#I Saw Othello's Visage in His Mind

[t0rschlusspan1k]

Fred Wilson, I Saw Othello's Visage in His Mind, 2013, Murano glass, paint, and wood, 64" x 51-1/2" x 7" (162.6 cm x 130.8 cm) © Fred Wilson

Since his Venice installation, Wilson has found inspiration in Shakespeare’s Venetian tragedy Othello. Spoken lines, characters, and stage directions are used as titles, or quoted within works, and express, through fragmentation, historic representations of blackness, notions of loss, the realities of erasure, and the politics of power. Works included in this exhibition—such as I Saw Othello's Visage in His Mind (2013)—exemplify the artist’s ongoing engagement with the decorative arts and the themes of Othello in large-scale mirror. The black mirrors are comprised of highly detailed black Murano glass often in layers, with the mirrors’ verso painted black. This creates a phantom-like reflection that prompts consideration of blackness—and so the complexities of representation and identity—in the viewer as their likeness is blackened upon reflection.

[fabpiner]

Without a prompter othello

WITHOUT A PROMPTER OTHELLO HOW TO

“Hell and night must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light.” Claims that love is lust without will power. “It is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of the will.” It can either be useless or productive, depending on what we plans. You can plant your garden any way your want. “…Either to have it sterile w/ idleness of manure w/ industry, why the power + corrigible authority of this lies in our wills.” Doesn’t believe Desdemona is best for him. He never knew someone who knew what was best for himself.

WITHOUT A PROMPTER OTHELLO HOW TO

“I never found a man that knew how to love himself.” She lied to me, + she may lie to you also. “Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see she has deciev’d her father + may thee.”īrabantio to Othello. If goodness is beautiful, then Othello is more beautiful (+ white) then black. “If virtue is no delighted beauty lack, your son in law is far more far then black.”ĭuke to Brabantio. She saw his true face when she saw his mind, and she gave her whole life to him because of his honesty and bravery. “I saw Othello’s visage in his mind and to his honours and his valiant parts did I my soul and fortunes consecrate.”ĭesdemona to the Duke. Exemplifies her admiring of his love for adventure. When she fell in love with him, she decided that she wanted to live with him. “That I did love the Moor to live with him, my downright violence and storm of fortunes may triumph to the world.”ĭesdemona to the Duke. Referring to Othello and Desdemona’s marriage. A robbery victim who can smile about his losses is superior to the thief who robbed him, but if he cries he’s just wasting time. “The robb’d that smiles steals something from the thief he robs himself that spends a bootless grief.”ĭuke to Brabantio. He has taken care of Desdemona all her life and this is how he repaid her. “I had rather to adopt a child than to get it.”īrabantio to Desdemona. She has to choose between her father and Othello, and she ultimately chooses Othello. Brabantio has to accept what happened.ĭesdemona to Brabantio. “Men do their broken weapons rather use than their bare hands.”ĭuke to Brabantio. “She lov’d me for the dangers I had pass’d, and I lov’d her that she did pity them.” She thought the stories were strange, wonderful, and sad. Desdemona would listen to his stories and feel his pain. “My story being heard, she gave me for my pains a world of sighs she wore, in faith, ’twas strange, ’twas passing strange, t’was pitiful, t’was wondrous pitiful.” “Bring him away mine’s not an idle cause.”īrabantio orders to bring Othello to court, and claims the law is on his side. Othello doesn’t need anyone to tell him when to fight. Where it my cue to fight, I should have known I without a prompter.” Suspects that Othello used drugs to win over Desdemona’s love, because she could not have willingly fallen in love with a Moor. “Though has practic’d o her with foul charms, abus’d her delicate youth with drugs or minerals that weakens motion.”īrabantio to Othello. Contrasts his violent nature in act 2 when Cassio and Monato fight. You’ll never fight me b/c I don’t want to fight, + you’ve never used swords anyway. “Keep up your bright swords for the dew will rust them.” He says his good qualities, his position, and his conscience will protect him from anything Brabantio has against him. My parts, my title, and my perfect soul shall manifest me rightly.” Othello believes that the services he has done for the government will be more valuable + count for more than Brabantio’s complaints will. “My services which I have done in the siginory shall out-tongue his complaints.” It is easier for humans to believe the worst then believe the best. Shows that Brabantio thinks women have a weak character, + she’s been trapped up all her life so running away is bound to happen. Telling him that Desdemona is sleeping with Othello. “Even now, now, very not, an old black ram is tupping your white ewe.” Says that Desdemona and Othello are having sex. “I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter and the Moor are now making the beats with two backs.” An allusion to the bible when G-d told Moses “I am what I am.” If he were a Moor, he would not trust himself. Iago is only working for Othello so he can get what he wants. “It is as sure as you are Roderigo, were I the Moor, I would not be Iago. Iago is serving under Othello in order to take advantage of him. “I follow him to serve my turn upon him.”

[beccaplaying]

He looks like a guy I would have gone to college with and studied late into the night together for our Shakespeare final and I’d still remember him quoting Othello from the soft old couch in the back of the study room:

for know, Iago,

But that I love the gentle Desdemona,

I would not my unhoused free condition

Put into circumscription and confine

—————————

I saw Othello's visage in his mind,

And to his honour and his valiant parts

Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate.

[mishastoesies]

hmmm thinking about “I saw Othello’s visage in his mind, and to his honors and his valiant parts did I my soul and fortunes consecrate” vs. “You know, ever since we met and ever since I pulled you out of Hell, knowing you has changed me. Because you cared, I cared.” 

[deancaswlw]

literally they are both that line from Desdemona in Othello act I scene III, "I saw Othello's visage in his mind/and to his honor and his most valiant parts/did I my soul and fortunes consecrate" like they know every facet of one another and they choose each other over and over again despite everyone telling them not to!! their SOUL and their FORTUNES, literally the totality of their being and their destinies. they gave those to each other. out of love. what the fuck. i'm sorry, i'm losing it.

othello/supernatural is making me a little crazy rn so no i Don’t have anything eloquent to say but god “think on thy sins” “they are loves i bear to you” “ay, and for that though diest”

[noshitshakespeare]

Do you believe that Othello may have been insecure about his identity, being black? If so, could this have led to him being more passionate for Desdemona since he feels as though nobody else would love him for who he is? Which is why once Iago told Othello that Desdemona and Cassio have a thing, Othello truly trusted Iago because of his insecurity?

I’m not sure there’s enough evidence to say that Othello thinks no one other than Desdemona would love him, though it’s true that both Desdemona and Othello claim that the reason they fell in love was not to do with looks but with human compassion and care for one another. So when Othello explains how Desdemona came to love him, he says that it’s ‘the story of my life’ (1.3.130) that piques her interest, and claims that ‘She loved me for the dangers I had passed, / And I loved her that she did pity them’ (1.3.168-69). There are many potential interpretations of these lines, but the main implication is that Desdemona judges who Othello is by what he’s done, not by how he looks, and he loves her because she shows care and compassion for him as a fellow human being. Of course, the fact that Desdemona is drawn by his tales of adventures might imply that part of her attraction to him is the attraction of the exotic; that is, that foreignness indicated by Othello’s skin colour is part of what she sees in him.

Othello never mentions anything that suggests he doesn’t thinkanyone else could love him, but there’s a possibility that he falls for herbecause she shows him the kind of softness he doesn’t often experience as an outsider in Venetian society (someone showing care and pity for you might not be so unusual for the ‘curled darlings’ [1.2.68] of Venice). Othello also says

But that I lovethe gentle DesdemonaI would not my unhoused free conditionPut into circumscription and confineFor the sea’s worth (1.2.25-28)

Which suggests that he’s not fundamentally interested in love and marriage, and she’s the exception to change his rule, which would suggest a strong passion and love for her, though that need not be based on any sense that he feels generally unloved. More likely, he loves bachelor freedom and takes some pride in the manly military career he pursues, which has little time for domestic pleasures. It’s crucial too that Desdemona backs up Othello’s story when she says ‘I sawOthello’s visage in his mind’ (1.3.253). Some critics baulk at the suggestion that Desdemona thinks his actual face is unattractive because it’s black, or that she’s half apologising for his blackness, but the more generous reading is that Desdemona cares more about who Othello is and the nobleness of his mind than how he looks or superficial issues like the colour of his skin. 

The idea that Iago has power over Othello because he makes use ofOthello’s insecurities is a popular interpretation of the play, andthere’s some textual evidence to prove it. And before I go into any detail, I might add that Othello’s skin colour is a part of his insecurity, but that’s not all: he also has insecurities about the fact that he’s older than Desdemona (See for instance 3.3.269-70; Shakespeare develops the jealous old husband trope considerably); the fact that he has to emphasise his Christianity; and the fact that whatever he does and whatever his achievements, he always remains an outsider in Venetian society, symbolised by the difference in his skin colour. In this sense, Othello’s colour is not just important for racial issues but as a signifier of his foreignness more generally. A lot of what Othello does – how he talks about himself, the actions he takes (going off to war directly after getting married etc.) speak to this general anxiety about acceptance and the need to prove that he is ‘all in all sufficient’ (4.1.265).

Initially, though, Othello is confident about Desdemona’s fidelity and his looks, saying that ‘she had eyes and chose me’(3.3.192). There is an explicit emphasis on the visual. Desdemona had a choice, she hadeyes, and chose Othello despite all his blackness and his difference. Perhaps indeed because of his blackness and difference.

But the fact that Othello is vulnerable because of his insecurities is clear from the fact that Iago emphasises the cultural difference between Othello and Desdemona, saying it is unnatural for Desdemona‘Not to affect many proposed matches / Of her own clime, complexion and degree, / Whereto we see, in all things, nature tends’ (3.3.233) talking about her native land, her colour and her social status in one go, repeating Brabantio’s point about the ‘curled darlings of our nation’ (1.2.68) earlier. Iago suggests that it is simply unnatural for Desdemona to be drawn to Othello.

And a few lines later, Othello has internalised this language of difference, saying first ‘Haply, for I am black / And have not those parts of soft conversation / That chamberers have…’ (3.3.267-69) that this is the reason Desdemona would cuckold him. Finally, he says that ‘Her name, that was as fresh / As Dian’s visage, is now begrimed and black / As mine own face’ (3.3.389-91), using racist discourse against himself, and against Desdemona.

So yes, a key part of the reason that Iago’s machinations work on Othello is that Othello has anxieties and this anxiety is symbolised by his colour which highlights foreignness, potential religious difference and stereotypes about beauty. But it’s worth remembering that this is a verycomplicated play and Othello’s capitulation to Iago’s suggestions can’t be boiled down entirely to race and colour; there are other dynamics such as the trope of the old cuckold, as well as military values, male bonding, and misogyny backed up by contemporary notions about female sexuality and Venetian women.

[francesbeau]

Othello - William Shakespeare

I have an exam on this play in six days so I have worked out how many pages I will have to read per-day in order to have read it completely by the time of the exam. So, I will be reading thirty three pages per day and analyzing moments I think are integral. 

Page 0 - Page 33: 

- whole play explores the paradox of a Moor in Venice and how its relevancy within a liberal, cosmopolitan society. 

- Starts in media res and with our most limited character, Rodrigo. A character who is really just a tool to emphasize the sadistic nature of Iago. 

- Iago’s Jealousy is used to enact revenge as he has a fascination with social hierarchies and an aggressive component of self-entitlement. 

- Iago seems to have a resentment for being spurned for a promotion and he has a monetary mindset that replicates the new economic model that replaced feudal obligations. 

- The language of Iago in the opening act is full of oblique references to work and peppered with hierarchical references. “We cannot all be masters, nor all masters cannot be truly followed” - This corruption of a master servant relationship acts as the backbone of the play. 

- “Whip me such honest knaves!” basically translates to the idea that people who work without goals are foolish, already defined potentially lethal views surrounding futility and subservient moralities. 

- Inverts religion by saying that “heaven is my judge” this is ironic as Iago exhibits three major sins; Envy, Pride and Jealousy. 

- “I am not what I am” this is teasingly obscure and negates itself. Comparison to twelfth night to show vows about dissemblance can have benign intentions!! Viola: “I am not what I am” 

- Whole of the scene around Brabantio: makes Desdemona an extension of his property, subdued pin makes him a victim of violation. Sexually suggestive language links to miscegenation. “Black Ram” Has associations with lust and sexual potency, horns suggest reincarnation of the devil. Cluster of associations suggest the racial typing of subsaharan Africa. 

- Creation of a strong forward momentum as character react to the precipitating marriage. 

- Dissonance of Identity 

- Establishes initial conflict that drives the plays action

- Iago invokes Janus who is a two-faced God so it’s very appropriate. 

- Progressive Cultural frame

- Political Backdrop is the undercurrent of the play  

- Shakespeare managed to flesh out fantastical tales from Othello by drawing upon ancient travel writers. 

- Socio-symbolic Identification of women so far been heavily ignored. 

- Wake of tragedy begins in the erroneous Judgement of the ruler, the Duke. Driven by self interest and does not give a proper examination. 

Page 33 - Page 66:

- Sociopolitical State. 

- Romance based on the notion of adventure

- Enables opportunity (Brabantio) to see who holds the most power 

- Desdemona: “I saw Othello’s visage in my mind” Explains how Othello's blackness is merely a deceptive outward show and his true countenance is to be discovered in his mind. 

- Has not fulfilled sensual desires for consummation

- Subversion of natural order but it is a common Jacobean Trope for a daughter to go against father. 

- Linguistic Chaemilion 

- Desperation creates susceptibility 

-  Sadistic Stratagem 

- A2, S1 Begins with the emphasis on the limitations of lights: “What from the cape can you discern at sea?” 

- Physical threat of the Turkish fleet are quickly eliminated so more emphasis on psychological threat, less tangible threat posed by inner demons assumes to be dramatic precedence. 

- External threat removed

- Domestic tragedy, no longer political.

- Desdemona challenges domestic authority as she retains power. compromises Level of respect available. 

- Cyprus is Iago’s terrain to manipulate 

Page 66 - Page 99: 

- Iago sings the song of King Stephen, a textual allusion that encapsulates his reality. 

- Stagecraft is comical and chaotic to hide Machiavellian schemes

- Plants seeds of suspicion to grow and then opens space for doubt to develop 

- Iago is an artist in the ability's to arouse the suspicions of men

- Blatant betrayal into the semblance of reluctance 

- Cassio accidentally positions himself as rival suitor 

- Placates self to Cassio as a change to prove alliance

- Seeks to regain Othello’s favor through Desdemona’s Agency  

- Iago uses addresses phrasing to cajole more effectively 

Page 99 - Page 132: 

- Illegitimate sincerity 

- Shakespeare’s oeuvres rarely include real adultery

- Desdemona is an object of negative male bonds

- Iago’s cultivation of honest is crucial in how effective the adversary participation of their own destruction is 

- Republic: “No charm in being angry with one who gives good advice” 

- Imprisonment in own fantasy

- Desdemona acts as a means of access to Othello

- Over-saturated with homoerotic

- Assumes bizarre shape of a trial where Othello plays role of a prosecutor 

- Glimpses of proto-feminism

- Double time, disorientating inconsistency 

- Aggressively plants seeds of animated sexual congress

- Strips Othello of dominant, outward show of masculinity 

Page 132 - Page 231: 

- Escalation of Manipulation

- When vehement violence is shown Iago puts back on the mask of being a helper

- 3rd Person detachment

- Inflation of Ego

- Subversion of marital consummation

- Domestic setting

- Increase in verbal violence 

Page 231 - Page 264:

- Sturdy resistance to patriarchal tyranny 

- One dimensional prejudice 

- At night Iago can direct assassination without participation known

- Iago displays talent for improvisation

- Incompetence hinders plans

- Freud: Flame is a symbol of male genitalia

- Desdemona allows Othello to institute, develop and confirm his suspicions 

- Converts murder to abstract ritual and a ceremonial cleansing of polluted domestic sphere

- Fatalism is heavy

- Desdemona exonerates Othello by claiming he was not the murderer

- A Neo-platonic lover has a perfect balance of mind and heart 

Page 264 - Page 297:

- Othello has a tragic fall from grace

- Erosion of self assurance 

- Othello: “speak of me as I am” link to God: “I am what I am” or Iago: “I am not what I am” 

- Cognitive Dissonance

- Play ends on a Fissure: an incompatibility with ethnic feature and religious feature. Played out on the impossibility of identity of its central protagonist and eponymous character 

[forshehadeyesandchoseme]

That I did love the Moor to live with him My downright violence and storm of fortunes May trumpet to the world. My heart's subdued Even to the very quality of my lord. I saw Othello's visage in his mind, And to his honor and his valiant parts Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate. So that, dear lords, if I be left behind, A moth of peace, and he go to the war, The rites for which I love him are bereft me And I a heavy interim shall support By his dear absence. Let me go with him. -Desdemona 

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: Fred Wilson Strips Culture Down to Black and White

Installation view, Fred Wilson: Black to the Powers of Ten at the Allen Memorial Art Museum (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic)

OBERLIN, Ohio — Artist Fred Wilson is known for working in two modes, broadly speaking. In one, he creates interventions in and rearrangements of the existing collections of arts institutions; in the other, he fabricates original works across a range of media. These two movements have long coexisted within the artist’s career, but never within the same institution, until now. In a nearly yearlong installation at the Allen Memorial Art Museum on Oberlin College’s campus, Wilson is showing a collection intervention, Wildfire Test Pit, side by side with a survey of original work, Black to the Powers of Ten.

The most direct and obvious link between the two exhibitions is the pair of statues that stands in the center of Powers of Ten. Titled “The Mete of the Muse” (2006), the work features a black sculpture and a white one, mimicking the composition and aesthetics of the statuary assembled for Wildfire. Here, the black body is an Egyptian god, and the white one is a European female form; the wall text characterizes them as “African figure” and “European figure,” respectively, though both were cast in bronze and finished with patina or paint. As in my previous analysis of Wildfire Test Pit, it’s useful to acknowledge that, in Wilson’s work, “black” and “white” have racial as well as chromatic associations. This fits with a major theme of Wilson’s oeuvre, which is showcased exhaustively in Black to the Powers of Ten: an examination of black identity and labor.

Fred Wilson, “I Saw Othello’s Visage in His Mind” (2013)

One cultural surrogate that Wilson employs in this consideration is Othello. The tragic Shakespearean character is the subject of a video installation, “Speak of Me as I Am” (2003), which juxtaposes footage from four opera and film adaptations of Othello and was originally created for the 2003 Venice Biennale. He’s also referenced in one of the artist’s elaborate glass mirrors, “I Saw Othello’s Visage in His Mind” (2013). Wilson’s revisiting of Othello as a touchstone suggests an identification with the character, reinforced by the mirror as a means of superimposing one’s own image over the work. Othello at once represents black power (he is king) and isolation (he is alone), as well as a stripping of black identity, since he is labeled in the play as a “Moor” — a kind of Middle Ages non-designation that obtusely refers to the Muslims of North Africa and the Iberian peninsula, but lacks any truly defined ethnic association.

Installation view, Fred Wilson, “Untitled” (2009)

Perhaps this vagueness (and the poetic license it affords) was part of the original motivation in dubbing Othello a Moor — much like Sacha Baron Cohen leverages the perceived cultural ambiguity of Kazakhstan to lend force to his racist caricature, Borat. Throughout Wilson’s work there is a palpable desire to strip away the obfuscation of biased history, to get down to the fundamentals in black and white. This is captured in a wall of canvases depicting 35 flags of African and African diaspora nations, rendered with only their graphic elements in black and white. This 2009 body of work hangs adjacent to a corollary installation of 35 wooden plaques that describe the flags of these nations and what their symbols and colors represent. As often as not, the colors of a given flag directly reference the colonizing influence of a European or Western nation.

Fred Wilson, detail of “Untitled” (2009)

Black glass has been a longstanding and recurring motif in Wilson’s art, triggered by his work in Venice, where he discovered an obscured history of black labor within the centuries-old Murano glassworks for which the region is famous. Forming a kind of visual segue between the 2D works and the glass pieces is the wall-mounted “Whether or Not” (2014), a cluster of shiny, black, blown-glass teardrops that rain across an angled wall between the flags and a series of mirrors.

Fred Wilson, “Whether or Not” (2014)

Against this backdrop stand two vitrines, “Black Memory” (2005) and “Black Present” (2006). Their forms suggest something solemn and coffin-like, even before a deep look through the nearly opaque black glass of “Black Present” reveals an interred resin skeleton, surrounded by ink wells and oil cans (“Black Memory” contains similar objects, minus the skeleton). The visual obfuscation of these pieces is so complete as to defy documentation — the contents of “Black Memory” and “Black Present” cannot be photographed very successfully, their dense and reflective surfaces bouncing back only external surroundings.

This is the sting of Wilson’s works: their capacity to make the viewer utterly complicit. Standing before them, one cannot avoid one’s place in the systems that generate inequities between black and white. Whatever distance the viewer seeks to create, Wilson finds a way to collapse it, to bring reality back to face her. There is nowhere to hide within such stark aesthetics.

Installation view, Fred Wilson: Black to the Powers of Ten at the Allen Memorial Art Museum

An attempt to photograph “Black Memory” (2005)

Fred Wilson: Black to the Powers of Ten continues at the Allen Memorial Art Museum (Oberlin College, 87 N Main Street, Oberlin, Ohio) through June 12. Fred Wilson: Wildfire Test Pit runs concurrently in an adjoining gallery.

Editor’s note: The Allen Memorial Art Museum paid for the author’s travel expenses.

The post Fred Wilson Strips Culture Down to Black and White appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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[francesbeau]

Othello - Quote Analysis - William Shakespeare

Started: 30th of April 2021 Finished: 30th of April 2021 

Act One Scene One: 

- Iago talking about Cassio: “great arithmetician/mere prattle without prance” Targets Cassio’s lack of experience 

- Iago talking about Cassio: “A Florentine never damned in a fair wife” Mentions outsider status to disconnect him from the dynamism of Venetian life. Depicts Cassio as a bachelor to create more realism, goes against Cinthios original play.

- Iago: “We cannot all be masters, nor all masters truly be followed” A corruption of the master/servant relationship. Draws upon the tricky servant trope (servus callidus) King James had just been appointed to so this was very topical. 

- Iago: “I am not what I am”, teasingly obscure and creates the question of who really is Iago? Also makes an allusion to 12th night where Viola says “I am not what I am” This showcases how vows about dissemblance can have benign intention. 

- Iago to Brabantio: “look at your house, your daughter and your bags!” asyndetic listing highlights women as secondary importance. 

- “An old black ram is tuping your white ewe” explicate reference to miscegenation. women as an extension of property. Subdued pun to make Brabantio the victim of violation. This sexually suggestive language is because black rams are associated with lust and sexual potency and its horns imply its the reincarnation of the devil. 

- “You’ll have your nephews neigh to you, coursers for cousins, and jennets for germans” Paronomasia is where words nearly sound alike, similar to eye rhyme. Cluster of racial attacks. 

- Brabantio: “thou art a villain” - Iago: “you are a senator”. Dissonance of identity, highlights corrupt higher structures. 

- Roderigo: “tying her beauty, duty and wit in an extravagant and wheeling stranger” 

- Iago: “However, this may gall him with some check” - Subdued equestrian metaphor of a horse being pulled back by reins. 

Act One Scene Two: 

- Iago: “By Janus” Appropriate God to evoke as it is the twofaced God.

- Othello: “Keep up your bright swords” Where Christ, betrayed by Judas, is arrested he order Peter to “put up thy sword into thy sheath” 

Act One Scene Three: 

- Duke: “Valliant Othello” first person to use his name and its the most important man in all of Venice. 

- Othello: “Rude I am in speech, and little blessed in the soft phrase of peace” Actually highly articulated. Spezzatura -  ‘certain nonchalance, so as to conceal and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort’

- Othello: “I won his daughter” - Links to patriarchal norms, Romeo and Juliet there is challenge for Paris to win and “woo” Juliet. 

- Othello: “The anthropophagi and men...” The allusion to the race of the cannibals in the Odyssey called Laestryganes who tried to eat Odysseus. 

- Othello: “she wished heaven had made her such a man” Kind of fickle and would love any man with same fantastical tales. 

- Desdemona: “divided duty” / “I saw Othello’s visage in my mind” Blackness of face is merely a deceptive outward show and his true countenance lies in the mind. 

Othello: “Nor to comply with the heat of young affects” - He is confining his sexual passion due to his stereotypes and has a lack of matched enthusiasm. Separates himself from sexual desire. Could be guilty repression. Freud: Sexual instincts are allied to emotional condition of fear” 

- Duke: “your son-in-law is far more fair than black”

- Iago: “our bodies are gardens to the which our wills are gardeners” - whole soliloquy goes on to examine to argument that if we didn’t have rational minds to counterbalance our emotions our desires would take over. 

- Iago: “these Moors are changeable in their ways” / “Moor is of free and open nature”

- Iago: “when she is sated with his body she will find the errors of her choices” Sexual reference

- Iago: “womb of time.”

- Iago: “twixt my sheet/ done my office” anxiety within marriage links to 2.3 when he calls Othello the “lusty moor” who leapt into his “seat”

- Iago: “Cassio’s a proper man” Acknowledges adversaries advantages. 

Act Two Scene One

- “What from the cape can you discern at sea?” Begins in storm which is symbolic of passions of Cyprus. Starts with the limitations of light and foreshadows metaphorical blindness. 

- “Our great captains, captain” 

- Othello: “oh my souls joy if after every tempest come such calms” / “If i were to die twere now the to e the most happy, for I fear my soul hath her content to absolute” Last time Othello is truly happy 

- Desdemona: “Our loves and comforts should increase even as our days grow”

Act Two Scene Three 

- Othello: “Are we turned Turks?/For Christian shame” Evokes intermittent conflict between European powers and the Ottoman Empire

- Othello to Cassio: “what's the matter, that you unlace your reputation thus.” 

- Iago: “I’ll pour this pestilence into his ear” Link to Hamlet where the King was poisoned by it being poured into his ear

Act Three Scene Three 

- Iago: “Ha, I like not that.” / “Nothing My Lord, or if, I know not what”. Plants seeds of suspicion with mysterious interjection 

- Othello: “Excellent wretch, perdition catch my soul. But i do love thee, and when i love thee not chaos comes again” Oxymoran - doesn't have a grip on emotions. breakdown of cosmos and order as chaos is the undoing of the gods. 

- Iago: “Honest My Lord?” Othello: “Honest? Ay, Honest.” Anadiplosis is the repetition of the last line of previous conversation

- Iago: “My lord you know I Love thee” - John 21;15 “Lord thou knowest I love thee” 

- “Beware my Lord of Jealousy! It is the green-eyed monster that doth mock the meat it feeds upon”

- Othello: “Haply for I am black and have not these soft parts of conversation” - Endemic to Venetian culture are attitudes that Othello cant inculcate. In the shape of Iago the venomous rage of society that are rocked by the elopement play out. 

- “She s gone, I am abused and my relief must be to loathe her” 

- “I had rather be a toad and live upon the vapor of a dungeon than to keep a corner in the thing i love” - This metaphor places emphasis on the embarrassment of cuckoldry. The animalistic imagery is interesting as toads are insignificant and gross which highlight how he feels. Women is the aggressor.

- “I think my wife be honest, and think she is not”

- Iago about a fake dream from Cassio, “I heard him say, ‘Sweet Desdemona let us be wary and hide our love”

- Iago to Othello: “I am your own forever” language of service, however Iago hints at mephisteplion bargain by which Iago has ensnared his soul. 

Act Three Scene Four 

- “There is magic in the web of it”, assumes bizarre shape of perverted trail

Act Four Scene One

- Iago: “to kiss in private” aggressively plants seeds of images of animated sexual congress 

- Othello about himself: “A horned man’s a monster and a beast” Sign of cuckoldry 

- Othello: “My heart has turned to stone” / ‘He Beats his chest’ / “sweeter creature” (like Cassio’s dream) 

- “I’ll chop her into messes” Truculent 

“Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile” - complex conceit, crocodiles generated spontaneously and a proverbial hypocrisy. Plutarch suggests that crocodiles wept when devouring their victims. Crocodile pretends to be in distress to lure victims in. 

Act Four Scene Two

- Othello about Emilia - “a lock and key of villainous secrets”

- Desdemona: “I understand a fury in your words, bot not the words.” 

- Emilia: “she forsook so many noble matches” - links ti act one scene two: she shunned the wealthy curled darlings of our nation

Act Four Scene Three

- The whole song of willow, link to Hamlet as Ophelia fell from a willow tree and drowned after finding out her husband did not love her. 

- Emilia: “if wives do fall” - Post-lapsyrian, eve’s fall from grace. 

- “The ills we do, their ills instruct us so” inverts traditional male leadership role. 

Act Five Scene One 

- ‘Iago wounds Cassio in the leg from behind and exit’ - constant scene controlment. Displays talent for improvisation. 

Act Five Scene Two

- Othello: ‘Think on thy sins’ Desdemona: ‘They are the loves I bear to you’ could be a reference to race but more so an allusion to the sin of living a human more than god. 

- Othello: “A murder which I thought a sacrifice” Zenith of insanity.

- “The sun and the moon and that affrighted globe” Christs crucifixion similar events. Globe theater in terror. 

- “It is the very error of the moon” - Power of the moon can induce madness

- “Base Indian who threw away a pearl” - Matthew 8 Merchant who looses everything trying to obtain a pearl. 

- “Malignant and a turband turk” - symbolically annihilating both Iago and himself. Whole speech is about the salvation of a soul peppered with semantics of Orientalism.

- Lodovico: “this heavy heart with heavy heart relate” Rhyming is emblematic of balance that civilized Venetians are saturated with