Introduction to

Shakespeare’s Othello
Then must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely, but too well…
•
Lesson Content
Shakespeare background info
• The plot and important themes
• Vocabulary and techniques (Iambic pentameter, aside, soliloquy, foil,
allusion – Janus)
• Tragedy and tragic hero
• Italian Renaissance and the Renaissance Triangle of order and balance
• Moor
• Othello background (his character)
• Cuckold
• Setting (Venice – Act 1 - and Cyprus Act 2-5)
• Why include the Venetian and Turkish war?
• Characters
• Irony
• Jealousy vs Envy
William Shakespeare
 Born in April 1564 in Stratford-
on-Avon
 Received a classical education
including Latin, Greek, history,
math, astronomy, and music
 Most likely began as an actor
 Wrote 38 plays, including
comedies, histories, tragedies,
and romances
 Wrote 4 lengthy poems and a
sonnet cycle
The Plot
 The plot is simple. A man, disappointed of
promotion which he thought he had a right to expect,
determines on revenge and in part secures it. By a
series of careful moves he persuaded the General
(Othello) of the adultery of the General's wife
(Desdemona) with the lieutenant (Cassio) who has
been promoted ahead of him. The plot "scheme" is
concerned with one of the strangest and most
distressing of human emotions - jealousy - and this
is what makes the plot powerful.
Shakespeare Vocabulary
 Verse vs. Prose  Aside
 Meter  Monologue
 Foot  Soliloquy
 Iambic Pentameter  Allusion
 Blank Verse vs. Free  Foil
Verse  Tragedy
 Sonnet  Tragic Hero
 Quatrain  Tragic Flaw
 Couplet
Verse vs. Prose
Verse: Poetic language that includes
meter and sometimes rhyme;
organized in lines with a
consistent number of syllables

Prose: Ordinary written language with no

meter or rhyme; organized in
sentences
Prose Verse
“Sir, he’s rash and very “Most potent, grave, and
sudden in choler, and reverend signoirs,
haply may strike at you. My very noble and approved
Provoke him that he may, good masters:
for even out of that will I That I have ta’en away this old
cause these of Cyprus to man’s daughter,
mutiny, whose qualification
It is most true; true I have
shall come into no true
married her”
taste again but by the
displanting of Cassio”
(2.1.294-298).
(1.3.91-94).
Verse vs. Prose: Usage
 Poetic style of verse used for high status
characters, great affairs of war and state, and
tragic moments.
 Prose used for low status characters (servants,
clowns, drunks, villains), proclamations,
written challenges, accusations, letters,
comedic moments, and to express madness.
Verse vs. Prose
 In Othello, pay careful attention to the
situations in which Iago switches between
speaking in verse and speaking in prose.

 What importance does his choice of verse or

prose seem to have?
Meter
 Meter: the pattern of stressed and unstressed
syllables.

 Meter is responsible for creating the rhythm

of a line.
Meter and Foot
 Foot: a group of syllables that forms one complete
unit of a metrical pattern.

 Meter is described in terms of the pattern of stressed

and unstressed syllables AND the total number of
metrical feet in a line of verse.

 Iambic pentameter is the most common metrical

pattern in Shakespeare.
Iambic Pentameter
Iamb: unstressed syllable, stressed
syllable ˘ /
Pentameter: Lines of five iambic feet; 10
syllables
Example:
˘ / ˘ / ˘ / ˘ / ˘ /
But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?
Blank Verse vs. Free Verse
Blank Verse: Unrhymed iambic pentameter
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Free Verse: No regular meter

One’s-Self I sing, a simple separate person,
Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse.
Sonnet
 14 line poem, usually written in iambic pentameter

 organized in three quatrains and a couplet

 typical rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg

 four-part organization has greater flexibility about where

thematic breaks occur

 most pronounced break or turn comes with concluding

couplet
Sonnet: Quatrain and Couplet

Quatrain: four-line verse stanza,

usually rhymed

Couplet: a pair of rhyming verse lines

Sonnet: Example (Sonnet 138)
A When my love swears that she is made of truth,
B I do believe her, though I know she lies,
A That she might think me some untutored youth,
B Unlearned in the world’s false subtleties.

C Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,

D Although she knows my days are past the best,
C Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue;
D On both sides thus is simple truth supprest.

E But wherefore says she not she is unjust?

F And wherefore say not I that I am old?
E Oh, love’s best habit is in seeming trust,
F And age in love loves not to have years told:

G Therefore I lie with her and she with me,

G And in our faults by lies we flattered be.
Aside, Monologue, and Soliloquy
Aside: a character’s remark, either
to the audience or another
character, that other characters
on stage are not supposed to
hear
Monologue: an extended speech by a single
character that is uninterrupted by
others
Soliloquy: a speech a character gives
when s/he is alone on stage
Foil
A character whose personality or
attitudes are in sharp contrast to
those of another character in the same
work

(Example – Emilia and Desdemona)

Allusion
 Allusion: an indirect reference to an event,
person, place, or another work of literature

 Shakespeare’s work contains numerous

allusions to Greek and Roman mythology.
Allusion
 .
Allusion
 .
Allusion: Janus
 Roman god of gates and
doors, beginnings and endings
 Depicted with a double-faced
head, each looking in opposite
directions
 Worshipped at the beginning
of the harvest time, planting,
marriage, birth, and other
types of beginnings
 Also represents the transition
between primitive life and
civilization, between the
countryside and the city,
peace and war, and the
growing-up of young people
Tragedy
 A serious play representing the disastrous downfall
of the hero
 Achieves a catharsis by arousing pity and terror in
the audience
 Hero is led into fatal calamity by hamartia (tragic
flaw or error) which often takes the form of hubris
(excessive pride leading to divine retribution
 Tragic effect depends upon audience’s awareness of
the admirable qualities of the hero which are wasted
in the disaster
Classical Tragic Hero
 The tragic hero is a good man, important to society
 The hero suffers a fall brought about by something
in his nature
 The fall provokes the emotions of pity and fear in
the reader
 The tragic character comes to some kind of
understanding or new recognition of what has
happened
Tragic Flaw
Defect of character that leads to
the hero’s disastrous downfall
Italian Renaissance
The Beauty of Classic/Perfect Forms
“The Renaissance Triangle” is the visual
manifestation of the classical ideals of order,
balance, and moderation, which together
equal stability, seen in classical Renaissance
art and architecture
Italian Renaissance
Italian Renaissance
Triangles – the women of Othello

Bianca

Desdemona Emilia
Triangles – Couples

Othello and Desdemona

Emilia and Iago Bianca and Cassio

Triangles – Transformation of Othello
Act I—Man in Control
End of play – Back in control

Acts 3 & 4 Transformed Act 5 – Tragic Othello

Othello Terminology: Moor
 Muslim person of Arab and
Berber descent from
northwest Africa
 Moors invaded Spain and
established a civilization in
Andalusia lasting from the
8th -- 15th centuries
 Term Moor comes from
the Greek work mauros
meaning dark or very black
 In Renaissance drama,
Moors often symbolized
something other than
human - and often, indeed,
something devilish.
Othello Terminology: Moor
 Because of their
Arab descent, the
Moorish culture is
very structured
when it comes to
women. Women in
Arab culture are
absolutely,
positively not
allowed to commit
adultery. To do so
meant instant death.
Othello Terminology: Moor
 The Moors were actually
one victory away from
crushing the Europeans,
but, like the Romans,
condemned their future by
internal squabbles.
 Some adopted Christianity
and remained (such as
Othello), and were called
Moriscos.
Othello Background
 Othello is of royal
lineage. He was
captured, turned into a
slave by the Spanish and
Italians, then later won
his freedom and became
a tremendous general.
Othello Background
 Othello knows
nothing but violence.
He has little formal
education. Everything
he knows involves
the battlefield.
Othello Background
 Othello is not simply a
Moor, but a Christian (a
Morisco). This play
abounds with imagery of
Christian salvation and
damnation.
 Moriscos were regarded
without much trust by the
Christian community at the
time.
Othello Background
 Moors were treated
much like the Jews who
became new Christians,
“regarded with
suspicion as a false
Christian (Hecht 127).
Othello Terminology: Cuckold
 a man whose wife is unfaithful to him
 Represented with horns growing out of his
forehead
“That cuckold lives in bliss
Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger;
But O, what damned minutes tells he o’er
Who dotes, yet doubts; suspects, yet strongly loves!”
(3.3.197-200)

“I have a pain upon my forehead, here” (326).

Othello: A Tragedy
 Written in 1604
 One of the major tragedies -- after Hamlet and
before King Lear and Macbeth
 Fascination with evil
 Study the devastating effects of the deadly
sins of the spirit: ambitious pride, ingratitude,
wrath, jealousy and vengeful hate
Othello: Setting – Act 1 : Venice
Othello: Setting – ACT TWO – FIVE Cyprus
 Why the War???
ACT ONE - Venice  ACT TWO – FIVE – Cyprus
When we first meet Othello, he is Cyprus represents a foreign world for
the epitome of a calm, self- Othello. Not only physically,
assured, non-provocative but, more importantly,
military general His very first psychologically. It is emotions
line is, "It is better as it is" and passion and romance--the
(1.2.6). This is a conservative,
exact opposite of reason and
contented man, actually
opposed to violence. Note how intellect, that he was used to in
he breaks up the fight between Venice, in peacetime. War, by
his men and Brabantio's men: it's nature, is not rational--it is
"Keep up your bright swords, emotional.
for the dew will rust them.
Good signior, you shall more
command with years than with
your weapons" (1.2.59)
 Why the War???
So maybe the emotional Othello showed himself
before, but he is not there in Venice, where
there is peace. But where there is war, or the
remnants of war, as in Cyprus, the emotional
Othello is more vulnerable for Iago to poison
him. The war with the Turks is clearly the
dividing point of the play and the catalyst for
change within Othello. It may have caused no
physical harm to Othello, but it did quite a lot of
mental harm. And that is the worst wound of all.
Othello: Setting
 Journey from
Venice, Italy to
Cyprus

 Venice = order,
rule of reason ?

 Cyprus = disorder,
rule of passion ?
 Desdemona
Othello’s wife and also
the daughter of an
Italian nobleman.
Desdemona is fair,
apparently quite
pure, and
apparently quite
innocent. There is a
debate whether she
is naïve.
 IAGO
Quite possibly one of the
most dangerous, evil
characters in major
literature, yet
throughout the play no
one but the reader
knows his intentions.
In appearance, he is
Othello’s confidant; in
reality, he is Othello’s
nightmare.
 CASSIO
Othello’s lieutenant,
and the one Iago
(apparently) is
angry with because
Othello picked
Cassio over him.
He is a young flirt
who is very
preoccupied with
advancement.
 Emilia
Iago’s wife. Emilia is
basically an abused
spouse, but she may
know more about her
husband than anyone
else. She also has an
earthly view of the
love. Cynical. (very
important for the
handkerchief scene)
 Roderigo
Iago’s lackey, a man that Iago can use
without any worry of his intentions
being misinterpreted. Roderigo is
basically a weak mind that can be
easily manipulated.

Iago controls Roderigo’s purse in the

same way that he will control Othello’s
soul later.
 Bianca
A prostitute/ courtesan who is another
pawn in Iago’s game. She is Cassio’s
mistress and because she is of low
social status, is an easy target.
 Brabantio
Desdemona’s father, who actually was
friends with Othello until he gets a big
surprise. Brabantio is basically a failed
politician that the military has little use
for.
Irony

1. Iago--the biggest liar gives the

audience/reader many truths. He also
gives Cassio, Roderigo, and Othello
good advice, yet he manipulates it to
his evil purpose.
Irony

2. Desdemona—The sweetest, purest

character is painted as a whore and
liar.

3. Othello thinks Iago is a virtuous

friend who is helping him. By the end
of Act III, he is has been called
“honest” 30 times!
Othello: Thematic Ideas
 Nature of love and marriage
 Nature of jealousy
 Nature and use of language
 Male mistrust of women
 Deception / Honesty
 Importance of reputation
Themes
 The play’s central theme is love
 destruction of love = hate
 love and hate together arouse jealousy.
 The central conflict is between men and women and
this is presented through a series of parallel and
contrasting couples.
 Desdemona/Othello, Emilia/Iago, Bianca/Cassio and a
number of fantasy couples:
 Roderigo/Desdemona, Cassio/Desdemona, Othello/Emilia.
Famous Jealous people
Famous Jealous people
Quotes about Jealousy
 Love may be blind but jealousy has 20-20 vision.
Anonymous
Quotes about Jealousy
 Jealousy is the jaundice of the soul.
John Dryden
Envy vs Jealousy
 Envy—The state of discontent
arising from one’s desire for
the possessions or qualities of
another person.
Envy vs Jealousy
 Jealousy—The state of discontent
arising from a feeling that a third party
threatens to take away what one has, or
the third party is giving what the
person wants to yet another third party.
Envy vs Jealousy
 “There is a distinction between jealousy
and envy. To envy is to want something
which belongs to another person. “You
shall not covet your neighbor’s house, his
wife or his servant, his ox or donkey, or
anything that belongs to your neighbor.

“ O, beware, my lord, of jealousy!
It is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock
The meat it feeds on.” (III, iii, l. 191-193)