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Author: Wiebke Pietzonka Publisher: GRIN Verlag ISBN: 3656480729 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 22
Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Potsdam (Institut für Anglistik/ Amerikanistik), course: Shakespeare`s Tragedies, language: English, abstract: “And have not we affections? / Desires for sport? and frailty, as men have? / Then let them use us well: else let them know, / The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.” (Shakespeare 4.3.100-103) This emancipated statement by Emilia in William Shakespeare`s tragedy “Othello” already could lead to assume that there is far more to the female characters in the play than just the role of the loving wife or the accessory part for the male ones. However, it is mostly Iago and his schemes or Othello and his tragic fate that are in the centre of the reader`s attention rather than the characters of Desdemona, Emilia and Bianca. Iago being unique for the Shakespearean villain and Othello as the personification for the tragedy of jealousy are, to a certain extent, pushing back the female figures to a background position in the people`s general perception of “Othello”. After all, the women in the play are `worth a second glance`, since only a closer reading can really reveal the whole importance and the subtle power of women in the play, albeit in the background of it. The aim of this paper is to show the function of the female figures in “Othello” and, in this context, to prove their importance for the tragedy`s development. Therefore, I will first analyze the characters of Desdemona, Emilia and Bianca as a basis for a closer look at their function in the plot of “Othello” afterwards. In this context, it is important to say that I will not focus on every facet of the characters but only on the aspects that are significant ones for each and for the further examination. Concerning Desdemona`s, Emilia`s and Bianca`s function in the play, I will investigate in which ways they contribute to the development of the plot. Are they active or passive? Are they doers or victims? And which actions and characteristics of the female figures are actually marking their importance or even power in the tragedy? All these questions will be discussed in this paper in order to demonstrate that Desdemona as well as Emilia and Bianca are indeed more than `nice accessories` in the plot of Shakespeare`s “Othello”.
Author: Wiebke Pietzonka Publisher: GRIN Verlag ISBN: 3656480729 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 22
Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Potsdam (Institut für Anglistik/ Amerikanistik), course: Shakespeare`s Tragedies, language: English, abstract: “And have not we affections? / Desires for sport? and frailty, as men have? / Then let them use us well: else let them know, / The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.” (Shakespeare 4.3.100-103) This emancipated statement by Emilia in William Shakespeare`s tragedy “Othello” already could lead to assume that there is far more to the female characters in the play than just the role of the loving wife or the accessory part for the male ones. However, it is mostly Iago and his schemes or Othello and his tragic fate that are in the centre of the reader`s attention rather than the characters of Desdemona, Emilia and Bianca. Iago being unique for the Shakespearean villain and Othello as the personification for the tragedy of jealousy are, to a certain extent, pushing back the female figures to a background position in the people`s general perception of “Othello”. After all, the women in the play are `worth a second glance`, since only a closer reading can really reveal the whole importance and the subtle power of women in the play, albeit in the background of it. The aim of this paper is to show the function of the female figures in “Othello” and, in this context, to prove their importance for the tragedy`s development. Therefore, I will first analyze the characters of Desdemona, Emilia and Bianca as a basis for a closer look at their function in the plot of “Othello” afterwards. In this context, it is important to say that I will not focus on every facet of the characters but only on the aspects that are significant ones for each and for the further examination. Concerning Desdemona`s, Emilia`s and Bianca`s function in the play, I will investigate in which ways they contribute to the development of the plot. Are they active or passive? Are they doers or victims? And which actions and characteristics of the female figures are actually marking their importance or even power in the tragedy? All these questions will be discussed in this paper in order to demonstrate that Desdemona as well as Emilia and Bianca are indeed more than `nice accessories` in the plot of Shakespeare`s “Othello”.
Author: Timm Gehrmann Publisher: GRIN Verlag ISBN: 3638768643 Category : Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, University of Wuppertal, course: Shakespeare's Late Tragedies, 15 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Why should one choose to examine the female characters of three of the most prominent Shakespeare plays although men are the protagonists in all of them ? Maybe because one may find certain parallels in the construction of woman characters in these Shakespeare plays which reflect the Elizabethan image of women in general. Maybe because Desdemona, Ophelia and Lady Macbeth are rather tragic figures with a developed character. All main female characters seem to have the same tragic element attached to them - namely their early unnatural death. Potter sees this early death as an erotic quality which seems to be inherent in all of Shakespeare's female characters1. All women seem to have loaded guilt upon them prior to their death. Lady Macbeth is guilty of at least helping in carrying out a murder. Gertrude is guilty of remarrying so quickly after her husband's death. But finding guilt in Desdemona and Ophelia seems rather hard to manage. Desdemona is found guilty by her husband but the audience knows she is not, while Ophelia may be found guilty by the reader to have betrayed Hamlet by not requiting his love. Apart from guilt obedience seems to play a major role in the context of the female characters. Othello wants his wife to be obedient and fears she is not - independent of whether he is present or not - but when he is present he uses force to make her obedient. Ophelia is also very obedient to her brother and her father, which constitutes the falsehood of her character and may thus play a major role in Hamlet's development. Gertrude is obedient to her husband the way a wife is supposed to be obedient. She does not have to be reminded and just blindly follows her husband in her words and deeds until the end of the play. Lady Macbeth
Author: Ann-Marie MacDonald Publisher: Vintage Canada ISBN: 0307366332 Category : Drama Languages : en Pages : 114
Book Description
Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) is an exuberant comedy and feminist revisioning of Shakespeare’s Othello and Romeo and Juliet. It takes us from a dusty office in Canada’s Queen’s University, into the fraught and furious worlds of two of Shakespeare’s best-known tragedies, and turns them upside-down. Constance Ledbelly is the beleaguered “spinster” academic, and unlikely heroine who embarks on a quest for Shakespearean origins and, ultimately, her own identity. When she deciphers an ancient and neglected manuscript, Constance is propelled through a very modern rabbit hole and lands smack in the middle of the tragic turning points of each play in turn. Her attempts to save first Desdemona, then Juliet, from their harrowing fates, result in a wild unpredictable ride through comedy and near-tragedy, as mild-mannered Constance learns to love, sword-fight, dance Renaissance-style, and master a series of disguises… Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) a gender-bendy, big-hearted and crazily intelligent romp, where irony and anger sing in perfect harmony with innocence and poignancy.
Author: Shirley Nelson Garner Publisher: Indiana University Press ISBN: 9780253210272 Category : Drama Languages : en Pages : 346
Book Description
While considering Shakespeare's earliest attempts at tragedy in Richard III and Titus Andronicus, this volume covers the major tragic period, giving special attention to Othello.
Author: Ayanna Thompson Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1108623298 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 518
Book Description
The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Race shows teachers and students how and why Shakespeare and race are inseparable. Moving well beyond Othello, the collection invites the reader to understand racialized discourses, rhetoric, and performances in all of Shakespeare's plays, including the comedies and histories. Race is presented through an intersectional approach with chapters that focus on the concepts of sexuality, lineage, nationality, and globalization. The collection helps students to grapple with the unique role performance plays in constructions of race by Shakespeare (and in Shakespearean performances), considering both historical and contemporary actors and directors. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Race will be the first book that truly frames Shakespeare studies and early modern race studies for a non-specialist, student audience.
Author: Robert S. Miola Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 9780521607018 Category : Drama Languages : en Pages : 264
Book Description
This book studies Shakespeare's changing vision of Rome in the six works where the city serves as a setting. Unlike other scholars treatment, the subject Dr Miola offers a coherent analysis of all the major appearances of Rome in the Shakespeare canon. Shakespeare's recurrent and varied treatment of Rome suggests that a close examination of the city's transformations can teach us much about his development as a playwright and the development of his dramatic vision. The book focuses on Shakespeare's changing conception of the Roman city, its people, and its ideals. Dr Miola examines the symbolic and topographical features that help define the city.
Author: Katharine A. Craik Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1108245153 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 708
Book Description
Shakespeare and Emotion devotes sustained attention to the emotions as a novel way of exploring Shakespeare's works in their original contexts. A variety of disciplinary approaches drawn from literary, theatrical, historical, cultural and film studies brings the recent upsurge of interest in affect into conversation with some of the most urgent debates in Shakespeare studies. The volume provides both a comprehensive account of the current state of scholarship and a speculative forum for new research. Its chapters outline some important contexts for understanding Shakespeare's creativity through an emotional lens – from religion, rhetoric, and medicine, to language, acting and Bollywood – and offer a range of case studies which reveal particular emotions at work. Considering emotional and passionate experience as an animating and sometimes alienating force within the plays and poems, the volume highlights the continuing importance of Shakespeare today: for our sense of who we are and who we might become.
Author: Harold Bloom Publisher: HarperCollins UK ISBN: 0007292848 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 774
Book Description
Harold Bloom, the doyen of American literary critics and author of 'The Western Canon', has spent a professional lifetime reading, writing about, and teaching Shakespeare. In this magisterial interpretation, Bloom explains Shakespeare's genius in a radical and provocative re-reading of the plays.
Author: Wiebke Pietzonka
Author: Wiebke Pietzonka
Author: William Shakespeare
Author: Timm Gehrmann
Author: Ann-Marie MacDonald
Author: Shirley Nelson Garner
Author: Ayanna Thompson
Author: Sally Barnden
Author: Robert S. Miola
Author: Katharine A. Craik
Author: Harold Bloom