1 This week continues Module 2: The 16th Century (1485-1603). We will spend 4 weeks in this module. We are now in Module 2’s fourth and final week. This document has 3 sections: • • • Readings Resources Tasks You can either do the Readings first, or look at the Resources first to give you some background and then do the readings. IMPORTANT!!!! You will not be able to access the web links you see throughout this document via this document. But no worries. That’s ok. Every site I ask you to visit is listed in this week’s Content. Readings (See Week 6, Content) 1. No Fear Shakespeare: Othello. The play can also be found in NAEL, pp.552-635. 2. 2 Prezi’s: Introduction to Shakespeare Tragedy and Shakespearean Tragic Hero Navigate Prezi’s through the arrows at the bottom of the screen. Shakespeare wrote tragedies, comedies, and romances. We are reading one of the great tragedies. Resources Resources are meant to help you understand the course material. Review the 6 video resources for this week. Tasks You have 2 tasks to complete this week. 1. Quiz 6 Othello, Acts 4-5: This covers Acts 4-5 of the play and may include questions from the 2 Prezi’s. 2. Discussion (30 points) 2 Below are 10 questions to choose from. No more than 2 students may respond to the same question. In your Subject line, be sure to indicate which option you are responding to. Regardless of your choice, you will write 2 ¶s for your initial post. You must then respond to 2 other classmates’ posts. If you need a reminder for how to document lines in a Shakespeare play, review How to Document Lines, included after the 10 questions below. Question 1 • • Professor Niamat Ali says that “the play fails to prove Othello’s bravery except that he murders an innocent and delicate lady, Desdemona” and calls Othello “childish.” In your first ¶, agree or disagree with this statement. Do you see Othello this way, or differently? Defend your answer with examples from the play. In your second ¶, comment on one of the Resources included from Week 5 or Week 6. Your response can be positive, negative, or questioning. Secondly, identify one of your favorite lines or sets of lines from Othello. Use the original Shakespeare language, not the modern translation. Explain to us why you chose, liked, or found interesting the language from these lines. Question 2 • Paragraph 1: Since nearly its first performance, critics and audiences have speculated about Iago’s motives for doing what he does. Some spoke of his “keen sense of intellectual superiority” and his “love of exerting power.” In the early 19th century, British poet/author/critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who disagreed, made a famous remark about the uselessness of trying to decipher Iago’s reasons: he called it “the motive-hunting of motiveless malignity.” Do you think it makes sense to try to argue Iago’s motivation, or can humans just do evil with no determinable reason? Why or why not? • In your second ¶, comment on one of the Resources included from Week 5 or Week 6. Your response can be positive, negative, or questioning. Secondly, identify one of your favorite lines or sets of lines from Othello. Use the original Shakespeare language, not the modern translation. Explain to us why you chose, liked, or found interesting the language from these lines. Question 3 • Paragraph 1 The great British author Salman Rushdie has this to say about Othello: Othello doesn’t love Desdemona. . . . He says he does, but it can’t be true. Because if he loves her, the murder makes no sense. For me, Desdemona is Othello’s trophy wife, his most valuable and status-giving possession, the physical proof of his risen standing in a white man’s world. 3 You see? He loves that about her, but not her. . . . Desdemona’s death is an “honor killing.” She didn’t have to be guilty; the accusation was enough. The attack on her virtue was incompatible with Othello’s honor. She’s not even a person to him. He has reified her. She’s his Oscar-Barbie statuette. His doll. Do you think this is a valuable commentary on Othello’s relationship to his wife? Why or why not? • In your second ¶, comment on one of the Resources included from Week 5 or Week 6. Your response can be positive, negative, or questioning. Secondly, identify one of your favorite lines or sets of lines from Othello. Use the original Shakespeare language, not the modern translation. Explain to us why you chose, liked, or found interesting the language from these lines. Question 4 • Paragraph 1 From theatre critic Kyle Brenton, compiling different reactions to the play: “I do not shrink from saying that I wish this tragedy had never been written,” wrote Howard Furness, nineteenth-century editor of Othello. “The pleasure, however keen or elevated of the poetry of the preceding acts, does but increase the unutterable agony of the closing scene.” Of the final moments, Samuel Johnson said, “I am glad that I have ended my revisal of this dreadful scene. It is not to be endured.” During a performance in Baltimore in 1822, a soldier on guard duty, seeing Othello about to strangle Desdemona, drew his gun and fired at the stage, breaking the arm of the actor playing the Moor. In contrast, a “refined and lovely young lady,” having seen the great American tragedian Edwin Forrest in 1836, declared, “If that is the way Moors look and talk and love, give me a Moor for a husband!” Few of Shakespeare’s plays have stirred such conflicting emotions. Powerful poetry and a tightly wound structure leave the audience no time to catch its breath. Do you agree? Why or why not? • In your second ¶, comment on one of the Resources included from Week 5 or Week 6. Your response can be positive, negative, or questioning. Secondly, identify one of your favorite lines or sets of lines from Othello. Use the original Shakespeare language, not the modern translation. Explain to us why you chose, liked, or found interesting the language from these lines. 4 Question 5 • Paragraph 1 David Sarkies writes: It seems that the main theme that runs through this play is the question of civilization verses barbarity. The Moor is a barbarian, a warrior at heart, and on the battlefield he is unstoppable, which is why he has been promoted to the rank of general, but it is clear that he does not understand the political battlefield. He does not see Iago manipulating him, but rather trusts him, believing that he is a friend. It is not that Othello is at heart a barbarian, but rather that he is innocent. In the end, it is Iago who is the barbarian, the one who plays upon other people’s innocence, and his refusal to accept that a non-European can be a decent and honest man. Do you agree or disagree? Why? • In your second ¶, comment on one of the Resources included from Week 5 or Week 6. Your response can be positive, negative, or questioning. Secondly, identify one of your favorite lines or sets of lines from Othello. Use the original Shakespeare language, not the modern translation. Explain to us why you chose, liked, or found interesting the language from these lines. Question 6 • Paragraph 1 One blogger, Abeer, writes: As usual, Shakespeare is very good at capturing human emotions and their powers. The Greeks were very right about the tragedy and its catharsis effect and how it promotes empathy and gets us to understand that sometimes misfortune befalls us in ways which seem so utterly unpreventable, it teaches you that sometimes life just sucks and it isn’t really your fault or anyone else’s. It’s incredible to me how the entire play is pretty much made up of poetry, every line is a house of its own full of twists and turns and gorgeous furniture. Another incredible thing is Shakespeare’s ability to, at the 16th century, imagine and create realistic strong female characters, and is able to also show their suffering and misfortunes, even if they are hardly ever protagonists of his plays they are always some of the most pivotal figures. Do you agree or disagree? Why? • In your second ¶, comment on one of the Resources included from Week 5 or Week 6. Your response can be positive, negative, or questioning. Secondly, identify one of your favorite lines or sets of lines from Othello. Use the original Shakespeare language, not the modern translation. Explain to us why you chose, liked, or found interesting the language from these lines. 5 Question 7 • Paragraph 1 One commentator, Ash E., writes: [Othello is] a tragic tale of human stupidity told through elopement, insanity, drunkenness (not to be confused with insanity), soldiers doing stupid things, and, below it all, the only character with even an ounce of intelligence to speak of – Iago – who also happens to be a dastardly villain. I mean, come on, you know your protagonist is a fail when the only character worthy of any sort of genuine respect is the villain! Ah, well, what can I say? C’est la Shakespeare. Do you agree or disagree? Why? • In your second ¶, comment on one of the Resources included from Week 5 or Week 6. Your response can be positive, negative, or questioning. Secondly, identify one of your favorite lines or sets of lines from Othello. Use the original Shakespeare language, not the modern translation. Explain to us why you chose, liked, or found interesting the language from these lines. Question 8 • Paragraph 1 One commentator, Terri Jacobson, writes: God I hate this play to no ends. I don’t know why anyone would want to write or read about a jealous prick. I know I know it’s Shakespeare and he is a damn big legend. I’ve got nothing against him. It’s just that I couldn’t make myself care about the characters except maybe for Desdemona. She was a fool to fell in love with a man based on his sad stories. It is called sympathy, woman. Not love. I let her pass because she was young and sheltered. • Othello is sick with his inferiority complex. If only he had some confidence or intelligence or a bit of common sense… Seriously oh-my-great-warrior, what kind of an evidence is a damned handkerchief? I felt like he was waiting for a reason to get rid of her because you know – she is too beautiful and good. I thought to become a general in army you must possess something inside your head. Othello proved it to be wrong. All you need is big muscles. No need of strategy, planning or execution. My point is, if he was this great leader to his men how could he just jump into conclusions about his own wife who left a world for him? Phew. Worst lead character ever! (I refuse to call him hero). Do you agree or disagree? Why? In your second ¶, comment on one of the Resources included from Week 5 or Week 6. Your response can be positive, negative, or questioning. Secondly, identify one of your favorite lines or sets of lines from Othello. Use the original Shakespeare language, not the modern translation. 6 Explain to us why you chose, liked, or found interesting the language from these lines. Question 9 • Paragraph 1 One commentator, Katherine Olivia, writes: Oh Iago, what a guy. Seriously I loved this play ONLY because Iago is the most bad ass mother effing psychopath/sociopath EVER! Seriously, he’s the most devious villain in all of Shakespeare’s plays and he gets away with it. We don’t know exactly what happens to him after they figure out what he did, but I like to believe he killed his captors and ran off into the sunset. Personally, I’ve always had a soft spot for the psychopaths, but my admiration and adoration of Iago goes way beyond that. He’s so freaking clever! A genius! Everyone else in the play is completely fooled by him. “Oh, honest Iago” “Noble Iago” “Kind Iago” the compliments go on and on. And while everyone is praising his good character, Iago’s off in some isolated place plotting Othello’s downfall. He’s playing them like puppets! And I must say, his first soliloquy gave me chills. Still does. His instant change as soon as Roderigo leaves the stage :”Thus do I ever make my fool my purse” LOVE THAT LINE! Honestly Iago is just… I have no words. • Do you agree or disagree? Why? In your second ¶, comment on one of the Resources included from Week 5 or Week 6. Your response can be positive, negative, or questioning. Secondly, identify one of your favorite lines or sets of lines from Othello. Use the original Shakespeare language, not the modern translation. Explain to us why you chose, liked, or found interesting the language from these lines. Question 10 • Paragraph 1 One commentator, Jake Astor, writes: I always knew the story, but never got around to actually sitting down and reading this play until last year when I took Shakespearean Tragedy. What an incredible piece of work. The subtlety with which Iago manipulates and twists characters against each other is fascinating to watch and while some less intelligent readers may like to see him as a study in evil, I think there are very real motivations at work here. Is he gay and in love with Othello? Is he angered for being passed up for a promotion? Is this a case of a genius challenging himself by committing the perfect crime? 7 Superbly written, with flowing language, incredible character development – what can you say about Othello that hasn’t been written in the past 400 years? Do you agree or disagree? Why? • In your second ¶, comment on one of the Resources included from Week 5 or Week 6. Your response can be positive, negative, or questioning. Secondly, identify one of your favorite lines or sets of lines from Othello. Use the original Shakespeare language, not the modern translation. Explain to us why you chose, liked, or found interesting the language from these lines. How to Document Lines: • • • • First, don’t quote more than necessary to make a point. If your quote is short (1-3 lines), use quotation marks and separate lines by /. If it is long (4 or more), indent 2 tabs from left margin and type each line separately. Do not use quotation marks. To document appropriately, use parentheses; tell act #, then scene #, then line #s. Example: I was unsure whether Othello understands himself or what he has done by the end of the play. He states, “…Then you must speak / Of one that loved not wisely but too well; / Of one not easily jealous… (5.2.48-50). I consider Othello to be a seriously jealous man.