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The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice, often shortened to Othello (/ ɒ ˈ θ ɛ l oʊ /), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare around 1603. Set in Venice and Cyprus , the play depicts the Moorish military commander Othello as he is manipulated by his ensign , Iago , into suspecting his wife Desdemona of infidelity.
Othello, a General in the Venetian army, promotes a young officer, Michael Cassio, enraging Iago—the General's ensign—who expected the post himself. Outwardly loyal to Othello and his recently married wife, Desdemona, Iago proceeds to cause dissension within Othello's camp (for instance, tuning Othello's new father-in-law against him, and causing Cassio to fight another officer).
Shakespeare combined the two throughout his career, with Romeo and Juliet perhaps the best example of the mixing of the styles. [6] By the time of Romeo and Juliet, Richard II, and A Midsummer Night's Dream in the mid-1590s, Shakespeare had begun to write a more natural poetry. He increasingly tuned his metaphors and images to the needs of the ...
Anthony Holden says that the book became "something of a publishing phenomenon" – a 750-page survey of Shakespeare which gained bestseller status and drew widespread attention to its author. "If his analyses are boldly colloquial," says Holden, "at times so sounding almost as if they were dictated, his insights are unfailingly original and ...
Another scholarly analysis of Shakespeare's problem-plays by A.G. Harmon argues that what the problem-plays have in common is how each consciously debates the relationship between law and nature. Many of the problem-plays address a disorder in nature, and the characters attempt to mitigate the disorder in varying manners. [4]
The German critic Schlegel showed an appreciation for Shakespeare of a kind that no one in Hazlitt's country had yet demonstrated, and Hazlitt, sympathising with many of Schlegel's ideas, felt there was a place for a whole book that would provide appreciative criticism of all of Shakespeare's plays. Such a book would provide liberal quotations ...
"Shakespeare stands out singularly, linking the old and new in a lush. Wish and duty trying to put itself in balance in his plays; both are faced with violence, but always so that the wish is at a disadvantage." "Perhaps no one has made so great as the first major link of wish and duty in the individual character as Shakespeare did."
Shakespeare's work is also lauded for its insight into emotion. His themes regarding the human condition make him more acclaimed than any of his contemporaries. Humanism and contact with popular thinking gave vitality to his language. Shakespeare's plays borrowed ideas from popular sources, folk traditions, street pamphlets, and sermons.