| blank verse | unrhymed iambic pentameter |
| couplet | Myself will straight aboard, and to the state This heavy act with heavy heart relate. |
| soliloquy | Iago’s speech that closes Act I |
| monologue | Othello’s telling of his “seduction” of Desdemona |
| stichomythia | Senator: You must away tonightOthello: With all my heart. |
| paronomasia | In “She was a wight, if ever such wight were,” “wight” sounds like “white” |
| character | Shakespeare reveals it in dialogue and behavior |
| foil character | Cassio for Iago |
| metonymy | … |
| synecdoche | … |
| “O, beware, my lord, of jealousy!It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock The meat it feeds on.” | Speaker: IagoTheme: Iago is hinting that there is something Othello should be jealous about. He will use Othello’s jealousy to break Desdemona and Othello apart. |
| “But what praise couldst thou bestow on a deserving woman indeed, one that in the authority of her merit did justly put on the vouch of very malice itself?” | Speaker: Theme: |
| “To vouch this is no proofWithout more wider and more overt testThan these thin habits and poor likelihoodsOf modern seeming do prefer against him.” | Speaker: OthelloTheme: Othello needs solid “ocular” proof of Desdemonda’s unfaithfulness. He needs evidence to know the truth. |
| “Demand me nothing. What you know you know.From this time forth I never will speak word.” | Speaker: IagoTheme: Othello is asking for an explanation, but Iago won’t tell him anything. Iago’s been playing a game with the ideas of thinking and knowing. |
| “I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial.” | Speaker:Theme: |
| “And she, in spite of nature,Of years, of country, credit, everything,To fall in love with what she feared to look on!” | Speaker: Brabantio Theme: Brabantio is convinced that Desdemona married Othello because she was put under a spell. It’s not possible to fall in love with a black man. |
| “My lord shall never rest:I’ll watch him tame and talk him out of patience;His bed shall seem a school, his board a shrift.” | Speaker: DesdemonaTheme: She promises to talk to Othello and pleads Cassio’s case. She is determined to make him listen no matter how much or how long it takes. |
| “Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners. So that if we plant nettles or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed up thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs or distract it with many…” | Speaker: Iago:Theme: As gardeners of our bodies, we control with actions. Iago is the gardener controlling Othello. He has planted a seed of doubt in Othello’s mind, which will push Othello to his downfall. |
| “I must show out a flag and sign of love-Which is indeed but sign.” | Speaker:Theme: Love is an emotion felt on the inside. The emotion itself cannot be seen, but it can be represented by signs. Signs reveal and relay the love between Desdemona and Othello. |
| “It is the cause, it the cause of my soul.Let me now name it to you, you chaste stars.” | Speaker: OthelloTheme: Othello is justifying his actions of killing Desdemona and himself as for the good of the Senate. His actions were not carried out with selfish intent. |
| Machiavelli | Whose philosophy seems to inspire the lines in “Our bodies… garden”? |
| … | What is Othello’s last word in the play? |
| dangerous conceits/ ideas | According to Iago, what “are in their natures poisons?” |
| What invention made Cassio’s “bookish theoric” possible? | |
| black, ram, white, ewe | “Even now, very now, an old ______ ______/Is tupping your ______ ______. Arise, arise!” |
Othello
August 13, 2019