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Othello

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Youtube. Video SparkNotes: Shakespeare's Othello summary. Othello. No Fear Shakespeare puts Shakespeare's language side-by-side with a facing-page translation into modern English—the kind of English people actually speak today.

Othello

Table of Contents Characters Act 1 Act 1, Scene 1. A-level English Literature Othello Revision. Othello Synopsis. Characters | Download PDF | Return to Synopses Othello, a Moorish general of Venice, has promoted Cassio as his lieutenant; Iago, who was hoping for the promotion himself, makes plots against both Cassio and Othello to exact revenge.

Othello Synopsis

Othello has secretly married Desdemona, the beautiful daughter of Venetian senator Brabantio, and Iago determines to use Desdemona as the means of his revenge. When Othello is posted to Cyprus by the Duke of Venice, Iago escorts Desdemona there to meet him, taking along his own wife, Emilia. When they've arrived in Cyprus, Iago sets his machinations to motion. He tricks Cassio into getting drunk, then has Roderigo—a former suitor of Desdemona whom Iago has convinced to aid him with the hope of winning Desdemona back—pick a fight with Cassio that ends in Cassio's arrest.

This accomplished, Iago goes straightaway to Othello so that he can lead him to where Desdemona and Cassio are talking. Dramatis Personae: Othello Analysis. Othello Themes. Othello: Key Facts. Othello: Themes, Motifs & Symbols. Themes Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

Othello: Themes, Motifs & Symbols

The Incompatibility of Military Heroism & Love Before and above all else, Othello is a soldier. From the earliest moments in the play, his career affects his married life. Asking “fit disposition” for his wife after being ordered to Cyprus (I.iii.234), Othello notes that “the tyrant custom . . . / Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war / My thrice-driven bed of down” (I.iii.227–229). Othello predicates his success in love on his success as a soldier, wooing Desdemona with tales of his military travels and battles. Desperate to cling to the security of his former identity as a soldier while his current identity as a lover crumbles, Othello begins to confuse the one with the other. Farewell the plum’d troops and the big wars That make ambition virtue! One might well say that Othello is saying farewell to the wrong things—he is entirely preoccupied with his identity as a soldier. Motifs Plants Animals.

Othello: Context. The most influential writer in all of English literature, William Shakespeare was born in 1564 to a successful middle-class glove-maker in Stratford-upon-Avon, England.

Othello: Context

Shakespeare attended grammar school, but his formal education proceeded no further. In 1582 he married an older woman, Anne Hathaway, and had three children with her. Around 1590 he left his family behind and traveled to London to work as an actor and playwright. Public and critical acclaim quickly followed, and Shakespeare eventually became the most popular playwright in England and part-owner of the Globe Theater. His career bridged the reigns of Elizabeth I (ruled 1558–1603) and James I (ruled 1603–1625), and he was a favorite of both monarchs.

Shakespeare’s works were collected and printed in various editions in the century following his death, and by the early eighteenth century his reputation as the greatest poet ever to write in English was well established. Literary Articles : The Role of Women in Othello: A Feminist Reading. William Shakespeare's "Othello” can be read from a feminist perspective.

Literary Articles : The Role of Women in Othello: A Feminist Reading

A feminist analysis of the play Othello allows us to judge the different social values and status of women in the Elizabethan society. Othello serves as an example to demonstrate the expectations of the Elizabethan patriarchal society, the practice of privileges in patriarchal marriages, and the suppression and restriction of femininity. According to Elizabethan or Shakespeare's society built upon Renaissance beliefs, women were meant only to marry. As their single occupation, marriage held massive responsibilities of house management and child rearing.

Additionally, women were expected to be silent, chaste, and obedient to their husbands, fathers, brothers, and all men in general. As we go through Othello we find that the women characters are presented according to this expectation of the Elizabethan society.There are only three women in ‘Othello’: Desdemona, Emilia and Bianca. Women as possessions. GCSE Bitesize - Othello. Othello: Entire Play.