Othello context and critics

Question 1

The renaissance period

Answer 1

lasted from the 15th through to the mid 17th century
draws on this period by exploring his characters in depth which was common at the time
The flourishing of literature and culture can also be seen in the vocabulary in Shakespeare’s works: many words and phrases are recorded in writing for the first time in Shakespeare’s works: the beast with two backs, the green-eyed monster.

Question 2

Venice

Answer 2

known for the diversity of its population
It was a place with bustling with trade and opportunity
Several ottoman / Venetian wars raged
Simultaneously associated with exotic excitement and dangerous other worldliness.

Question 3

Why did shakespeare set Othello abroad?

Answer 3

Venice is both familiar and toxic and in this respect is the ideal space to project english anxieties and preoccupations.

Question 4

Andrew Hadfield

Answer 4

called venice a “Critical utopian space” - a seemingly ideal place where tensions are brewing underneath the surface.

Question 5

When was Othello performed?

Answer 5

the 17th century

Question 6

Women and marriage

Answer 6

Women were subordinates to men in the 16th and 17th centuries
Desdemona is ultimately a passive character who is powerless in the face of her husband’s anger and the patriarchal system
Despite being even more oppressed than Desdemona and succumbing to the expectations of women for some of the play, by the end she exposes her husband’s deceptions and contradicts the patriarchal system.
They are foils to eachother.

Question 7

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Answer 7

iago has motiveless malignity

Question 8

John Wain

Answer 8

a tragedy of misunderstanding.
Othello does not see Desdemona as a real girl but as something magical that has happened to him
Contention is that none of the characters understand eachother and that is why it ends tragically.

Question 9

Leavis

Answer 9

Tragedy is due to Othello’s shortcomings
- his feelings for Desdemona
- habit of self idealisation
- jealousy
- heroic way of seeing himself in widescreen, cinematically
- the disguise of an obtuse and brutal egotism

Question 10

A.C Bradley

Answer 10

Iago - destroyed by the power that he attacked - the power of love. He was destroyed by it because he could not understand it as it was not in him
Othello - A tragic hero must be active and not passive in the tragedy