OTHELLO Quotes to memorise + DATKH Themes Flashcards
note for before eoys - read all Othello on website w/ translations before eoy as they give passages we haven’t read.
!!!
MUST DO
- show awareness of play as a dramatic performance
- consider how characters, plot, setting or stage directions used to explore bigger ideas
Sc1:
“Even now, now, very now, an old black ram / Is tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise!”
– Iago
Animal Imagery
Black and white imagery = presenting Othello as ‘other’, an outsider
Sc 1: “[…] we come to do you service and you think we are ruffians, you’ll have your daughter covered with a Barbary horse […]”. – Iago
Barbary horse – African horse
Animal imagery
iago quotes
I follow, put, hate, now, Moor, virtue, am, thus, [service]
“I follow him to serve my turn upon him. / We cannot all be masters, nor all masters / Cannot be truly followed.”
“Put money in thy purse,”
“I hate the Moor, / And it is thought abroad that ’twixt my sheets / ’Has done my office,”
“Even now, now, very now, an old black ram / Is tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise!”
“The Moor is of a free and open nature / That thinks men honest […] / And will as tenderly be led by th’ nose / As asses are.”
“So will turn her virtue into pitch / And out of her own goodness make the net / That shall enmesh them all.”
Sc1: “I am not what I am”
“Thus do I ever make my fool my purse”
othello quotes
dangers, mince, bright, oft, sighs, fair, deceived, were, noses
She loved me for the dangers I had passed,
And I loved her that she did pity them.
I know, Iago
Thy honesty and love doth mince this matter.
“Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them.” [sc2]
“Her father loved me, oft invited me, / Still questioned me the story of my life / From year to year—the battles, sieges, fortunes / That I have passed.”
“She gave me for my pain a world of sighs.”
Sc3: “Your son in law is far more fair than black.” (Duke)
Sc3: “[Look to her Moor, if thou hast eyes to see. /] She has deceived her father, and may thee.” (Brabantio)
“Were I the Moor I would not be Iago.” [paradox]
- “Noses, ears, and lips—is ’t possible? Confess—handkerchief—O, devil!” [Othello]
desdemona quotes
📌 “A maiden never bold, / Of spirit so still and quiet that her motion / Blushed at herself.” - Brabantio I iii
📌 “Now, Roderigo, / Where didst thou see her?—O, unhappy girl!— / With the Moor, sayst thou?—” - Brabantio I i
📌 “I love the gentle Desdemona.” Othello I ii
📌 “The divine Desdemona.” Cassio II i
📌 “she’s a most exquisite lady” Cassio II iii
📌”sweet Desdemon” Othello III i
📌”Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul / But I love thee; and when I love thee not, / Chaos is come again. Othello III iii ᴼʰ, ᵗʰᵃᵗ ᶜʳᵃᶻʸ ᵍⁱʳˡ. ᴮᵘᵗ ᴵ’ˡˡ ᵇᵉ ᵈᵃᵐⁿᵉᵈ ⁱᶠ ᵈᵒⁿ’ᵗ ˡᵒᵛᵉ ʰᵉʳ! ᵀʰᵉ ʷᵒʳˡᵈ ʷⁱˡˡ ᵉⁿᵈ ᵇᵉᶠᵒʳᵉ ᴵ ˢᵗᵒᵖ ˡᵒᵛⁱⁿᵍ ʰᵉʳ
📌If she be false, heaven mocks itself!
I’ll not believe ’t.
📌 “Her name that was as fresh as Dian’s visage is now begrimed and black as mine own face.”Othello III iii
“The food that to him now is as luscious as locusts shall be to him shortly as bitter as coloquintida.”
📌”It yet has felt no age nor known no sorrow.” - ʸᵉˢ, ᵇᵉᶜᵃᵘˢᵉ ᴵ ᵃᵐ ʸᵒᵘⁿᵍ ᵃⁿᵈ ʰᵃᵛᵉⁿ’ᵗ ᵉˣᵖᵉʳⁱᵉⁿᶜᵉᵈ ᵃⁿʸ ˢᵒʳʳᵒʷ
📌What I can do I will; and more I will
Than for myself I dare. Let that suffice you.
DES. WAS 📌 “A fine woman, a fair woman, a sweet woman!”
📌 “that cunning whore of Venice that married with Othello.” Othello IV ii
📌”Your wife, my lord, your true and loyal wife.” Desdemona IV ii
📌”when she is sated with his body she will find the error of her choice. Therefore, put money in thy purse.” Iago I iii
📌”our loves and comforts should increase even as our days grow” Desdemona II i
📌”O, who hath done this deed?” - Emilia, DES: “Nobody. I myself. Farewell.
Commend me to my kind lord. O, farewell.”
Explore how Shakespeare powerfully conveys Othello’s jealousy.
📌 “Confess—handkerchief—O, devil! He falls in a trance.”
- stage directions, punctuation, exclamatory
📌 “I […] have not those soft parts of conversation / That chamberers have, or for I am declined / Into the vale of years—yet that’s not much— / She’s gone, I am abused, […]”.
- contractions, caesura and short sentences to portray the mental breakdown
📌 “Ay, let her rot and perish and be damned tonight, for she shall not live. No, my heart is turned to stone. I strike it, and it hurts my hand. O, the world hath not a sweeter creature!”
- harsh verbs, polysyndeton, repetition/metonymy of death emphasising anger, metaphor of stone and “hurting” as if wanting sympathy/poetic, repetition of “creature”
📌 “O curse of marriage, / That we can call these delicate creatures ours / And not their appetites!”
- Metaphor of appetites, language of ownership, “delicate creature” – positive connotations of delicate with the more negative connotations of “creature”
📌 “It is not words that shake me thus. Pish! Noses, ears, and lips—is ’t possible?”
- metaphor of being “shaken” to say shocked by news, exclamatory statement, listing, rhetorical question as he plunges into worry, anxiety and pain.
📌 “By heaven, that should be my handkerchief!”
- continuation of heaven-hell imagery and mentioning of religious symbols/concepts, exclamatory statement, SYMBOL OF HANDKERCHIEF
Iago - Shakespeare encourages us to dislike him through
1) by presenting him as having a lust for power and material wealth.
2) through the way he verbalises his hatred of Othello, by saying discriminatory and derogatory things about him.
3) by presenting him as someone who thinks he is much clever than others, and as a puppet master.
Othello - striking jealousy
- Breakdown of Othello’s language mirroring his mental breakdown
- outright becomes mean, misogynistic and aggressive towards Desdemona due to Iago’s manipulation; he insults Des. - blacker than mine own face, asks her if she is a whore, + slaps her in front of Lodovico, Desdemona’s relative
- ocular proof, motif, application of military mind. “Ocular proof” and the symbol of the handkerchief - Othello demands that Iago provide “ocular proof” of Desdemona’s infidelity—he demands to see reality. But Iago instead provides the circumstantial evidence of the handkerchief, which Othello, consumed by his jealousy, accepts as a substitute for “ocular proof.”
Desdemona character
1) Femininity and innocence used against her
2) Intelligent, words count
3) Used by those around her
“Desdemona is a lady of spirit and intelligence. For all the claims of military straightforwardness of some other characters, Desdemona is the most direct and honest speaker in the play. Her speeches are not as lengthy as those of the men, but with Desdemona, every word counts.”
blank verse e.g. iambic pentameter
a verse line of ten syllables with five stresses and no rhyme; each line has an internal rhythm with a regular rhythmic pattern.
+iambic pentameter, a ten-syllable line with the accent on every other syllable, beginning with the second one. It comes close to the natural speaking rhythms of English but raises it above the ordinary without sounding artificial. It is used mainly for passionate, lofty or momentous occasions and for introspection; it may suggest a refinement of character
How to spot blank verse: Capital letters at the start of each line. Lines usually have 10 syllables. Lines have a regular rhythm. Lines do not rhyme.
prose / free verse
writing that does not follow a meter or rhyme scheme; refers to ordinary speech with no regular pattern of accentual rhythm. Lines do not all have the same number of syllables nor is there any discernible pattern of stresses; everyday language.
Shakespeare’s audiences would recognize the speech as their language. This can be used to suggest chaos, a lack of formality and a lack of order.
How to spot prose: No capital letters to begin each line. Fills up the width of the page. Never rhymes at the end of the line.
Soyinka said
“Death and the King’s Horseman can be fully realized only through an evocation of music from the abyss of transition.”
THEMES DATKH - 1. Life and Death
- death central theme [title]
- Yoruba custom, ritual sacrifice one month after king’s death where king’s horseman is honour-bound to commit suicide and guide the king to the World of the ancestors
= play explores how protagonist’s lust for life hinders an honourable death.
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