Othello | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 23 pages of analysis & critique of Othello.

Othello | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 23 pages of analysis & critique of Othello.
This section contains 6,583 words
(approx. 22 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Essay by Mark Matheson

SOURCE: “Venetian Culture and the Politics of Othello,” in Shakespeare Survey, Vol. 48, 1995, pp. 123-33.

In the following essay, Matheson explores Shakespeare's concept of life in Venice as portrayed in Othello.

In Othello Shakespeare represents a society in many ways fundamentally different from his own, and rather than minimizing or obscuring these differences he explores them in a politically creative way. The play is a powerful illustration of his ability to perceive and represent different forms of political organization, and to situate personal relationships and issues of individual subjectivity in a specific institutional context. Here and in much of his other work Shakespeare displays what might be described as a sociological imagination. He portrays in Othello not a feudal monarchy or Renaissance court but an enduring Italian city-state, a republic which continued to survive despite growing Habsburg domination in the rest of the peninsula. Taken in the context of...

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This section contains 6,583 words
(approx. 22 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Essay by Mark Matheson
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Critical Essay by Mark Matheson from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.