Othello in History
SPRING 2023 Tutor: Carol Rutter
Module aims:
This module offers students the opportunity to study one of Shakespeare's earliest Jacobean tragedies in depth, in its own time, and from a number of discursive points of view. It reads Othello through the topics the play is dealing with: race, gender, masculinity, 'civility' versus the 'wheeling stranger', female duty, gossip. Locating Othello in history, it begins by looking at Shakespeare's source in Giraldo Cinthio then at a map, to plot the play's geographic co-ordinates in locations burdened with significance for early modernity. Thereafter it thinks about early modern forms of narrative: the traveller's tale, the personal history, the cultural documentary, slander. In the final week of the module we re-historicise Othello by looking at some examples of what has been made of Shakespeare's play since its first performance in 1604. Each week's topic is supported by a portfolio of secondary reading.
The module is taught by one 2-hour seminar per week. It is assessed (for both intermediate and finalists) by submission of an early modern style 'commonplace book' kept throughout the term and submitted no later than Tuesday, Week 11 ;AND by one 2500-word essay (intermediate year); one 3500-word essay (finalists); OR a creative project supported by a reflective essay (intermediates, 1500 words; finalists, 2000 words).
Othello text to buy/use on this module: either Arden 2 or Arden 3, edited by Ernst Honigmann and, with a new Introduction by Ayanna Thompson for Arden 3.