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Unit 15 Study Guide

Just the word "Shakespeare" is synonymous with "good writing"; indeed, the name is as ubiquitous in the field of literature as is "Xerox" to copy machines and photocopy.  So indelible was the association of Shakespeare with high art that thousands of collections of his works accompanied American settlers in the cramped confines of their covered wagons, complemented only by an almanac and the Bible.  It would be three generations before any of their descendents would have the time to dally in high art, but a "coffee table edition," even unread, still helped remind American anti-intellectuals, busy about other, more demanding chores in the process of nation building, of their roots in European culture. Clearly, it was a case of "affirmation by association."

A subject of Queen Elizabeth I of England, and after her death in 1603, the liege of James I, William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616) and his contemporary playwrights enjoyed an artistic climate that enthusiastically supported the theater and its playwrights, even if the Puritan moralists seemed hell-bent on closing them down.  In its heyday, perhaps as many as 20,000 Londoners per week patronized its several theaters, including Shakespeare's Globe Theater (Kirzner and Mandell).

Othello, one of Shakespeare's tragedies, dramatizes the conflict between appearance and reality, a duality manipulated against Othello and his lover-bride, Desdemona, by an evil incarnated in the person of Othello's once trusted patron and confidante, Iago.  Working his machinations to undermine Othello's love, Iago incites Othello's rage and unfounded jealousy to the end of his murdering Desdemona and the black Moor's own suicide.

Readings

Read the Introduction to Shakespeare, pp. 2210 - 2115

Read Othello, pp. 2115 - 2192

Study Questions

1) What critical flaw(s) in Othello makes him so vulnerable to Iago?  Where might he have checked that influence earlier before the revelation of the handkerchief?

2) To what extent does simple racism play in Iago's virulent assault on Othello's relationship with Desdemona?

3) Why is the play's tragic pathos justified in the audience?  Does that justification reside in the weakness of Othello or in the unchecked victimization of Othello by Iago?

4) What is the role of the ribaldry and clowning in the play?  Is it only a function of pacing and bracketing the heavier scenes, or is it somehow more revealing for our growing appreciation of the complexity of characterization in the play?

Key Concepts

The Shakespearean Tragic Hero
Unlike the Greek tragic hero who is undone by a combination of fate and tragic flaw in character (Oedipus, The King), Shakespeare's heroes are more complicated, some weighted with the freight of insanity, others by compromising loyalties and spouses, still others by conflicting alliances. Because of those complexities, audiences react differently from the ideal of "catharsis," or empathetic cleansing, the claim for the viewers of the Greek tragic stage.  At the same time, Shakespeare's heroes are something quite set apart from the conceptions of twentieth-century playwright Arthur Miller who defined the common man as more suitable for tragic elevation and discrimination.  Shakespeare's tragic heroes too often seem more self-serving than do Miller's idealistic characters whose high standards for humanization justify their attempts to reaffirm through noble action basic human dignity.

This page was last modified on January 17, 2006,
and is maintained by Dr. Geoffrey A. Grimes.