Othello A Racist Play

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, University of Bremen, language: English, abstract: Othello already raised questions about the nature of race, its social implications and about the correlation of outer appearances and inner qualities. The matter of skin colour and racist stereotyping is evident in Othello and it is vital for the interpretation of the play. As an “extravagant and wheeling stranger/ Of here, and every where” (1.1.135-136). Othello is not just like any other man, but largely defined by his origin and colour. In this paper I want to examine the role of Othello's skin colour in the play and if we can consider the play as racist. Although these questions are today probably more relevant than ever, my main focus will be to analyse the importance of race in the context of Shakespeare's times. In order to answer the question, whether or not Othello is a racist drama, I first have to define the term 'race'. As the concept of race has changed over time and is still changing, I will also look at Elizabethan attitudes towards race and foreigners and how strangers were portrayed on the Elizabethan stage. The play is not set in England, but in Venice, a place that serves a certain function in the play, which I will also examine. In the second part of this paper I will look at the play itself and its characters. I will analyse the different roles and their attitudes towards Othello's colour and how they influence Othello's self-perception and his personal fate. In Othello skin colour and blackness stand for more than just physical appearance or cultural background, but it is also linked to the character's inner lives and it largely determines the outcome of the play. The importance of racial concepts in Othello will be examined in the last part of this paper.

Essay from the year 2009 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1, University of Cambridge (English ), course: Supervision: Fitzwilliam Collge: Shakespeare, language: English, abstract: Shakespeare’s Othello has caught people’s attention for more than four hundred years now. This is may be true for many other Shakespearean plays as well, but Othello was exceptionally popular at its time of origin and is not less so today. Reasons for this are probably manifold, but the notions of gender, sexuality, status and race which are still very current issues might contribute to this timeless and universal appreciation. The latter is at the focus of this essay.

To Die Upon a Kiss--Othello is Shakespeare's great tragic play of love trust and deceit. Iago an officer of the watch sets out to destroy Othello by convincing him that his young bride Desdemona has betrayed him and is secretly in love with another man.What sense had I of her stol'n hours of lust?I saw't not thought it not it harm'd not me;I slept the next night well was free and merry;I found not Cassio's kisses on her lips.He that is robb'd not wanting what is stol'n Let him not know't and he's not robb'd at all.

"O felt her presence behind him like a fire at his back.” Arriving at his fourth school in six years, diplomat’s son Osei Kokote—“O” for short—knows he needs an ally if he is to survive his first day, so he is lucky to hit it off with Dee, the most popular girl in school. But one boy, used to holding sway in the world of the school­yard, can’t stand to witness the budding relationship. When Ian decides to destroy the friendship between the black boy and the golden girl, the school and its key players—teachers and pupils alike—will never be the same again. The tragedy of Othello is vividly transposed to a 1970s suburban Washington school, where kids fall in and out of love with each other before lunchtime, and practice a casual racism picked up from their parents and teachers. The world of preadolescents is as passionate and intense, if not more so, as that of adults. Drawing us into the lives and emotions of four eleven-year-olds—Osei, Dee, Ian and his reluctant girlfriend Mimi—Tracy Chevalier’s powerful drama of friends torn apart by love and jealousy, bullying and betrayal, is as moving as it is enthralling. It is an unfor­gettable novel.

When decorated Moorish general Othello appoints Cassio as his chief lieutenant, Iago gets jealous and plots revenge, alleging that Othello's wife, a much younger white woman, is having an affair with Cassio. In many ways, Shakespeare's Othello remains a potent expression of race and racism three-hundred years after its publication. This volume offers compelling interpretations of the actions and the characters that have made this play so controversial. Essays discuss the question of Othello's color, the contradictory notions of black and white in the play, sexuality and racial difference, and whether Desdemona's marriage to Othello incites racism. Contributors include Ania Loomba, Peter Ackroyd, and Doris Adler.

A discussion of inter-racial sexual relations in Anglo-American literature from the English Renaissance to today.

A THE TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019 'The best introduction to the plays I've read, perhaps the best book on Shakespeare, full stop' Alex Preston, Observer 'It makes you impatient to see or re-read the plays at once' Hilary Mantel A genius and prophet whose timeless works encapsulate the human condition like no others. A writer who surpassed his contemporaries in vision, originality and literary mastery. Who wrote like an angel, putting it all so much better than anyone else. Is this Shakespeare? Well, sort of. But it doesn't really tell us the whole truth. So much of what we say about Shakespeare is either not true, or just not relevant, deflecting us from investigating the challenges of his inconsistencies and flaws. This electrifying new book thrives on revealing, not resolving, the ambiguities of Shakespeare's plays and their changing topicality. It introduces an intellectually, theatrically and ethically exciting writer who engages with intersectionality as much as with Ovid, with economics as much as poetry: who writes in strikingly modern ways about individual agency, privacy, politics, celebrity and sex. It takes us into a world of politicking and copy-catting, as we watch him emulating the blockbusters of Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Kyd, the Spielberg and Tarantino of their day; flirting with and skirting round the cut-throat issues of succession politics, religious upheaval and technological change. The Shakespeare in this book poses awkward questions rather than offering bland answers, always implicating us in working out what it might mean. This is Shakespeare. And he needs your attention.

The intelligent, intuitive, indomitable, large, black, American male actor explores Shakespeare, race, and America ... not necessarily in that order. Keith Hamilton Cobb embarks on a poetic exploration that examines the experience and perspective of black men in America through the metaphor of Shakespeare's character Othello, offering up a host of insights that are by turns introspective and indicting, difficult and deeply moving. American Moor is a play about race in America, but it is also a play about who gets to make art, who gets to play Shakespeare, about whose lives and perspectives matter, about actors and acting, and about the nature of unadulterated love. American Moor has been seen across America, including a successful run off-Broadway in 2019. This edition features an introduction by Professor Kim F. Hall, Barnard College.