OTHELLO+-+BACKGROUND+READING

Contents
i) The Mediaeval World ii) The Renaissance ||
 * 1. Shakespeare's Life: a brief outline ||
 * 2. An introduction to Shakespeare's plays ||
 * 3. Shakespeare's World:

= William Shakespeare 1564-1616 =
 * 4. Shakespeare's Theatre ||
 * 5. Venice ||
 * 6. Elizabethan England and the Question of Race ||
 * 7. An Introduction to Tragedy and the Tragic Hero ||
 * 8. Critics on //Othello:// Different Readings ||

playwright, described Shakespeare as 'an upstart crow beautified with our feathers. .'. Greene seems to have been jealous of Shakespeare. He mocked Shakespeare's name, calling him 'the only Shake-scene in a country' (presumably)' because Shakespeare was writing successful plays). that became extremely popular. Father,John, granted arms (acknowledged as a gentleman). Chamberlain's Men' became 'The King's Men' and played about twelve performances each year at court. Died. Buried in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon.
 * 1564 ** Born Stratford-upon-Avon, eldest son of John and Mary Shakespeare.
 * 1582 ** Married to Anne Hathaway of Shottery near Stratford.
 * 1583 ** Daughter, Susanna, born.
 * 1585 ** Twins, son and daughter, Hamnet and Judith, born.
 * 1592 ** First mention of Shakespeare in London. Robert Greene, another
 * 1595 ** A shareholder in 'The Lord Chamberlain's Men', an acting company
 * 1596 ** Son Hamnet died, aged eleven.
 * 1597 ** Bought New Place, the grandest house in Stratford.
 * 1598 ** Acted in Ben Jonson's //Every Man// i//n His Humour.//
 * 1599 ** Globe Theatre opens on Bankside. Performances in the open air. 1601 Father,John, dies.
 * 1605 ** James I granted Shakespeare's company a royal patent: 'The Lord
 * 1607 ** Daughter, Susanna, marries Dr John Hall.
 * 1608 ** Mother, Mary, dies.
 * 1609 ** 'The King's Men' begin performing indoors at Blackfriars Theatre.
 * 1610 ** Probably returned from London to live in Stratford.
 * 1616 ** Daughter,Judith, marries Thomas Quiney.

Shakespeare: an introduction
Shakespeare was born in 1565 and died in 1616 in Stratford-upon-Avon. Little is known of his personal life but his considerable body of work survives.

Pre-1594
Henry VI (3 parts) Richard III Titus Andronicus Love's Labour's Lost The Two Gentlemen of Verona The Comedy of Errors The Taming of the Shrew Romeo and Juliet A Midsummer Night's Dream Richard II King John The Merchant of Venice Henry IV part i Henry IV part ii Henry V Much Ado About Nothing Merry Wives of Windsor As You Like It Julius Caesar Troilus and Cressida
 * 1594-1597: **
 * 1597-1600: **


 * What comments might you already make on his works? **

Hamlet Twelfth Night Measure for Measure All's Well That Ends Well Othello King Lear Macbeth Timon of Athens Anthony and Cleopatra Coriolanus Pericles Cymbeline The Winter's Tale The Tempest Henry VIII 1593:Venus and Adonis 1594:The Rape of Lucrece Sonnets 1609:A Lover's Complaint 1601:The Phoenix and the Turtle
 * 1601-1608: **
 * After 1608: **
 * Poetry ** ( publication dates given):

We do know that his lifetime covered a period of considerable change in England and Europe, change that was political, intellectual and religious. The country was almost continually at war and political uncertainty and change marked the transition from Elizabeth l' s reign to that of James I(of England and VI of Scotland). The Reformation, in its various stages, entailed religious persecution of different Christian groups; outbreaks of plague, bad harvests and (yet) a rising population all added to the gaiety of life! Yet, out of this emerges Shakespeare: Man of the Millenium and, according to the critic Harold Bloom, the man responsible for 'the invention of the human'. His plays are still in performance and this is not because he was the only playwright of the period. **Othello** was first produced in 1603; in the same year, **Woman Killed with Kindness, Sejanus** and **The Phoenix** hit the boards to be followed by **Dutch Courtesan, All Fools, The Malcontent, Wise Woman of Hogsdon, Monsieur D'Olive, Law Tricks** and **Bussy D'Ambois** in 1604. **King Lear** presumably was a match for **The Fawn, Eastward Hoe** and **Northward Hoe,** parts I and II of **If You Know Not Me** and **Trick to Catch the Old One** in 1605. Some of these plays are still staged but it's Shakespeare who dominates and whose works cross national boundaries; prior to the fall of Communism, **Hamlet** and **King Lear** offered directors in Eastern Europe the chance to make powerful and seemingly unassailable commentary on the flaws of the state. Who could object to Shakespeare? M What makes him survive? What would you expect his subject matter MUST possess to justify his importance? M What elements MUST his plays possess to make them GOOD DRAMA?

The sheer number of plays might suggest that Shakespeare has to be a force to be reckoned with(but think of Barbara Cartland's prolific output …does quantity equal quality?) but mastery of the playwright's art, the capacity to work within different genres, to try out new approaches, respond to different types of theatre and transform others' material are all indications of Shakespeare's quality. Thus the 1590s produced histories, comedies and romances whilst the great tragedies, so-called problem plays and final tragi-comic romances are all of the 1600s.

The first section of his career perhaps reflects the interests of the time and its political outlook and challenges (just as our TV satires comment on our current political world); so, kingship and power, the relationship between monarchy and nobility, the problems of balancing personal needs and power and the consequences of poor rule are among the concerns of these plays. Conflict with Spain and triumph over the Spanish Armada were conducive to glorification of the country and its past military achievements; Laurence Olivier's film of **Henry V** exploits its patriotic power at a crucial point in 20th century British History. The audience could/can enjoy action and variety AND extract messages about the need for stable government and the dangers of conspiracy but the history plays were not just pro­government propaganda; Elizabeth I reacted very badly to a production of **Richard II** staged to coincide with an attempted rebellion against her. Contrastingly, comedies relied upon the universal appeal of liveliness, confusion, happy endings and 'English humour'.

The tragedies may be more indicative of increasingly challenging views of the world and man's position in it in a period of change, social unease and questioning as well as reflect an interest in continental drama forms like the revenge tragedies rooted in classical Roman theatre. Physically, the theatre itself was developing too. The first permanent playhouse(c. 1575) marked the gradual replacement of pageant waggons, scaffold or booth stages, bear-baiting pits or inn yards as performance spaces. The playhouses (holding around 3,000 spectators) offered a large room for the actors to dress as well as a place for musicians, an upper balcony and traps. Indoor performances in halls, colleges or inns of court led into the development of smaller, private playhouses with audiences of around 700 where a production, through the sheer proximity of stage to theatre-goer, could be more intense and intimate, perhaps especially suited to the tragedies. Different stages dictate different performance styles.

Finally, Shakespeare's last works (**The** **Winter's Tale, Cymbeline, Pericles, & The Tempest)** are concerned with reconciliation, restoration and hope, the possibilities for tragedy being averted by human endeavour and good values … although there is much more to them …

Shakespeare's World
M How do you see the universe and our place within it? M Is it ordered? M Does it conform to some sort of plan? M Are we central to the universe? M Are we alone? M How clever or able a species do we regard ourselves as being? M In what ways, if any, do we see ourselves as connected to the'rest of existence? M How strong is our sense of God?

The answers we might offer to the above questions are likely to be varied but to reveal our 'modern' vision of the world and our place in it. Shakespeare's 'world' stands at the 'beginning' of our modern age; it is a period in which science, as we would understand it, begins to take shape and knowledge seems to expand rapidly. It is also an era which inherits a sense of the universe that is mediaeval (in turn derived from classical ideas and theories) where existence is seen as part of an ordered, balanced system reflecting the Creator. This mediaeval vision and the emerging Renaissance perception of the world are part of the questioning and development of Shakespeare's times, times which shaped his plays.

The Mediaeval World View All creation is inter-linked and analogies/parallels are to be made between the world of man and the state or the universe; the microcosm reflects the macrocosm. (Macbeth reflects this strongly; the hero likens the upheaval within himself, when tempted in Act I, to a state in disorder and his murder of Duncan, an act against divinely-ordained order, is mirrored by unnatural events in the animal kingdom and the cosmos.)

This inter-linking could be 'seen' in various ways:- M All existence consisted of the same elements (earth, air, fire and water) in different proportions. M Man's body was composed of 4 parallel humours(choler, phlegm, blood and melancholy or black bile), two related to the baser elements of earth and water and the others to the 'higher' of air and fire. (In **Antony and Cleopatra** the heroine proclaims that she is air and fire as she moves towards heroic suicide.) M The soul was believed to possess 3 aspects: the higher soul(the rational powers which reflect the angels' intelligence); the sensible soul(governing appetites, and possessed also by animals); the vegetative soul(the lowest element which governed reproduction and growth and possessed also by plants). M Above mankind, the wheeling planets reflected the pattern too. Astrology determined which 'humour' would characterize you and such knowledge was crucial in medical treatment. A dominant planet might predispose -you to sickness connected with the crucial organ over which it exerted influence: the moon affected the brain(hence lunacy), Jupiter the liver and Saturn the spleen. Expressions like being in a good or bad humour, being sanguine or choleric or phlegmatic still hark back to these concepts. M The universe itself reflected order and hierarchy. The earth was believed to lie at the centre of the cosmos and be surrounded by a series of concentric, crystalline spheres which, in turn, carried the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Then came the realm of the 'fixed stars',

[[image:file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5Ckryan.SIS%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_image005.jpg width="543" height="741" align="left"]]The Creation: 13th century, Chartres Cathedral
stars so distant as to seem motionless, followed by the 'Primum Mobile", which gave movements to all the spheres beneath it. Beyond this point lay the unchanging perfection of heaven. Each of the crystalline spheres emitted a note of music which combined to create heavenly harmony. Humanity was incapable of hearing this sound until death when the soul ascended through the spheres to heaven. (**In The Merchant of Venice**, Shakespeare refers to the music of the stars and in Dante's **Divine Comedy** (begun 1308) the poet-narrator describes the progress to heaven through the spheres.) All in the sub-lunary regions (i.e. subject to the moon's influence) was marked by instability, change and transience; beyond, in the supra-lunary regions, stability and immutability marked perfection. M In addition, all that existed, from God down to the lowest slug or stone, was conceived of as part of an ordered chain of existence: below God, nine orders of angels; below the angels, the ranks of mankind, emperor/king/pope down to the lowest slave; below man, the animals and birds with the lion the chief of beasts, the eagle chief of birds. So it went on through all levels of existence, even stones. Ideally, the order of kingdom or Church, appointed by God through Divine Right of Kings or the Petrine Commission, should mirror the order of the heavenly kingdom and disruption or sin would be reflected in upheavals in the system; moral sickness might be seen to be punished by physical disease, like plague, or disorder in the heaven's, like Halley's comet, be portents of disorder on earth.

Everything fitted together beautifully in a world vision which reflected meaning and purpose and was both comforting and holistic; man is central yet also placed in the 'basest' condition on the ephemeral earth. In mediaeval legends and tales of the saints, he might encounter Christ disguised as a leper or find that the Blessed Virgin had intervened to defend or protect him; God and man were intimately linked. He was also encouraged to know his place? And to fear? . The historian W.R. Elton remarked of Shakespeare's age, facing the breakdown of these ideas: 'Concerned with the need to believe in an age of incipient doubt, Shakespeare's audiences witnessed in his central tragedies...struggles to sustain belief.' 'For Lear and Othello, belief is sanity: their agony involves the striving to retain both.' The Renaissance The Renaissance( =re-birth) was characterized by the re-kindling of thought, often through re-discovery and re-evaluation of the classical past and its works; this re­charged spirit of enquiry expressed itself in geographical exploration, scientific advance and discovery and in criticism and scepticism which made their effects felt especially in the spheres of politics and religion. This is the era of the Reformation. Economic prosperity and increased literacy were some of the factors contributing to this change and the 'period' (roughly 1450-1670) offered scope for both exciting change and unnerving doubts. M Religious change: Reformation began with the emergence of Protestantism... literally a protest against the corruption of the Western Church. With its emphasis on personal scrutiny of the Bible and its erosion of sacraments and the intercession of the saints, reformed Christianity rendered God somewhat inscrutable and distant; assurance of personal salvation now relied on close examination of your own conscience and the marks of 'election' which worldly sucess might seem to bring. Reform also affected the Catholic




 * Durer's Melancholia ||

Church, in response to criticism and the loss of faith and in both Catholic and non-Catholic countries, persecution of dissenters was the norm. M Man's view of himself in this universe was also altered by geographical discoveries as new people and new lands emerge, inviting not always favourable comparisons with Europe. Religion was also bound up in this, with conversion of natives being on the agenda of discoverers and conquerors. Thoughtful Europeans could be inspired to question their beliefs and principles when confronted with people whose way of life might seem more innately noble than their own. (In **The Tempest,** Shakespeare explores some of these ideas of natives' superiority as well as exposing the exploitative nature of the European arrivals.) M Political change was emerging too with conventional ideas of politics being challenged. The concept of the king, wielding a divine right bestowed by God, was a mediaeval commonplace, working alongside the notion of a feudal contract between the king and his aristocrats, two concepts which frequently led to conflict. With the erosion of a catholic religious system, and thus an altered view of man's relationship with God, the king's divine right loses authority and the notion of a contractual relationship can culminate in claims that the ruled can depose the ineffectual ruler. Whilst deposition was regarded as BAD, it might be better if a competent usurper was left in his role (somethingShakespeare explores in **Henry** IV). Observers like Machiavelli in **The Prince**(1513) exposed how political power really worked, showing that good men seldom made good rulers, contrary to regal propaganda, and that a Clinton-esque approach to gaining and keeping power was more effective than a saintly one. Machiavelli's writing was treated as horrific but was significant and the plotting figure of the Machiavel appears on the English stage in 16th & 17th century drama. M In the realm of science, the sense of the universe was changing too. Copernicus' theories suggested the universe was heliocentric rather than geocentric (i.e. the earth revolved round the sun rather than ttm entire system orbiting the earth). Galileo's use of the telescope to examine the heavens led to the discovery of the four satellite moons of Jupiter; such a system shed light on the construction of the rest of the universe. The birth of a new star was observed in 1572; thus the unchanging realms of the heavens turned out to be subject to mutability as well and the first suggestions of a plurality of worlds(we are not alone) are made. The understanding of the human body itself was also altering. Anatomy moved on from being a lecture-based demonstration, reliant on classical writers(some of whose studies were based on the anatomy of animals)to a science of close observation and analysis; the university of Padua, where the anatomy theatre still exists, was crucial in this branch of medical advancement and was where Harvey(1578-1657) formulated the theory of the blood's circulation. The anatomist Vesalius(1514-64) was the first to produce a fully illustrated anatomical textbook and science, along with all the other manifestations of Renaissance thought, made its impact on art. The individual, both in terms of physical and psychological reality, appears in art and scupture. The Renaissance presented Europe with a sense of the great potential of humanity. Alberti(b. 1404: Renaissance humanist, artist, architect and writer) noted at the time, 'Man may do all things if he will' and in a motto adopted from the Greek philosopher Protagoras, 'Man is the measure of all things.' Michelangelo's Adam on the Sistine Chapel ceiling(commissioned 1505) certainly seems to embody that feeling of human strength, physical reality and grandeur evoking the classical celebration of the flesh's beauty renewed in Renaissance art. Yet it is at a distance from the tender intimacy of the Chartres sculpture of the same scene(13th century) and despite the confidence of Alberti, art could also reveal the insecurity felt in a changing world. Durer's depiction of Melancholia, surrounded by the instruments of knowledge and wisdom, expressed unease and depression and Robert Burton's **Anatomy of Melancholy**(1621) explored the various reasons which might lead to this condition. The mediaeval world gradually yielded to the Renaissance; it is not an over-night transformation and thus in Shakespeare's works, the two may overlap and interweave. As the poet Donne would write, 'This new philosophy casts all in doubt' but it is a condition which proved conducive to the creation of great art.
 * Shakespeare's Theatre **

At the time of Shakespeare, purpose built theatres were a very modern phenomenon. Up until the 1570s actors toured round setting up their performances on the side of carts, in inn yards, village greens and market places. Shakespeare became a shareholder in one of London's early specially built theatres - the Globe Theatre on the south bank of the Thames. It was for performance in this theatre that Shakespeare wrote most of his plays. When reading a Shakespeare play it is worth bearing in mind the sort of space in which they were first performed. The following facts about the theatre for which he wrote can sometimes be seen to have a bearing on the actual plays: The Globe theatre or 'playhouse', as you can see from the picture, was a round, open topped building. In **Henry V** Shakespeare refers to the circular shape of the building in the chorus's speech about the power of theatre to contain illusion of space and representations of reality: // Can this cockpit hold // // The vasty fields of France?Or may we cram // // Within this wooden 0 the very casques // // That did affright the air at Agincourt? // The stage jutted out into the floor or 'pit' of the theatre where the 'groundIings', the poorest members of the audience, stood in front and around it. This section of the audience was catered for by Shakespeare with bawdy jokes and clownish characters. Their nearness to the stage was also used to effect by the dramatist in scenes caIling for a speech to be made to a crowd - eg when the king addresses his troops in **Henry V**, or Brutus and Mark Antony the Romans citizens in Julius Caesar, or Portia the court in **The Merchant of Venice**. The actual number on stage may have been very small, but the actor could make their stirring speech to the real people surrounding them, who would thus become drawn in as part of the action.
 * (a) 'A Wooden 0' **
 * (b) Performance in the Round **

In the same way that they were drawn in as participants in crowd scenes, so too the audience in the small enclosed space of the Globe were drawn in as eavesdroppers to a character's inner thoughts when expressed as a soIiIoquy. We also sense the close, all-encompassing presence of the audience (some of whom would even be seated on stage) in the places where Shakespeare addresses them directly, sometimes in prologues or epilogues. The chorus in **Henry V** is an example of this tendency of Shakespeare to acknowledge his audience and remind them of their jomt partnership with the actors in creating this imagined world of the play. At the back of the stage there was a recessed curtained off area. This area was very useful. For example, Shakespeare must have envisaged the use of the curtained recess when he wanted to produce dramatic impact with a surprise appearance such as where a screen has to be drawn back to reveal Hermione in **The Winter's Tale**, or Miranda and Ferdinand playing chess in **The Tempest**. Similarly, the witches den in **Macbeth**, the hovel in **King Lear**, and Polonius's hiding place behind the arras tapestry in **Hamlet** would very likely have been located here. It provided an interior space when necessary - the idea of an 'indoors' and of a stage within a stage. Above the curtained recess was a balcony or gallery. This again had obvious theatrical uses - as an orator's platform, a balcony window for Juliet to appear at, a look-out post over a battle field, a monument from which the Egyptian queen could draw up her dying lover in **Antony and Cleopatra**. Flute's words in **A Midsummer Night's Dream** remind us that there were no women actors in Shakespeare's day. The women's parts were played by boys and young men - a fact which provided the central comic device of the film //'Shakespeare in Love'.// The comedy of several) Shakespeare plays relies on gender disguise and confusion. (eg **Twelfth Night, As You Like It, The Merchant of Venice**). If we remember that Shakespeare was dealing with yet another layer of gender disguise, so that a woman character who disguises herself as a man was in fact played by a male actor, we see the power of theatre working at very complex and ironic levels. There were no moving sets and of course no lighting or special effects comparable to those of today's theatre. How then did Shakespeare suggest the lay of the land, the weather or the time of day - that the action, for example, was taking part at night? Through the language. This is a key point to bear in mind. Consider the first line of Hamlet: // 'Who's there?' // Right away the audience //hears// rather than sees, that, in the world of the play, it is dark. A few lines later we are fully informed as to the midnight hour: // 'Tis now struck twelve,' get thee to bed Francisco // '. In the same way - through words alone - the audience experiences the tempest in **The Tempest**, the storm in **King Lear**, the dawn in **Romeo and Juliet**, the land or sea battles in so many plays. It was //language// that lit and staged the action for Shak~speare's audience. After all, the word //'audience'// comes from the Latin //'audire'// (to listen). An audience, for Shakespeare was primarily a collection of //listeners// rather than //'spectators'// ( which word comes from the Latin //'spectare'// to watch). Shakespeare is sometimes explicit about this link between voiced word and imagined world. In **Henry V** the chorus says to the audience: // 'Think, when we // talk //of horses that you// see //them'// And remember, Shakespeare's audience never read his plays or 'saw' his words ­they only knew them through performance. Shakespeare also often refers explicitly to the theatre and to acting. Furthermore, he makes comparisons between life and the stage and how one reflects the other. Here are just three examples: // All the world's a stage, // // And all the men and women merely players // // They have their exits and their entrances, // // And each man in his time plays many parts // - ­ (**As You Like It** 2. 7.139-142) // Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, // // That struts and frets his hour upon the stage // // And then is heard no more; // (**Macbeth** 5.5.24-26) // When we are born we cry that we are come // // To this great stage of fools. // (**King Lear** 4.6.183-184) These examples all serve to make the point that for Shakespeare the theatre was more than just a place for performance of plays - it was a space in which to explore life itself, and one which provided him with a central metaphor for existence//."// ' the famous and renowned city of the Venetians, which, although it is completely set in the sea, yet by the name of its beauty and the merit of its elegance it could be set between the star Arcturus and the shining Pleiades… In honour of [St Mark] … is a most sumptuous church, built incomparably of marble and othervaluable stones, and excellently adorned and worked with Bible stories in mosaic. Opposite it is that public square which all things considered has no equal anywhere. To this church is joined almost continuously that famous palace of the Duke of Venice, in which are fed at all times live lions for the glory of the state and the magnificence of its citizens. And opposite this palace near the harbour are two round marble columns, large and high, on the tope of one of which, for their magnificence, is the figure of a lion shining in gold like the moon or the sun; and at the west door of the church are bronze horses likewise always shining.'
 * (c) 'Behind the Arras' **
 * (d) 'Nay, faith, let me not play a woman; I have a beard coming.' **
 * (e) 'Lend me your Ears' **
 * (I) 'All the World's a Stage' **
 * __ Venice __**

So wrote a visiting Irish friar in 1323 and this impression of the beauty and romance of Venice is maintained to the present day. The reality upon which this artistic achievement depended is more harsh. Venice's splendour was built upon its trade and the Republic's success relied on a good deal of Venetian ruthlessness. It was ruthless determination that enabled the Venetians to steal St Mark's body from Egypt in the ninth century, as well as appropriate other useful relics. Whilst supposedly participating in the Fourth CrusCide(1202-4) to free Jerusalem from Islamic rule, the Venetians set about the sack of Constantinople, much of their loot now decorating St Mark's Basilica, including the famous bronze horses mentioned above. An ineffectual Doge might find himself equally ruthlessly treated; Vitale Michiel in the 12th century having made an unsatisfactory treaty ended his life by being stabbed to death after fleeing an enraged mob. Outside the Doge's palace was a gallows made of alabaster to warn the incumbent of the price of treason and, as in the rest of Europe, the authorities were adept in the use of torture and execution.

Venice was also famous for its prostitutes, estimated to be arounditll, 654 in the 16th century, due, it was said, to easy morality, the influx of poor rEffugees and the government's attitude of unconcern 'because of the fear which Venetian husbands had of being cuckolded by single men'. Many of the courtesans were educated, sophisticated and lived in grand style: a 1570 booklet listed 215 described as 'honoured'. As for respectable Venetian women, their somewhat revealing clothes, elaborate platform soles(up to 18 inches in height) and personal grooming made them also one of the sights of Venice for the discerning 16th-17th century tourist.

Although **Othello** presents the Turks as enemies of Venice, Venetian society was cosmopolitan: 'Polonians, Siavonians, Persians, Grecians, Turks, Jewes, Christians of all the famousest regions of Christendome................ : Toleration was good for trade and treaties had existed between the Ottoman Empire and the Venetians to mutual advantage. The fall of Constantinople, to which Venice had contributed, laid the Republic open to Turkish assault and in the late 15th century, a Turkish attack on the Venetian held island of Negropont ended with the slaughter of all, women being raped before their deaths and their children decapitated. The surrendering Governor, who had begged not to be beheaded was instead cut in half at the waist. The threat to Cyprus in Shakespeare's play echoes the real dangers faced in the last quarter of the 16th century; the Turks captured Nicosia, again raping both sexes and massacring inhabitants and subjecting the surrendering commanders of Famagusta to mutilation, flaying, decapitation and quartering. The unexpected victory of Don John of Austria off Lepanto In 1571 was hard-fought and greeted with rejoicing but conflict with the 'general enemy Ottoman' dragged on well into the 17th century.
 * [[image:file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5Ckryan.SIS%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_image015.jpg width="266" height="359"]] ||
 * [[image:file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5Ckryan.SIS%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_image017.jpg width="625" height="301"]] ||
 * Venetian Ladies: Carpaccio ||
 * ** San Marco: Procession: Bellini ** ||

'Othello', Elizabethan England and the Question of Race
// 'My travel's history. // . //to speak.//. // And of the Cannibals that each other eat' // The age in which Shakespeare was writing was an age of exploration. English and European voyagers had started to open up the world and travellers were bringing home tales of strange and exotic lands and peoples. Capitalism had climbed aboard in the form of adventurists and merchants who cashed in on the colonisation of far flung places such as the Americas and the West Indies and, by the time Shakespeare was writing his plays, had already established a slave trade, which involved the forced transportation of Africans across the Atlantic, supplying labour for the new cotton plantations. England (and the city state of Venice) was heavily involved in this early slave trade and as a result from 1570 onwards there were already quite a few black people in England, particularly London. Interestingly, Shakespeare constructs Othello as a character who, in his relationship to the Venetian state, can be seen as being identified with both versions of this 'age of exploration': those of both victor and victim. The Moor is presented (and presents himself) both as respected conqueror and as conquered other; both as heroic adventurer and as ex-slave; both as welcome, narrator of exotic travellers' tales and as unwelcome, unacceptable stranger; both as imperialist coloniser in the service of an expansionist power and as colonised, relocated African. He is recogniseq,as a great public figure whilst rejected as a son-in-law. The Venetians see him both as 'one of us' and 'one of them'. In 1596 Queen Elizabeth (despite having some black entertainers at court for their exotic curiosity value) complained of the numbers of 'Negars and blackmoors, which are crept into the realm.' and in 1601 she issued an order to a slave merchant to transport all black people from the country. Elizabeth probably shared with her countrymen the conventional contemporary attitudes held towards these recently arrived black people (whether Moorish or Negroid). These attitudes were hostile and based on a set of myths (some arising from readings of the Old Testament) which stereotyped black people as not just 'savage' and racially inferior, but as also marked by their colour as representative of the powers of 'darkness'. As such they were associated with evil, the devil, sexual depravity, violence, cruelty and as prey to ungovernable and irrational passions such as jealousy. Travel writers portrayed the natives of Africa as barbarous, lawless and a //'people of a beastly lyvinge// '. For example one contemporary writer on the history and people of Africa claimed that //'whomsoever they finde but talking with their wives they presently go// //about to murther them.//. . //by reason o fjealousie you may see them daily one to be the death and destruction of another// As you read the play you will notice how many references there are to Othello's race which signal racist stereotyping on the part of the characters speaking: 'the thick lips,' 'black ram', 'sooty bosom, 'blacker devil' etc. In line with the prejudices of the day Othello is suspected of witchcraft. The hero's own insecurity about Desdemona arises partly from his incredulity (which would be shared by most Elizabethans) that this white girl should choose him, a black man, as her husband: //'She had eyes and chose me// '. Even those who support, or even love Othello, are given lines which suggest his virtues exist //despite// the blackness of 'his visage'. In other words Othello is presented by Shakespeare as the recipient of the prejudices that would have been held by the majority of his audience. What happens to Othello during the play is that he is 'poisoned' by lago into conforming to the contemporary white person's prejudicial stereotype of the 'blackamoor'. He thus becomes jealous, violent and 'barbarous'. What is interesting in this process is how Othello loses his //true// self - a self which challenges and undermines the contemporary view of the black man. This self is his essential identity as a civilised, controlled, rational and humane individual and it is this self that disintegrates as he becomes maddened through the machinations of lago.
 * // Travel, trade and slaves. //**
 * // Othello: Exploits and Exclusion //**
 * // The White Queen and the Black Lies. //**
 * // Black and While in 'Othello' //**

It is worth considering lago in the light of the contemporary perceptions of black people. Here is a white character, who once his villainy is revealed, is referred to in language suggestive of that signifying the attitudes held in relation to the pagan 'blackamoor' of the day: 'most heathenish and most gross'; 'cursed slave'; 'damned slave'; 'demi-devil'; 'hellish'; a 'hell hound'. What Shakespeare appears to do (among other things) in this play is to subvert, with the characters of Othello and lago, the surface stereotypes - it is the white man whom we experience as fundamentally godless, benighted, savagely cruel, pathologically jealous, sexually crude, monstrous and irredeemable; it is the black man whom we know to be fundamentally noble, honest, loving, civilised and redeemable. As said above, when Othello is 'poisoned' by lago, he does not revert to any racial 'type' but to the white person's stereotype of the black man. However in becoming crude, cruel and possessed the distracted Othello appears to conform to and reflect not just this stereotype but the true nature of the man who has ensnared, infected and bewitched him -and that man is of course white.

Throughout the play you will find a prevalent pattern of imagery based on this opposition of black and white - and associated images of light and dark, heaven and hell. This imagery does not in fact escape the conventional linguistic alignment of 'black' with ugliness, filth, darkness, devils, evil and hell, and that of 'white' with fairness, light, beauty, purity, virtue, innocence and heaven. What the play does do however is to insist that language cannot be trusted any more than can appearances. They both leave us in the dark as to the truth about the human heart. // Othello // is of course not just about race. However, one of the factors that render it so 'modern' is that one of its concerns, that of the position of the outsider or 'other' in society is as relevant in the England of Elizabeth II as in that of Elizabeth I.

Tragedy: a brief introduction
Early in his career, in 1595, Shakespeare wrote the tragedy of //Romeo and Juliet// and in the early years of the 17th century he wrote five tragedies in a short space of time: //Hamlet// (1600-1), //Othello// (1602-4), //King Lear// (1605-6), //Macbeth// (1605-6) and // Antony //// and Cleopatra // (1606). One way of understanding //Othello// is an example of this particular literary genre, as an example of Shakespearean tragedy.

What is a tragedy?
It is not really possible to provide a neat and simple definition of tragedy, although if you are really pressed it has been described succinctly as a serious play with a catastrophic or disastrous conclusion. However, rather than trying to reduce this complex genre to a one line definition it is more helpful to regard it as a literary genre or form in which certain conventions can be identified. A literary convention is something which we expect to find in particular kinds of writing. For example, we expect a detective story to include a murder, a series of clues, a resolution in which we discover the identity of the murderer. Much of our enjoyment and understanding of literature, television, film etc., is in our understanding of the conventions and we get pleasure from the way in which the text uses them, and possibly how it challenges our expectations and surprises us.

The word 'tragedy' is used in everyday speech and journalism to describe everything from a defeat in a football match to a major natural disaster. These notes are intended to suggest some of the specific conventions or features which help characterise tragedy as a literary from. They are not rules and texts will differ in theifuse of these conventions but they will help to inform your understanding of //Othello// as a tragedy.

A tragedy explores the potential for disaster in human life caused by a combination of frailty or vice and external circumstances, often represented by Fate or Fortune.

At the centre of a tragedy is a protagonist or tragic hero. (See separate notes for a more detailed consideration of Othello as a tragic hero). Typically this is a man (yes, man!) of moral and/or social stature. He is presented so that the audience will, at least in part, identify with him as someone worthy of respect, even admiration, and who has dignity, which makes his decline and fall a cause for sadness, pity and a creates a sense of loss. His death must be of considerable significance and affect the life of more than just the individual involved. Typically, the tragic hero, through his folly, frailty or vice will commit an act which sets off a train of events which the hero cannot control. In //Macbeth,// the act is the killing of Duncan, and in //Lear// the expulsion of Cordelia; it is less straightforward in //Hamlet// and //Othello// to identify a specific early 'action'; in //Hamlet// the tragedy is connected to Hamlet's inaction as a revenge hero and in //Othello,// Othello's 'act' could be seen as his loss of trust in Desdemona. However, these are issues to be discussed during the study of the play.

The disastrous consequences of the tragic hero's action spread as he becomes the agent of further ruin leading to inevitable disaster, a disaster which cannot be avoided. The hero suffers deeply, becomes isolated but before the end of the play, when he must die, he typically experiences insight into his situation and attains a level of self-knowledge, a sense of development. In this sense, despite the tragic consequences of his actions, the hero is able to generate a level of sympathy. The death of a tyrant is not tragic!.

The disaster must affect more than one individual. The destruction is widespread, affecting both guilty and innocent, and ends with a sense of tragic loss. However, this is qualified by a sense of gain as a new start for those who remain becomes possible and some level of self-knowledge and increased understanding is achieved. There may be a sense that the country or kingdom has been cleansed. Although tragedy explores the inevitable downfall of an individual, typically tragedies attempt to present this in a wider social, political and human context In this respect it is important to place the tragedy of Othello in a wider context to do with issues of race, femininity and masculinity.

Crucial to tragedy is the effect of the play upon the audience. The Greek philosopher Aristotle used the term //catharsis// to describe the audience response. This means that the audience's feelings are released or purged by the end of the play particularly through the experience of //pity and fear. Pity// is felt for the suffering experienced and //fear// is generated by the widespread destruction and potential for disaster which lies at the heart of the play and in the social, political and human worlds which we inhabit. Awe, wonder, sadness, resignation, a sense of waste and of hope, are all emotions which the tragic play may evoke in an audience.

Two related concepts: On of the most popular stories of Renaissance theatre is the story of the revenger. An initial crime is committed either early on in the play or before the play begins and for various,.reasons the usual processes of law and justice are unavailable to avenge the crime, so an individual, working outside the law, sees it as his duty to exact private revenge. The plotting towards this and the increasing isolation the protagonist experiences occupies the body of the play which, in the tragic versions, ends up with the death of both the criminal and the avenger. Elements of this revenge play tradition can be seen in //Othello// both in the character of lago and Othello. Iago has been interpreted as seeking vengeance for a whole series of actions 'against' him: being passed over for promotion, the imagined cuckolding by Othello, the 'loss' of Othello to Desdemona. One can also apply this concept to the character of Othello. He sees himself at moments on the play as a revenge hero avenging his wife's infidelity. Murder, violent death, the role of fate and chance were all elements of the revenge tragedy. A particular feature of these tragedies is the presence of the scheming villain - 'The Machiavel' - motivated by a pleasure in doing evil; unscrupulous, cynical, skilful at playing one person off another. Of course, Iago is Venetian and has been interpreted by some critics as an example of the Machiavellian scheming villain. Machiavelli was a sixteenth century writer, who wrote a book called //Il Principe// which is essentially a handbook for rulelrs. He argues that civilisation is built upon the assumption that weakness, ingratitude and ill will are essentials of human characters and society. Cruelty, deceit and betrayal of faith are regrettable but necessary instruments of government. These ideas led to the development of the scheming, intriguing villain of the Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre The role of tragic hero, both in classical drama and in Shakespeare, generally requires that the hero be. M of social importance(a king/ emperor/prince) M start his 'career' in a state of contentment M fall from this height, enduring suffering and a decline, through fate and a personal flaw/error' M this fall ends in misery and death M knowledge and insight is gained in the process.
 * 1. //The Revenge Tragedy// **
 * 2. //The Italianate Tragedy of Intrigue// **
 * Othello as tragic hero: **

1. Othello is obviously of importance to Venice; not a ruler there but governor of Cyprus; he serves the state as a mercenary soldier and Venice, judging by the first Act, is reliant upon him. (Such leaders of mercenaries, known as condottieri were familiar in Italy; an Englishman, John Hawkwood being an example and Venice employing and rewarding Bartolomeo Colleoni in the 15th century). As Iago remarks, //'Another of his fathom they have none/To lead their business//.

He enjoys the high esteem of the Senate, of his lieutenant, and, prior to his marriage, of Brabantio. He gains an important commission regarding Cyprus and responds to it professionally. He has led a brilliant, soldierly career and is brave, resolute and faithful, implied by the state's esteem, by his attitude to Brabantio and company seeking him in I ii, and by narrative of his past adventures (I iii 130): even Iago acknowledges (truthfully?) //'I have seen the' cannon/When it hath blown his ranks into the air/And, like the devil, from his very arm/Puffed his own brother'// (III iv 131-4). He is clearly used to command, displayed in his response to the raised swords in I ii and in his approach to the brawl in II iii.

Apparently confident and assured in his view of the Senate's estimation of him in I ii, he is swift to promise his professional attention to duty in I ii. He is faithful to Venice and, as befits an officer, especially in this era, strongly aware of his own glory and value. He also lays claim to royal ancestry.

2. He is also distinctly un-Venetian as his colour, origins and experiences show. Viewed by his enemies in a hostile, racially abusive way, his actual character runs counter to stereotypes of the lustful Moor.

3. He has won the love of the obviously virtuous Desdemona whose feminine delicacy has responded to his masculine heroism and with whom he appears to enjoy an ideal union as their greeting in Cyprus shows.

4. The grandeur of his poetry with his expansive/cosmic images and use of absolutes, his equally expansive rhythms and sonorous diction all add to the sense of the character's stature.

In Acts I - II he enjoys a state of professional and personal contentment. 1. We can perceive Othello to possess justifiable pride in himself but also considerable male ego; understandable in the light of his achievement and in securing the love of Desdemona but his account of their falling in love suggests pride/egotism to the foreground, not necessarily a clear picture of Desdemona: // She loved me for the dangers I had passed // // And I loved her that she did pity them // .(I iii 167-8)
 * Flaws and Fate **

2. He obviously responds to her beauty, virtue and fidelity, as their greetings in Cyprus indicate. He inspires in her a deep, faithful affection and utter belief in his goodness and incapacity to be jealous, Iago himself being forced to acknowledge: // The Moor, howbeit that I endure him not, // // Is of a constant, loving, noble nature // , // And I dare think he'll prove to Desdemona // // A most dear husband //. (II I 279-282) 3. Yet it is his pride that lago can work upon, from III iii onwards to a point where Desdemona has revealed her capacity to nag however charmingly and mix the personal and professional in her bid to reinstate Cassio. Othello moves from the confidence of:. //For she had eyes and chose me .(III iii 189). //

through hints and praise (of his own noble and open nature) and by lago's work on his underlying insecurities enabling him to recall, prompted by lago’s words//,// the comments of Brabantio. He is soon wondering why he married and accepts 'reasons' why Desdemona **has** rejected him (IIl iii 262-7).

Blind along with Venice in his assessment of and confidence in Iago he is undermined, losing faith in the wife whose appearance itself argues against the slanders.

4. Beneath his civilized exterior Othello is also a man of passions: // My blood begins my safer guides to rule, // // And passion, having my best judgment collied, // // Assays to lead the way. // (11 iii 191-3) and // Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul // // But I do love thee! And when I love thee not, // // Chaos is come again //. (llIiii 90-2)

5. The jealousy roused summons up bloody passion, obsession; irrationality, all tormenting Othello. Love for Desdemona and trust in her became integral to his sense of himself and once these are destroyed, the self too, both past and present, is shattered. By the end of III iii, Othello seems committed to lago and his 'truth' and thus wedded to vengeance. The audience is aware of Othello's decline taking various forms:-
 * Decline **

1. He suffers, tormented by jealousy and the sense of losing Desdemona (III, iii & IV i 174).

2. He loses his. moral awareness/principles:­ M he asks lago to use Emilia as a spy (III iii 240) M he vows to kill Desdemona in III iii and IV I M he treats his wife increasingly harshly, starting with his anger in III iv; he M hits and humiliates her in public in IV I and treats her as a whore in IV ii, M refusing to believe her protestations or Emilia's M he plots the murder of Cassio M he kills his own wife, ignoring her pleas and the promptings of her beauty and virtue M he commits suicide

Yet throughout this, largely through the style which Shakespeare has created for his hero, the audience retains a strong sense of his grandeur as tragic hero. 1. Othello has come to believe that he has gained knowledge of the truth from lago, truth about Desdemona and female infidelity generally; ironically, he has lost what he truly knew. He gains, without perceiving it initially, knowledge of the extent of his own passions and vengeance although he can still believe at the play's end that he was not easily jealous but, having become so, was 'wrought' upon...partly true?
 * Knowledge **

2. Confronted with the truth by Desdemona and Emilia, he will not accept it (IV) as if the torments to which he is now committed will not permit him to admit error?

3. At the play's end, he is FORCED to hear Emilia and learn of the handkerchief's history and Iago's schemes and thus FORCED to see the extent of his error and thus the extent of his loss. Having striven, in his killing of Desdemona, to divorce himself from revenge and depict his action as one of justice, he now judges her correctly and pronounces himself to be damned (being consigned to Hell's chaos in his powerful speech before Gratiano), having lost his wife in this world and the next.

4. His final speech seeks to formulate himself once more? He alludes to past glories and achievements, to love and loss, inflicting his death blow in mid-recollection of an act where he was the faithful servant of Venice striking down the barbaric and malevolent infidel, the Turk; he thus fuses the two aspects of his nature crucial to the tragedy: the civilized general serving Venice and the barbaric alien. An appropriate ending? You will quickly discover on this course that there is no fixed way of responding to a literary text. You will be encouraged to develop your own response, but this should be informed by what thers have said and written. Readers and audiences respond differently to the play for a whole range of reasons: they are living in different places at different times, they have had different experiences and fundamentally are of different identities, values and interests; all of these factors may influence their response.
 * // Othello: Different Readings, Different Responses //**

Below are a few examples of what various critics have written about the characters of Othello and Iago. You may find some of the ideas challenging and you will have an opportunity to discuss them further with your teacher, but try to see how the critics are interpreting the character quite differently.

The first extract is trom a very early study of Shakespeare by A.C. Bradley, who, writing in 1904, argued that Othello is a romantic character of great nobility destroyed by the words and machinations of an 'evil' Iago: 'Othello's nature is all of one piece. His trust, where he trusts, is absolute. Hesitation is almost impossible to him. He is extremely self-reliant, and decides and acts instantaneously. If stirred to indignation, as 'in Aleppo once', he answers with one lightning stroke. Love, if he loves, must be to him the heaven where either he must live or bear no life. If such a passion as jealousy seizes him, it will swell into a well-nigh uncontrollable flood. He will press for immediate conviction or immediate relief. Convinced, he will act with the authority of a judge, and the swiftness of a man in mortal pain. Undeceived, he will do the execution on himself.

This character is so noble, Othello's feelings and actions follow so inevitably from it and from the forces brought to bear on it, and his sufferings are so heart -rending, that he stirs, I believe, in most readers a passion of mingled love and pity which they feel for no other hero in Shakespeare'. (From 'Shakespearean Tragedy'1904) This extremely sympathetic response to Othello was directly challenged some 50 years later by F.R.Leavis who believed-that the roots of the tragedy of Othello were in the character himself and that the role of Iago is almost incidental. He argues that Othello is an excessively proud and egotistical character, prone to self-dramatisation and lacking in self-knowledge: Othello, in his magnanimous way, is egotistic. He really is, beyond any question, the nobly massive man of action, the captain of such men, he sees himself as being, but he does very much see himself: 'Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them' In short, a habit of self-approving self-dramatisation is an essential element in Othello's make up, and remains so at the very end.

It is, at the best, the impressive manifestation of a noble egotism. But, in the new marital situation, this egotism isn't going to be less dangerous for its nobility. This self-centredness doesn't mean self-knowledge; that is a virtue which Othello, as a soldier of fortune, hasn't much need of…

At the climax of the play, as he sets himself irrevocably in his vindictive resolution, he reassumes formally his heroic self-dramatisation - reassumes the Othello of ' the big wars that make ambition virtue'. The part of this conscious nobility, this noble egotism, this self-pride that was justified by experience irrelevant to the present trials and stresses, is thus under-lined. Othello's self-idealisatiol, his promptness to jealousy and his blindness are shown in their essential relation. The self-idealisation is shown as blindness and the nobility as here no longer something real, but the disguise of an obtuse and brutal egotism. Self-pride becomes stupidity, ferocious stupidity, an insane and self-deceiving passion. The habitual 'nobility' is seen to make self-deception invincible, the egotism it expresses being the drive to catastrophe. Othello's noble lack of self-knowledge is shown as humiliating and disastrous.' (F.R.Leavis 'Diabolic Intellect and the Noble Hero' 1952) Although taking very contrasting views of the Othello these two critics have one important thing in common. The both write about Othello as aD individual, as an imitation of a human being. Many more recent critics approach characters in terms of how they represent broader and social and cultural concerns. For example, one can approach the character of Othello as a representation of an outsider in society or more specifically of a black man in a white man's world. (see the sections of this booklet on 'Black and White in //Othello'.)//

Here is a final extract on the character of Othello from an article by Derek Cohen, professor of English literature at York University. Writing about the significance of Othello's suicide he argues that Othello is divided between his identity as a black man, a pagan like the Turk he kills in Aleppo, and his role as a servant of the white Venetian state. To the state he is an outsider and an object of racist abuse but is accepted and tolerated to the extent to which he is useful to them. Othello himself intemalises this conflict, and is torn himself between his two identities as a black outsider and an 'honorary Venetian'. Crucial to this argument is not so much the interpretation of Othello as an individual character but as a representative of an outsider in society: 'Racial difference is a ubiquitous problem. No character does not refer to Othello's racial difference and separateness. Such references, however apparently benign, fulfil one of the chief dogmas of white domination. They always reconstruct difference and separateness; they always put a schism between Othello and the white power structure. Thus even benignity - like the duke's - on racial matters in a situation where Othello poses no threat is automatically self-serving. While Othello conforms to state politics and state racial policy, he is allowed to be secure. While he continues, in other words, to regard the world of black, circumcised men as his enemy, he is the darling of the state. When, however, he breaches this politics (by marrying Desdemona, an act of miscegenation) he increases his own danger in and to the Venetian state. Venice is stronger in having a black general to fight a black enemy. Just as the fact of the American military being led by a black general in, say, Grenada or Iraq, is by itself a powerful statement about the American state; it ends up sustaining the value of white power in the world while it simultaneously promotes the idea of racial equality; Othello's function is rhetorically similar.' (Derek Cohen, 'Othello's Suicide' Spring 1993)

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