Shakespeare: Othello Mini-lessons

• Jealousy was historically viewed as irrational, linked to envy, and a sudden, incurable infection.
• Jealousy was thought to erode trust, dissolve marriages, families, and social frameworks, and invite evil and chaos.
• Iago's manipulative behavior and lies in Othello stem from inherent jealousy.

Appearance versus Reality

• Characters like Iago manipulate and deceive others to achieve their ambitions.
• People can be deceived by false appearances.

Deception

• Real deception is different from perceived deception.

Love and Relationships

• Essential to humanity but can cause both joy and heartache.
• Key relationships in the play include Othello and Desdemona, Emilia and Iago, and Emilia and Desdemona.

Order and Chaos

• Elizabethan England's Great Chain of Being placed everything in a designated order.
• Disrupting this order leads to chaos.

Race and Racial Tensions

• Othello contains racial slurs and insults directed at the titular character.
• Shakespeare's portrayal of Othello includes pride and status, but other characters use his race to attack him, leading to his downfall.

Women

• Women were often categorized as either angels or devils.
• Elizabethan and Jacobean periods existed centuries before women's rights.

Dramatic Devices

• Dramatic devices should be analyzed simultaneously with literary devices when studying a play.

Aside

• A brief remark in a play heard by the audience but not by other characters.

Comic Relief

• An object, person, or action used to ease rising tension and provide a break from intense emotions.

Dramatic Irony

• The audience is aware of something the characters are not, leading to contradictory meanings in their words and actions.

Foil

• A character who contrasts with another to highlight their traits, develop their character, reveal motivations, and balance the story.

Monologue

• A speech by a single character, often expressing their thoughts aloud.

Prose

• Lines of a play not conforming to a specific poetic structure.
• Characters use prose when speaking casually for a more "natural" sound.

Soliloquy

• A monologue addressed to oneself, revealing thoughts to the audience, who the character takes into their confidence.

Stage Directions

• Include body language, facial expressions, movement descriptions, voice (pace, pitch, tone, volume), set (props, set design), costuming, lighting, and sound effects/musical score.

Verse/ Blank Verse

• Verse follows iambic pentameter, creating a metrical rhythm.
• Shakespeare often uses blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter).

Verse and Prose Usage

• Verse and prose were often used to signify social status (verse for high, prose for low).
• Shifts in relationships and loss of control or emotion can also be indicated by a move from verse to prose.

Elements of Tragedy

• Tragedy involves a conflict between the hero and a superior force, leading to a sorrowful conclusion that evokes pity or fear.

Aristotle's Theory of Tragedy

• Aristotle identified spectacle, complex plot structure, and the tragic hero as crucial elements of tragedy.
• Tragic emotions include pity and fear, while the tragic effect is catharsis (releasing strong emotions) and purgation (purification).
• Complex plot structure involves peripety (a change from one state to its opposite) and anagnorisis (a change from ignorance to knowledge).
• A tragic hero is virtuous but not excessively good, not vicious or depraved, makes an error of judgment (hamartia), and is of great reputation and prosperity with a change in fortune from good to bad.

Key Terms of Tragedy

• Hubris: extreme pride, overconfidence
• Anagnorisis: the recognition
• Hamartia: the error or flaw
• Catharsis: the acceptance and healing

Trends in Shakespearean Tragedy

• Protagonists are often victims of their own excesses or self-deception.
• They suffer from inner conflict and hold high power or status.
• Protagonists lack understanding, preventing them from seeing the truth.
• No real dependence on fate or God, unlike Greek tragedies.