The life of William Shakespeare has been studied, questioned, and debated since his death in 1616. Because he is considered the greatest playwright in the English language-and one of the world’s greatest writers-people have been eager to find out every possible detail of his life, his work, and his thought. Shakespeare himself offered little help to scholars and critics. Men of his time, no matter how famous, rarely wrote autobiographies, and Shakespeare was no exception.
When Shakespeare was 18, he married Anne Hathaway, a woman seven or eight years his senior.
We don’t know exactly when he left Stratford. But by the time he was 28 (1592), Shakespeare was an established actor. Scholars speculate that he began writing full-time in 1592, when theaters closed on account of the plague. He published a narrative poem, Venus and Adonis, in 1593, and when the theaters reopened in 1594, his play The Comedy of Errors, was ready for presentation.
Queen Elizabeth I, who ruled from 1558-1603. Under her rule, England rose to new economic, military, and cultural heights. The English defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 virtually assured England’s political control of the sea. England’s power and prosperity attracted merchants from all over the world. And writers, poets, and artists were encouraged and rewarded under the queen’s intelligent rule.
Elizabethan theaters were owned and operated by “companies”- groups of producers, actors, and writers who stayed together from play to play, as in a modern repertory company, and shared in the profits. These companies were sponsored by a wealthy merchant or nobleman. Shakespeare
By the time he’d written Othello (around 1604), Shakespeare was considered the greatest playwright of his day. Among his successful plays before Othello were A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, As You Like It, Julius Caesar, Richard II, Henry V, and Hamlet. Stiff to come were King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, and The Tempest, among others.
The theaters in which Shakespeare’s plays were first performed were quite different from those of today. You’re probably accustomed to theaters in which the seats face a square stage with a proscenium arch (a “frame” that separates the audience from the actors). Elizabethan theaters were either circular or made of six, seven, or eight sides. The sides enclosed an open court surrounded above by galleries or balconies. Audience members stood or sat in the galleries or (if they couldn’t afford gallery seats) sat downstairs on the bare ground-these spectators came to be called “groundlings.” Extending into the courtyard was a covered platform, where the action of the play took place. There were no curtains and little painted scenery. In order to let audiences know where and when certain scenes were taking place, Shakespeare often made references to specific cities, rooms, times of day, or weather conditions. There was no lighting other than that provided by the sun. Performances in these theaters were held during the day.
The action of the plays was quick and continuous; only rarely were there intermissions. In fact, the divisions into acts and scenes that are used on stage and in print today were added to his plays after Shakespeare’s death.
Othello
It’s not surprising that Shakespeare chose Venice as the setting of a story filled with passion, jealousy, and sexual tension. For the Elizabethans, the Italians were a wicked people, living lives of treachery, murder, and loose morals. When playwrights of the day wanted to portray wickedness, they often created Italian characters causing problems in England, or set the plays in Italy.
Venice was particularly exciting to the English. The women there were rumored to be very beautiful, and very interested in making love. Venetian men were considered hot-tempered, aggressive, and easily jealous.
An Elizabethan audience watching Othello would have been highly suspicious of Desdemona and her behavior. Running off to get married behind your father’s back was simply not done. Because Desdemona was Venetian, however, audiences wouldn’t have been too surprised. As for Iago, he probably represented the kind of villain Elizabethans thought ran rampant throughout Italy!
One interesting note is that the name Iago is Spanish. (The Italian form is Giacomo.) Shakespeare gave his most evil character a Spanish name, probably because Spain was England’s worst enemy. Italy may have been the home of romantic, exotic sin, but true evil, according to the Elizabethans, came from Spain!
FORM AND STRUCTURE
Othello is often considered Shakespeare’s most perfectly constructed play. It is tightly organized, fast-paced, and exciting, and never distracts the audience with sub-plots or superfluous characters.
Shakespeare created his plays according to a classic structure based on exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution or denoument. In a well-structured play, the elements are not independent of one another; they blend logically and inevitably.
EXPOSITION
Expository scenes introduce the characters and their relationships to one another. Much of Othello’s first act is devoted to exposition of Iago’s hatred of Othello, Othello and Desdemona’s courtship and elopement, Brabantio’s mistrust of Othello, and the impending war with the Turks. Exposition sets the scene.
RISING ACTION
As the characters make moves and countermoves, the plot is propelled forward and conflicts intensify. In Act II, Iago is responsible for most of the rising action. He plans to work revenge against Othello through Cassio. To this end, he gets Cassio drunk, for which Othello fires him. Iago then convinces Cassio to seek Desdemona’s help in winning back Othello’s respect. Everything, as controlled by Iago’s actions, leads inevitably to the climax.
CLIMAX
This is the point of greatest excitement and suspense in the play. In Shakespeare, the climax always occurs in Act III. The climax represents the point when the conflicts have gone as far as possible. Some readers refer to this point as a knotting up of the conflicts. How will the knots be untangled?
… I won’t give you all the spoilers… Stay tuned…
TRAGEDY AND TRAGIC FLAW
The principles of tragedy were set down in the 4th century B.C. by the Greek philosopher Aristotle in his seminal work on literature, The Poetics. For Aristotle, a tragedy is the story of a noble hero whose downfall is brought about by a specific defect in his character, a tragic flaw. The hero may face opposition from an outside force (such as Othello faces from Iago), but his ruin is really the result of his own mistakes. By the end of the play the tragic hero comes to some understanding of his error and accepts responsibility for his doom. The realization and acceptance of his fate brings him back to the state of spiritual nobility he had at the beginning of the play.
Shakespeare’s heroes are usually men of royalty: Lear and Macbeth are kings, Hamlet a prince. Othello, although of royal birth, is a general. Some readers have felt that his lower social position disqualifies him from being a true tragic hero. Others feel that Othello earns the title through his character traits: strength, courage, patience, gentleness, romanticism. He is admired by everyone in the play (even Iago admits that Othello is a good man). Othello is considered by many to be a more human hero than other Shakespearean tragic heroes. Some readers find it easier to identify with someone closer to the common man and empathize more readily with his problems.
Aristotle felt that identification with the tragic hero was essential. As we watch a great man ruined by his own flaw-ambition, greed, or pride, for example-we understand that he is human, as we are, and that we could suffer the same fate under similar circumstances. According to Aristotle, our responses should be pity and fear: pity for the man who has met such a horrible fate, and fear that the same could happen to us. Yet because these men recognize their own part in their ruin and because their better qualities eventually overcome their limitations, we feel uplifted and moved by their experience rather than defeated and depressed.
OTHELLO’S TRAGIC FLAW
What is it that causes Othello’s downfall? Some have said that he’s simply a jealous person whose jealousy of his wife gets out of hand, Others insist that jealousy is not part of his natural make-up, that the emotion takes over only when Iago pushes him to the brink of insanity.
Themes
Jealousy
Othello is the most famous literary work that focuses on the dangers of jealousy. The play is a study of how jealousy can be fueled by mere circumstantial evidence and can destroy lives. Othello represents how jealousy, particularly sexual jealousy, is one of the most corrupting and destructive of emotions.
Race
Othello is one of the first black heroes in English literature. A military general, he has risen to a position of power and influence. At the same time, however, Shakespeare dramatizes through Othello the tragedy of a man whose insecurities about his background, fed by public opinion, weaken his defenses and allow his worst instincts to take over.
Gender
Gender relations are pretty antagonistic in Othello. Unmarried women are regarded as their fathers’ property and the play’s two marriages are marked by male jealousy and cruelty
Sex
Shakespeare’s play explores some common sixteenth century anxieties about miscegenation (interracial sex and marriage) by examining the relationship between a black man who marries a white woman
Marriage
Shakespeare’s portrayal of marriage is pretty bleak in Othello. All of the relationships that we see throughout the play are terrible
Manipulation
Othello’s villain, Iago, may be literature’s most impressive master of deception. Iago plots with consummate sophistication, carefully manipulating Othello (without any real proof)
Warfare
Since the play’s protagonist is a military general, war is always hovering in the background in Othello. But the only actual battle the play promises is avoided, thanks to bad weather. The real battleground of the play, it turns out, is the mind. Many critics read Othello as an extended war allegory; it is possible to see Iago’s machinations as the strategic planning of a general, individual victories as minor battles, and the three resulting deaths the casualties of psychological combat
Hate
Hatred is supposed to have a cause, some concrete event or insult that inspires a lasting rage. But in Othello, the play’s villain is motivated by a hatred that seems to elude any logic
Identity
In Othello, Shakespeare explores factors that play an important role in the formations of one’s identity – race, gender, social status, family relationships, military service
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