This document contains detailed analysis, context and in-depth tragic convention exploration for the Drama section of the Edexcel A-Level English Literature course. Further support is given to students with the inclusion of quotation banks and critical theory providing students with the foundations...
The aim of tragedy, Aristotle writes, is to bring about a "catharsis" of the spectators —
According to Aristotle, tragedy has six main elements: plot, character, diction, thought,
spectacle (scenic effect), and song (music),
the plot is the most important element of tragedy:
He says that the plot must be a complete whole — with a definite beginning, middle, and
end —
The plot is intended to illustrate matters of cosmic rather than individual significance, and
the protagonist is viewed primarily as the character who experiences the changes that take
place.
. . . a man who is highly renowned and prosperous, but one who is not pre-eminently
virtuous and just, whose misfortune, however, is brought upon him not by vice or depravity
but by some error of judgment or frailty;
and as a character he must be true to type, true to life, and consistent.
the nature of the cosmic moral order and the role played by chance or destiny in human
affairs.
Shakespeare was writing during the English renaissance period which lasted from the 15 th to the 17th
century. The renaissance was a cultural movement which saw the flourishing of Greek and Latin
philosophies and knowledge in Western Europe.
The great chain of being was another large part of religion in the Jacobean era. Iago views Moors
and people of African decent to be less than human in his and God’s eyes describing them as
animals.
The cast for Othello would have been entirely male with young boys playing the female role. And
Othello would be played by a White man in black makeup.
Othello is set during the backdrop of the wars between the Christian Republic of Venice and the
Muslim Ottoman Empire in the 16th century.
This conflict had raged off and on since the mid-fifteenth century, and by the time the play
premiered at the beginning of the seventeenth century, four Ottoman–Venetian wars had already
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