Shakespeare’s popularity continued today?

Answer 11

Ability to write transcendental literature

Question 12

Where is Othello set geographically?

Answer 12

The Mediterranean

Question 13

What themes Othello have a background of? What else does it examine?

Answer 13

War/Conflict

Identity

Question 14

How were black people seen in Renaissance London?

Answer 14

Barbarous and uncivilised

Question 15

What was the Renaissance a period of? What changes did this make to rules?

Answer 15

Period of change

Established and upturned

Question 16

What is an example of the Renaissance in Othello?

Answer 16

Othello and Desdemona’s marriage

Question 17

What does Othello show for individuals? Which character is this significant in?

Answer 17

The rise of people trying to break the established order

Iago

Question 18

What does Emilia demonstrate?

Answer 18

Women trying to gain more power

Question 19

How can love be described with the issues in Othello?

Answer 19

A strand that binds the issues together

Question 20

What does critic L.P. Hartley assert? Why is this important to Othello?

Answer 20

“The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there?
The events and beliefs are important at the time of Shakespeare’s writing

Question 21

Who were the two monarchs who reigned during Shakespeare’s life?

Answer 21

Elizabeth and James I

Question 22

What other 2 ways are the Elizabethan Era known as?

Answer 22

Golden Age/Renaissance Era

Question 23

What were the two issues derailing stability?

Answer 23

Political conflict from religion/poverty

Women had little rights

Question 24

What religious division took place?

Answer 24

Catholic and Protestant

Question 25

Who were at the top of society?

Answer 25

Nobility

Question 26

What was still rampant for the labouring class?

Answer 26

Poverty

Question 27

How did education differ for gender?

Answer 27

Boys (if they could afford it) would go to school

Girls learnt domestic skills