English Notes 4/08/2023

Physical setting:
Opens in venice- republic (not monarchy)

- Liberal, progressive society

- Values self-determination on a personal and political level
- Multicultural: cosmopolitan (melting pot)
- Venetian sex-workers were well-educated and lived in relative luxury

Therefore: incorporation of prostitute Bianca: “selling her desires/ Buys herself bred and cloth’
plausible in light of setting.

- Venetian setting could reflect notion that freedom is self-destructive

Pattern apparent in History: Weimar Germany- was permissive progressive society HOWEVER this
progressivism was termed decadence by people leading to the counter movement of Nazism.
Therefore: relative permissiveness of Venice contributed to the counter movement of Othello’s
anxiety.
Cyprus is a colony of Venice

- May have been a way of representing a shift from civilisation to barbarism

- Eurocentric outlook at heart of Jacobean England
o Mediterranean means “middle of the world”
- Therefore, perhaps there was no coincidence that Venice is where Othello shows his collected
side- and it is in Cyprus that the bad shit happens
o The play COULD have taken place in Venice: why did Shakespeare have them
mean?
 “Are we turned Turks”- breaks up brawl in act 2 (awareness)f
The events of the play are inspired by a real war between Ottomans and Venice over Cyprus in early
1570s. In reality, this was a war that venice lost- Ottomans gained control of Cyprus:

- Shakespeare was economical with the truth. Real historical events but shifts their details to
suit history- distortion of truth.
- Ottoman empire was greatest concentration of geopolitical power ever in the history of
Islamic world.
- Venice and Ottoman Empire may represent writ large personal resentments within the play.
o Same underlying idea but on a grander scale.
o European self and exotic other
- Violence: Othello is quite cheerfully with other soldiers about Turkish massacre. By contrast-
Desdemona's death represents a morally weighty disaster.
The myth of lilith

- Contextualises the reference to Othello being on top of Desdemona.