https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2 Made with a dash of wit en-us 2019-03-11 11:17:16 UTC 2019-03-11 12:21:22 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339890269 2019-03-11 11:44:48 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339890269 https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339890728 new historicist critics often debate whether or not race was a factor in early modern representations of non-English peoples
Although Othello's racial identity is clearly a factor in Shakespeare's text, during the time the play was written, race would not have been so solely focused on in such a negative way as it is today ]]> 2019-03-11 11:46:12 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339890728 https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339890959 ‘the thick-lips’ 'A black ram']]> 2019-03-11 11:46:57 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339890959 https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339891193 The different gradations of status embedded in the text are often represented in military terms, with Iago presented as a rough-speaking non-commissioned officer, resentful of Cassio’s rank and courtly manners]]> 2019-03-11 11:47:38 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339891193 https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339891324 The play’s exploration of rank and class go beyond the military. Iago’s repeated advice, ‘Put money in thy purse’, suggests that a new economic model has replaced the feudal obligations of service, which had been based on a bond of loyalty and duty between servant and master.]]> 2019-03-11 11:47:54 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339891324 https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339891585 As a ‘servant’ of the king, Shakespeare – who applied for a coat of arms to be named a ‘gentleman’ but was also an entrepreneur who loaned money and invested in land and rents – was implicated in both models.]]> 2019-03-11 11:48:33 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339891585 https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339891809  Shakespeare derived Othello’s plot from a short narrative in Giraldi Cinthio’s Gli Hecatommithi (1565), but set his play within the context of Venice’s struggle during the 1570s with the Ottoman Empire for control of Cyprus]]> 2019-03-11 11:49:11 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339891809 https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339892039 feminist critics tend to highlight the portrayal of the two gender roles and how women were stereotypically inferior to men and when women did challenge a man's perspective, it was frowned upon

]]> 2019-03-11 11:49:44 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339892039 https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339892200 Marxist critics are concerned with the economic and psychological impact of early modern England’s hierarchical social system. In 1604 James I took Shakespeare’s acting company under his patronage, making Shakespeare a ‘servant’ of the king. Indeed, service to someone in a higher position was expected from the lowest kitchen maid to the lords and ladies of the king’s court.]]> 2019-03-11 11:50:09 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339892200 https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339892223 Desdemona and Othello’s love is no match for Iago’s plots and the green-eyed monster jealousy. Infidelity was the ultimate marital crime in early modern England. The prospect of illegitimate children subverted the bedrock of the era’s social and economic system, the inheritance of property from father to son. In a speech that is often described as ‘proto- feminist’, Emilia argues that a wife’s infidelity is a response to the husband’s behaviour]]> 2019-03-11 11:50:13 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339892223 https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339892517
Postcolonial readings focus on the play’s representation of Ottoman Turks. Shakespeare derived Othello’s plot from a short narrative in Giraldi Cinthio’s Gli Hecatommithi (1565), but set his play within the context of Venice’s struggle during the 1570s with the Ottoman Empire for control of Cyprus, the eastern Mediterranean island that overlooked the shipping lanes between Europe and trading centres in the East. Venice owned Cyprus from 1470 to 1569, but in 1571 Turkish forces seized the island. Later that year an alliance of Christian powers defeated the Turk in the famous naval battle of Lepanto. As a young man, James VI of Scotland (James I of England in 1603) celebrated that battle, fought ‘Betwixt the baptiz’d race, / And circumcised Turband Turkes’.^[1] References throughout Othello to ‘the Turk’ or ‘turning Turk’ evoke the intermittent conflict between Europe’s Christian powers and the Islamic Ottoman Empire, which was as much an economic competition as a clash of religions. In sermons and treatises, English writers like Richard Knolles, who published The General Historie of the Turks (1603), demonised the Ottoman Empire as barbaric and cruel, even as they admired its military success and bureaucratic structure.

]]> 2019-03-11 11:50:58 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339892517 https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339892728 2019-03-11 11:51:28 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339892728 https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339893009  Although Othello’s racial identity is clearly a factor in Shakespeare’s text, when the play was first performed the audience would not have seen it as squarely focussed on race as we do]]> 2019-03-11 11:52:09 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339893009 https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339893275 Othello’s blackness and his background as a foreign mercenary prefigures the hybridity postcolonial theorists have identified in colonial subjects.]]> 2019-03-11 11:52:48 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339893275 https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339893560 - Ottoman Turks focus
- within the context of Venice’s struggle during the 1570
- eastern Mediterranean island that overlooked the shipping lanes between Europe and trading centres in the East. Venice owned Cyprus from 1470 to 1569, but in 1571 Turkish forces seized the island]]> 2019-03-11 11:53:36 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339893560 https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339893639 Constant feminism throughout as to her portrayal and how Shakespeare intended the audience to view her

]]> 2019-03-11 11:53:47 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339893639 https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339893819 Othello was criticised for depicting a man of colour as a tragic hero]]> 2019-03-11 11:54:13 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339893819 https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339893999 2019-03-11 11:54:44 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339893999 https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339894127 Othello demonstrates  western society’s fascination with and fear of the Islamic or African other.]]> 2019-03-11 11:55:06 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339894127 https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339894282 As editor Michael Neill observes, ‘to talk about race in Othello is inevitably to fall into some degree of anachronism, while to ignore it is to efface something fundamental to the tragedy.’

]]> 2019-03-11 11:55:32 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339894282 https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339894448 Racial prejudice is not the only prejudice on display in Othello. Many characters in the play also exhibit misogyny, or hatred of women, primarily focused on women's honesty or dishonesty about their sexuality. Several times, Othello's age is also a reason for insulting him. In all of these cases, the characters displaying prejudice seek to control and define another person or group who frighten them. In other words, prejudice works as a kind of strategy to identify outsiders and insiders and to place yourself within the dominant group. And Othello himself seems to understand this—he concludes his suicide speech by boasting that he, a Christian, once killed a Muslim Turk, a "circumcised dog" (5.2.355) who had murdered a Venetian citizen. Othello tries to use religious prejudice against Muslims to cement his place within mainstream Christian Venetian society ]]> 2019-03-11 11:56:07 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339894448 https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339895083 2019-03-11 11:57:48 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339895083 https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339895384  This continuing appeal suggests that the tragedy transcends the time and location in which it was written, provoking new interpretations from generation to generation, place to place]]> 2019-03-11 11:58:31 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339895384 https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339895427 Feminist critics underscored Desdemona’s initial independence and Emilia’s eventual strength, and outlined the ways both women were oppressed by male superiors. Audiences responded sympathetically to Desdemona’s plight.   ]]> 2019-03-11 11:58:41 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339895427 https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339895919 Rather than seeing things as they are Bradley interprets and sees the drama through “Othello’s eyes instead than shakespeare’s” ( Leavis 152 ) . He simply sees what he wants to see and expects to see.]]> 2019-03-11 12:00:05 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339895919 https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339896292   • Full Title: The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice
 • When Written: c. 1603 
• Where Written: England 
• When Published: 1622 
• Literary Period: The Renaissance • Genre: Tragedy
 • Setting: Venice and Cyprus 
• Climax: The murder of Desdemona, by Othello • Antagonist: Iago]]> 2019-03-11 12:01:06 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339896292 https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339896567 In Shakespeare’s time Othello was performed by Richard Burbage, a white actor who wore black make-up and a wig of black lamb’s wool. By the early 19th century, a truly black Othello was no longer tenable in England and America. The English actor Edmund Kean chose instead to appear as a North African in light brown make-up, suggesting an African from the Mediterranean rim rather than a sub-Saharan. With the exception of Ira Aldridge, a black actor who portrayed Othello throughout northern Europe in the 19th century, the role was taken by white actors in various shades of make-up until the African-American actor Paul Robeson undertook the role in London (1930) and New York (1943). Since then, black actors have usually impersonated Shakespeare’s Moor.]]> 2019-03-11 12:01:53 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339896567 https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339896689  Othello can be seen as a victim of this ideology in two ways. The first is that Iago’s hatred of Othello can be seen as, in part, racially motivated. This is evident in his use of racially disparaging terms such as his descriptions of Othello in animal-like terms (which can also be read as fear of Othello’s supposed racially characteristic sexual prowess) and his descriptions of Othello as gullible and ‘easily led by the nose’.
Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, Othello can be see as a victim of racist ideology because he succumbs to and accepts the racist constructions of himself. ]]> 2019-03-11 12:02:16 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339896689 https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339897142 2019-03-11 12:03:33 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339897142 https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339897157  Iago and Brabantio construct Desdemona and women in general as naturally changeable and deceptive. They also construct women as property, the ownership of which reflects on a man’s masculinity. ]]> 2019-03-11 12:03:35 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339897157 https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339897314 Is the idea that a book can teach us how to live ]]> 2019-03-11 12:04:04 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339897314 https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339897357 Text tells society how to live- Liberal Humanist 

]]> 2019-03-11 12:04:12 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339897357 https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339897543 English court built on order
eastern built on passion (like Othello) when an eastern people are given too much power they go out of control]]> 2019-03-11 12:04:44 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339897543 https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339898154 Key theorist- Bradley, Motiveless Malignant]]> 2019-03-11 12:06:24 UTC https://padlet.com/nhussey1973/othcrit2/wish/339898154