#shakespeare's Othello

[the-birth-of-art]

This must've been incredible

[the-tenth-arcanum]

signal boost!! (link)

[grendelsmilf]

nothing, my lord

[arinewman7]

Desdemona (The Song of the Willow)

Théodore Chassériau

1849

[deja-vulnerability]

“I kissed thee ere I killed thee, no way but this, Killing myself, to die upon a kiss.” 

– 𝑂𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑜, 𝑊𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑎𝑚 𝑆ℎ𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑒

[emotinalsupportturtle]

Who wants to get in a time machine and go tell him?

from that 2005 R&J essay by David Tennant

[shakespearenews]

In fact, after more than a decade of teaching his work, I’ve come to see Shakespeare—at least when he’s writing tragedies—as primarily a horror writer. He might perhaps be the most significant influence in the entire English language to the Gothic, and consequently the modern, horror tradition.

Seen through the lens of a horror writer, Shakespeare’s progression as an artist is not just in his ability to play with structure, form, and character, but rather that he gains a deeper understanding of how to really scare people. As he grew as a writer, he learned there are better ways to emotionally wound an audience than the surface kills and thrills, and it’s this that ends up really defining him as a playwright.

[infinatenoise]

Shakespere plays badly described in one sentence:

Romeo And Juliet - Your "Love had different plans" writing excuse ended with a restraining order and two dead kids

Macbeth - Girlboss uses her sopping pathetic wet dog of a husband to gain political power, ends horribly.

Hamlet - Pathetic emo boy destroys career of his creepy uncle

Titus Andronicus - It's a soap opera because after you watch it you feel the need to wash yourself thoroughly

The Tempest - One man's real person ship fic saves the government from corruption

Merchant Of Venice - The way to make your play where the main villain is a jewish person portraying every negative stereotype is by making the main christian characters the biggest pricks in existance

Twelfth Night - Shakespeare was a COWARD for not making the woman marry the sister and the man marry the brother.

Othello - A commentary on racism slightly ruined by the fact that the main villain shares a name with a cartoon disney parrot

[narcissusinamirrormaze]

Made this in English class today. Because. Shaysparr

[madebyancientomens]

shakespeare + polaroid movie posters

[transsexualcoriolanus]

currently thinking about othello, much ado about nothing, beatrice, emilia, and the “difference between comedies and tragedies is how much power the women have” argument. everyone knows that othello and much ado are incredibly similar. they both follow a basic premise of “fucked up evil guy decides it would be pretty funny to convince a guy he doesn’t like that his wife/fiancé is cheating on him. guy immediately believes him and chaos ensues”. and in both plays, the relationships between the women are so important.

beatrice knows that hero is innocent - not because she has proof, but because she knows, loves and trusts her. likewise, emilia never even entertains the possibility of desdemona being disloyal, immediately recognising that someone must have lied to othello. through this, the women represent everything the men don’t have: trust, loyalty, solidarity and strength. the main difference between the two of them is whether anyone believes them.

beatrice has benedick, who trusts her and believes her, even though she has no proof. of course dogsberry and verges had a huge part in discovering the truth, but symbolically, it is benedick’s trust in beatrice that changes the narrative and ensures claudio doesn’t get away with his actions. all it takes is for one man, just one man, to believe the women, to change the course of the play and prevent it from becoming a tragedy. but emilia doesn’t have one man. her own husband is the one who caused the tragedy, and even when she insists to othello that desdemona is innocent, telling him that she has been with desdemona the whole time and seen nothing suspicious, he doesn’t listen to her. because she’s a woman, and a servant, and her word means nothing.

emilia is such a tragic character because, like beatrice, she is strong, intelligent, and loyal, but she lives in a world in which a woman’s word means nothing, and that’s one of the main factors that causes the tragedy. if just one man with any kind of power had listened to her, desdemona may not have died. but instead, they were both killed, because othello would rather believe that his wife is cheating on him despite everything he knows about her, than listen to a woman.