![Page 1: The World of Shakespeare & Othello. Key terms Quarto Folio (1623) tragedy (Senecan) soliloquy rising action imagery vs. symbolism colonialism vs. postcolonialism](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022081504/56649e6c5503460f94b6bd11/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
The World of Shakespeare & Othello
![Page 2: The World of Shakespeare & Othello. Key terms Quarto Folio (1623) tragedy (Senecan) soliloquy rising action imagery vs. symbolism colonialism vs. postcolonialism](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022081504/56649e6c5503460f94b6bd11/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
Key terms
• Quarto• Folio (1623)• tragedy (Senecan) • soliloquy • rising action • imagery vs.
symbolism • colonialism vs.
postcolonialism
• counterfeiting• ethnography• dramatic unities
(time, place, action)• blank verse
![Page 3: The World of Shakespeare & Othello. Key terms Quarto Folio (1623) tragedy (Senecan) soliloquy rising action imagery vs. symbolism colonialism vs. postcolonialism](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022081504/56649e6c5503460f94b6bd11/html5/thumbnails/3.jpg)
The stage counterfeited a world where the rules were different
• Players wore fancy clothes donated by their noble patrons—no “historical accuracy”. Othello might have been played in blackface.
• Women were not allowed to appear on the stage so men in drag played women, boys played girls (and sometimes played girls disguised as boys)
• Very little in the way of sets or props—the WORDS created the world
• A kind of equality—‘groundlings’ were actually closer to the stage than the expensive seats
![Page 4: The World of Shakespeare & Othello. Key terms Quarto Folio (1623) tragedy (Senecan) soliloquy rising action imagery vs. symbolism colonialism vs. postcolonialism](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022081504/56649e6c5503460f94b6bd11/html5/thumbnails/4.jpg)
What did Shakespeare know about Moors (or Africans)?
• Elizabethan adventurers John Hawkins, John Lok and Martin Frobisher were among those raiding African coastal villages, kidnapping inhabitants and bringing them back to England in the mid-1550s
• Africans were gradually absorbed into society, given Christian names, acquired skills, and dispersed into roles as laborers, menial workers, servants, maids and, for the aristocracy, entertainers
• Called by some scholars “a visible minority” in Elizabethan London (painting of Abdul Guahid, the Moorish Ambassador, c. 1601)
![Page 5: The World of Shakespeare & Othello. Key terms Quarto Folio (1623) tragedy (Senecan) soliloquy rising action imagery vs. symbolism colonialism vs. postcolonialism](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022081504/56649e6c5503460f94b6bd11/html5/thumbnails/5.jpg)
Cultural and Racial Confusion• ‘Black’ complexions in Elizabethan
England could mean anything from swarthy to Negroid
• Imtiaz Habib (Shakespeare and Race) argues that “what notions of race the Elizabethans had were hopelessly confused, as they routinely combined Africans with Arabs, [and] Indians [with] south Asians and pre-Columbian Americans ... Indeed ... blacks and Indians were necessarily interchangeable in the Elizabethan popular mind.”
• A number of Africans lived in Clerkenwell and Cripplegate, both areas where Shakespeare lived in London
• Several Africans were known for making theatrical costumes and wigs
![Page 6: The World of Shakespeare & Othello. Key terms Quarto Folio (1623) tragedy (Senecan) soliloquy rising action imagery vs. symbolism colonialism vs. postcolonialism](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022081504/56649e6c5503460f94b6bd11/html5/thumbnails/6.jpg)
Leo Africanus
![Page 7: The World of Shakespeare & Othello. Key terms Quarto Folio (1623) tragedy (Senecan) soliloquy rising action imagery vs. symbolism colonialism vs. postcolonialism](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022081504/56649e6c5503460f94b6bd11/html5/thumbnails/7.jpg)
• Muslim name: Al Hassan Ibn Muhammad Al Wazzan• Born around 1490 in Granada, then moved to Fez• Educated and trained as a diplomat• Captured by the Knights of Rhodes in 1518 and was
given to the Pope as a gift• Lived in Rome at least 1520-1530, baptized as a
Christian, named after the Pope (Johannes Leo di Medici)
• Died sometime after the Turks sacked Rome in 1527• Wrote many works; most famous for the Cosmographia,
published posthumously (1550)—first book published in the West to describe Africa and the Orient from an African (and Muslim) point of view
![Page 8: The World of Shakespeare & Othello. Key terms Quarto Folio (1623) tragedy (Senecan) soliloquy rising action imagery vs. symbolism colonialism vs. postcolonialism](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022081504/56649e6c5503460f94b6bd11/html5/thumbnails/8.jpg)
Elizabethan stereotypes of African Males
• Richard Jobson described black men as "furnished with such members as are often a sort of burthensome unto them." (1601)
• Leo Africanus wrote: "They have great swarms of Harlots amongst them." [trans. John Pory c. 1600]
• Passion and lack of self-government were emphasized
• Literary representations of Africans, particularly on the Elizabethan/Jacobean stage, featured black characters whose sexuality was a key facet of their relationship with others.
• In the 19th C, Othello was most often played as an Arab
![Page 9: The World of Shakespeare & Othello. Key terms Quarto Folio (1623) tragedy (Senecan) soliloquy rising action imagery vs. symbolism colonialism vs. postcolonialism](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022081504/56649e6c5503460f94b6bd11/html5/thumbnails/9.jpg)
A Moorish general?
"With us a Black-amoor might rise to be a Trumpeter; but Shakespeare would not have him less than a Lieutenant-General. With us a Moor might marry some little drab, or Small-coal wench; Shakespeare, would provide him the Daughter and Heir of some great Lord, or Privy-Councillor: And all the town should reckon it a very suitable match."
--Thomas Rymer, A Short View of Tragedy (1693)
![Page 10: The World of Shakespeare & Othello. Key terms Quarto Folio (1623) tragedy (Senecan) soliloquy rising action imagery vs. symbolism colonialism vs. postcolonialism](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022081504/56649e6c5503460f94b6bd11/html5/thumbnails/10.jpg)
Miscegenation
Othello is Brabantio's friend and a guest in his house, but when Othello marries Brabantio's daughter in secret, the senator views the Moor differently: friendship is one thing but inter-racial marriage is unthinkable.
![Page 11: The World of Shakespeare & Othello. Key terms Quarto Folio (1623) tragedy (Senecan) soliloquy rising action imagery vs. symbolism colonialism vs. postcolonialism](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022081504/56649e6c5503460f94b6bd11/html5/thumbnails/11.jpg)
Othello Act I
• Why does Roderigo hate Othello?
• Why does Iago hate Othello?
• Why does Desdemona love Othello?
• Why does Othello love Desdemona?
• Why does the Venetian government love Othello?
![Page 12: The World of Shakespeare & Othello. Key terms Quarto Folio (1623) tragedy (Senecan) soliloquy rising action imagery vs. symbolism colonialism vs. postcolonialism](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022081504/56649e6c5503460f94b6bd11/html5/thumbnails/12.jpg)
Think about how these characters fashion themselves, and what they are
counterfeiting…• ‘honest’ Iago?
• The noble Moor?
• The obedient wife and daughter?
• In the government/self-government readings, look especially at Castiglione, Vives, and Mulcaster (p. 652 especially!)
![Page 13: The World of Shakespeare & Othello. Key terms Quarto Folio (1623) tragedy (Senecan) soliloquy rising action imagery vs. symbolism colonialism vs. postcolonialism](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022081504/56649e6c5503460f94b6bd11/html5/thumbnails/13.jpg)
Act II• Change of scene—removed from Venice
• Othello as general, governor, husband
• Motivations of Iago, Michael Cassio
• Contrasts between Othello-Desdemona and Iago-Emilia
• Notice when characters speak verse and when they speak prose
• Soliloquies—when & why?
![Page 14: The World of Shakespeare & Othello. Key terms Quarto Folio (1623) tragedy (Senecan) soliloquy rising action imagery vs. symbolism colonialism vs. postcolonialism](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022081504/56649e6c5503460f94b6bd11/html5/thumbnails/14.jpg)
This play is full of powerful images…trace their development
• Animal images
• Light/dark
• Black/white
What do we mean by an image? By a symbol?