The World of Shakespeare & Othello

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

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

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)

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

Leo Africanus

• 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

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

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)

MiscegenationOthello 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.

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?

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!)

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?

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?