Othello - AO3 CONTEXT

Question 1

Setting: Venice (4 points)

Answer 1

• associated with cosmopolitan, wealth and stability
• fascination among renaissance viewers
• diversity, trade and opportunity
• contemporary audience would have associated Venice with exotic excitement and dangerous otherworldliness, this is mirrored in Shakespeares treatment of Othello.

Question 2

Setting: Cyprus (2 points)

Answer 2

• further removed from English audience - geographically and symbolically
• more unknown and dangerous, honour break down

Question 3

Religion: Christianity and Islam

Answer 3

Christian republic of Venice vs Muslim Ottoman Empire 16th century. This is important as the protagonist converts to Christianity from islam this is another reminder of otherness. Fighting against the ottomans and having a muslim background = Venetian distrust

Question 4

Women and Marriage: Venetian Women

Answer 4

• Hub for prostitution
• Offers sexual freedom through the city being famous for the freedoms and liberty - “Whore of Venice”

Question 5

Dramatic context - “moors”

Answer 5

• In most dramatic convention, moors were menaces intent on destruction as seen in Titus Andronicus however Othello subverts this as playing a protagonist of an honourable man.

Question 6

Production history: Jacobean

Answer 6

primarily written to be enjoyed and watched by all. Role of Othello written by a white Jacobean English man for a white Jacobean Englishman to portray with black makeup alters a jacobeans audiences perception of race in the play

Question 7

Production history: 21st century

Answer 7

Hugh Quashire who played Othello in RSC 2015 production questions whether he should “accept that a play written over 400yrs ago by a white Englishman for another white Englishman in blackface makeup is an authoritative and credible profile of a genuine black man”

Question 8

Tragedy

Answer 8

Othello is an atypical tragedy in that it is based on domestic events between Othello and Desdemona rather than the fall of kings or ‘great men and nations’.
Othello is influenced by Revenge Tragedy, although the evil revenger, Iago, does not die, as would be expected.
Othello is influenced by the conventions of Greek tragedy: for example, the play is based on conflict and the protagonist’s errors of judgement.
The ending of the play evokes the emotions that Aristotle said tragedy should evoke: pity and fear.