PAPER ONE KEY CONTEXT
OTHELLO
War between the turks and venetian state provides a symbolic backdrop to Othello’s tragedy, Cyprus is isolated and vulnerable and vulnerable (war was in the latter years of the 16th century)
Shakespeare uses features of traditional greek tragedy and revenge tragedy
beginning to move away from ‘morality plays (partly due To Liz’s settlement) which also caused a move away from the ‘vice character’
Most Jacobeans believed in the devil and accepted that evil was hard to detect and thus makes Iago’s deception both plausible and terrifying
Jacobeans were generally suspicious of Italians, viewing them as immoral intriguers and some saw black men as lustful predators
Women in the renaissance had few legal rights and their life choices were commonly dictated by their fathers and husbands
Othello was written during Shakespeare’s ‘great tragic period’ between Hamlet (1600) and Macbeth (1606)
Italianate setting was intriuging as this was commonly used for Playwrights who wanted to explore themes like appearance and reality and corruption/sexual decadence
Christian traditions of the renaissance suggested that the Africans were descendants of Noah’s son (Ham) who was cursed by his father, thus it was held that they were an accursed race (later used to justify slavery)
Venice had a stricter class structure than England at the time
1600 - Venice was a melting pool of cultures (trade) which attracted foreigners, unusual for Othello to rise so high
IRONIC - marriage destroyed on Cyprus which is the birthplace of Aphrodite
Cyprus - connotations of danger (Christian muslim wars)
Suicide, immoral by christian standards but ancient greeks and romans believed it was patriotic/noble as it avoided disgrace
Desdemona - greek name meaning ‘misery/ill fated’
Bianca means ‘white’
Emilia - roman origin meaning ‘strive/excel’
Aristotlian tragic hero - neither wholly good or evil
NEWMAN - relates the contemporary story of a venetian who was fined and imprisoned after taking a lady’s handkerchief
SHAKESPEARE - born 1564 in Stratford, middle class, grammar school educated, married Anne Hathaway, moved to London, died in 1615, wrote 37 plays totally
RENAISSANCE - rebirth, began in italy in the 1300s, revival of artistic and intellectual endeavour which gradually spread across Europe, classic texts and culture of greece/rome rediscovered and ‘golden age on english literature began’, Shake fits here as it subtly questioned ideas society was based on (eg Othello is black)
Othello may have been set abroad to stop it being censored, his ideas about race and nobility thus couldn’t be disputed as he didn’t criticise th english court
Italy double image - refinement and romance vs decadence, villiany and vice
SANDERS - Venice was a ‘racial and religous melting pot’
MOOR - referred to Muslims from Morroco, when Grenada was defeated by Spanish kings, Muslims were forcibly converted to christianity, Othello is a spanish name so its likley he was expelled from Spain and converted to christianity
WOMEN - seen as objects by their fathers, but Shakespeare’s wife succesfully managed their home, property and family for 20yrs - may be influenced by this
WOMEN DESCENDED FROM EVE
CINTHIO’S MOOR (protagonist of Cinthio’s Un Capitano Moor and likley source of Othello) - His refuses to accept any guilt and events/players similar to Shakespeare
MAchievelli, looked down upon at the rime, wrote ‘the prince’ and said that the ends justify the means for a ruler and advocated self interest as a form of advancement
SENECAN TRAGEDY (10 ancient tragedys likely written by Seneca) characterised by long reflective soloiquies, exploration of revenge and being full of violence
Great chain of being
Elizabeth’s 1601 edicts of expulsion to ‘blackamoors that crept into this realm' - may or may not have actually happened
No slaves in England at this point (not allowed) but triangular trade was occuring with Hawkin’s triangular trade
inter-racial marriage wasn’t popularised or common but was still allowed
numbers of Black people in England swelled, partially due to Spanish slaves being freed
Venice controlled Cyprus since 1489 but the Ottoman empire had been expanding (eg the Levant) so Cyprus came under fire
REBECCA
1930s saw a resurgence in the Gothic genre of literature, Rebecca aligns with this through the focus on the present being haunted by the past and the use of atmospheric settings to create tension and suspense
Ambiguity surrounding Maxim’s feeling towards the narrator and her insecurity aas well as the emotional distance between them contrasts the typical straightforward narrative of romantic literature
relationship between maxim and narrator follows the core conventional aspects of romantic literature as they have initial attraction, a courtship and eventual marriage
Du Maurier subverts the tradition of the gothic genre by having an unnamed and unreliable narrator who undergoes significant character development contrasting the idea of a helpless heroine, the suggestion that Danvers actions are partly a consequence of her grief also means she is not painted as the typical gothic villian
born in 1907 to a famous creative family, grandfather was a novilist and illustrator and her father was an actor
family bought a house in Cornwall in the 1920s (Ferryside at Bodinnick)
1932 she married Frederick ‘Tommy’ Browning (a military man) she had 3 children and lived at Menability, a monar house outside Fowey for 25 years
Maurier often felt that she should have been born a boy, in fact she had a male alter ego named Eric who often appeared
Frederick had been married before, to glamorous, dark haired Jan Ricardo, the suspicion that Frederick remained attracted to Ricardo haunted Maurier
Both Ricardo and Rebecca signed with a ‘great, wonderful R’
Ricardo jumped in front of a moving train after the novels publication (1944)
Maurier was in Alexandria with Frederick and the second battalion of the Grenadier Guard and a crowd of english expats she loftily described as ‘horrific manchester folk’
in 1937, Maurier left her 4yr old and 3 month old daughters behind, on their return, Maurier formulated a plan to spend christmas away from them
both the narrator and Du maurier have names that are typically misspelt
she was unhappy with the social demands of being an officers wife and wished to return home (it was too hot)
Daphne and Frederick were not faithful to one another (like maxim and rebecca)
assumed Maurier was bisexual as she had affairs or ‘intimate relationships’ with actress Gertrude Lawrence and her publishers wife Ellen Doubleday. however, she disliked the term lesbian
marriage was somewhat chilly
Maurier’s sexuality was only revealed after her death (2000)
had seemingly negative views on women with her writing
OFTEN COMPARED TO JANE EYRE IN REGARDS TO MEMORY< INSECURITY AND SOCIAL CLASS
Early moves towards welfare, eg the Jarrow crsuade
struggle with the great depression between 1929-1939, particularly hit in the North East, Scotland and Wales (peaking about 1932)
1936 abdication crisis, when King Edward VIII abdicated to marry america divorcee Wallis Simpson - EPITOMY OF CRUMBLING CLASS STRUCTURE
consistent rise of fascism (eg the British Union of Fascists, led by Oswald Mosley)
Gresford disaster - 1934, a deadly explosion that ripped through the Gresford coal mine in North Wales, claiming over 260 lives - AGAIN CLASS
1932 - Oswakd Mosley forms the BUF, at its peak it had 50,000 members, but was banned outright in 1940 with Mosley and other members being jailed for the remainder of the war
October 1929 - wall street crash
1928 - women over the age of 21 are given the right to vote
1920 - women at Oxford University are allowed to recieve degrees
1920s saw the rise of the labour party (eg 1926 General strike) - first labour government is established in 1924 under Ramsay McDonald
1930s - silhouettes got longer, more conservative ‘mermaid’, but were often figure hugging to create a feminine silhouette - big focus also on feminine patterns in day dresses
newspapers remained crucial with a shift to ‘mass media’ and thus ‘mass culture’