Othello - Context

Cinthio’s Hecatommithi (original)

• Othello didn’t have a name - referred to as ‘The Moor’

• Ingo was in love with Desdemona (motive?)

• Kills Desdemona by beating her with a sand-filled stocking

• Moor and ensign turn on each other - Moor is tortured and then killed by Desdemona’s relatives

• No Barabantio

• No Roderigo

• Emilia knows about her husband’s plot but is afraid to speak out

• Iago and Emilia have a daughter - Iago steals handkerchief while Desdemona is holding her

The Moorish Ambassador

• Immigrants from Europe came to England facing religious persecution

• England had begann mailing alliances with Africa and the Ottoman Empire - visitors in London such as Moroccan ambassador

Leo Africanus - ‘The Moor’

• “Most honest people they are”

• “very proud and high-minded, and woonderfully addicted unto wrath”

• “No nation in the world is so subject unto jealousie”

Shakespeare’s life

• Witnessed immigration

• Originally wrote a play about Thomas Moore that was censored, so wrote Othello instead

• Lived during Elizabethan and Jacobean era

Jacobean Era

• Trend of plays in Jacobean times was to deal with trickery, cuckoldry and transitory absence of authority

• Strict social hierarchies and restrictions on women in the home and in public (obedient, chaste, subservient to men)

• Renaissance Era - classical ideas of humanism (individual’s emotional and psychological depth)

Venice and Cyprus

• Venice is cosmopolitan and diverse, full of wealth and political stability

  • Ottoman-Venetian Wars in 16th century

  • Geographically familiar, being situated in Europe, but also exotic as it had close trading ties with North Africa and Middle East

  • Polluted by prostitution and other social ills, Venice was over-civilised, licentious, ingrown society

• Cyprus - more barbarous, bastion of male power, savage, war-like milieu

  • Fortified outpost on the edge of Christian territory

• Geographical dichotomy allows D and O to move from an urbane, civilised Italian city-state to a barren, military encampment - intensifies Iago’s psychological assault

• King James I’s fascination with Turkish history

Religion

• Othello is a Christian (converted from Islam)

• Set during ongoing wars between Christian Republic of Venice and Muslim Ottoman Empire

Women and Marriage

• Women subordinate to men during 16th and 17th centuries - while initially transgresses this (“Our great captain’s captain”), eventually succumbs

• When married, became their husbands’ possessions - fathers expected to chose husbands for their daughters (D and O go against this)

• Desdemona says she is “bound” to both her husband and her father, and owes him a “duty”

• Stereotype of Venetian women - Venice as seedy underbelly, “Whore of Venice”, Iago’s suspicions Emilia has slept with O

Wheel of Fortune

• Unpredictable nature of fare and changing fortunes

• Spun by goddess Fortuna (woman)

Great Chain of Being

• Hierarchical structure which ranked all beings

• God - angels - king - men - women - animals - plants

Humours

• Four bodily fluids - blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm

• Determined a person’s temperament and an imbalance led to certain sicknesses

• Blood - sanguine temperament

• Yellow bile - choleric (bad-temperred/ irritable)

• Black bile - melancholic

• Phlegm - phlegmatic

Cuckoldry

• Women cheat on husbands; husband is deceived

• Thought they would grow horns on their heads as external symbols of cuckoldry

• Emasculating/ damages reputation

Military Context

• High value placed on military prowess and loyalty during Shakespeare’s time

• Ottomans - external military threat