The Purpose of this Blog

Your task on this blog is to write a brief summary of what we learned in class today. Include enough detail so that someone who was ill or missed the lesson can catch up with what they missed. Over the course of the term, these 'class scribe' posts will grow to be a guide book for the course, written by students for students.

With each post ask yourself the following questions:
1) Is this good enough for our guide book?
2) Will your post enable someone who wasn't here to catch up?
3) Would a graphic/video/link help to illustrate what we have learned?


Tuesday 7 December 2010

07/12/10 - Othello's only Soliloquy

We began this lesson by discussing the importance of Othello's only soliloquy and how it could help us in understanding his character.
Many notable points came up such as:
  • The soliloquy is a sign of Othello becoming more like Iago.
  • The idea that, although Othello is the tragic hero, he has only one soliloquy in comparison to other Shakespearean tragic heroes. e.g. Hamlet.
  • The way in which the soliloquy reveals all of Othello's insecurities about himself.
We also discussed the views of critics such as Fintan O'Toole and S.L. Bethell (coursework booklet, page 27). These critics analyse the way in which Othello's language has been affected and changed by Iago throughout the play.
The critics ranged from discussing Othello's increased use of animalistic imagery towards the end of the play to the idea of Iago and Othello almost merging together.

We then read from Act 4, Scene 2 to near the end of Act 5, Scene 1; pausing at various points to discuss the importance of some of the events.

Homework:
- Read through the Coursework questions on the first page of your coursework booklet and pick one that you think you may choose to do.
- Read through page 28 of the Coursework booklet and make notes.

Roman A.

13 comments:

  1. See you kept it short and Sweet blog :D

    I think this soliloquy shows alot about Othello and just how much Iago has manipulted him.

    Esmeralda ;)

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  2. Don't forget we discussed the views on women (Desdemona's 3 line soliloquy) to show the power they had.

    They also had a chance to stop the "spring" from "unwinding" if they hadn't put marriage over Friendship.

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  3. very good blog Roman, well done you dog.

    by Daniel and Saways...(no Homo)

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  4. Good Post Roman

    Othello's soliloquy definitely shows how weak he has become due to Iago

    & Chris makes a good point about the women in the play..

    I think when we discussed the power of the women in class, most of us forgot that Desdemona was referred to as the "Captain's captain" earlier in the play but then this contradicts the stereotypical role of women at the time..

    Hmm....

    'Sonny.

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  5. good blog, and yes through Othello`s only soliloquy we can see him changing into Iago so I agree
    Tamsin

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  6. Good blog Roman,

    With Othello's only solilquoy we see the impact Iago has on him and how he's poisoned Othello's Lexi's.

    As well as this we talked about the relationship's with the woman in Othello, and that if they weren't so loyal to their husbands they would have realised what was going on from the beginning and stopped Desdemona's and Othello's relationship from deteriorating.

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  7. I think othello's soliloquy represent othello surrendering to iago's manipulations, this shows the impact of racial discrimination. I personally believe is his lack of confidence that cause him to believe Desdemona to be unfaithful. On the one hand, Shakespeare presents the Desdemona as strong rather than weak.

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  8. othellos soliloquy is more staccato than mallifluous as it was in act 1. this shows that Iago is now in his mind, he has less confidents in himself and the pressures of society which includes his race has a huge impact on him.
    Rosie

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  9. Iago can be considered more of a tragic hero than othello because of the relationship he has mentained with the audience.

    thanks for the blog it updated me with the lesson, although i already decided im going to answere the question about the role of women, it is still good to include little things like this.

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  10. Very detailed Roman.
    I think that the fact that Othello only has one soliloquy is significant because it shows that he is not a conventional tragic hero as his main 'trait' has been taken by Iago. His lexus is infected by Iago's animalistic vocabulary which foreshadow's the end of Othello as a stable character.
    Aleksandra...

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  11. Good blog Roman.....I think that Othello's and Desdemona's soliloquy mark the tragedy coming closer and closer. And I agree about what Chris say's(views of women).And I think that the song Desdemona sings is important for tragedy.

    Akanksha.

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