After reading Othello for a second time, and after reading Shakespeare's comedies I really gained an additional perspective to the tragedy "Othello".
There is a very fine line in Shakespeare's plays that determine what turns a certain play into a comedy vs a tragedy, many of his plays with a few tweaks could be turned into either, and the way it is acted out also plays a significant part of the interpretation. Perhaps reading Othello, our first tragedy after reading Shakespeare's comedies- they had predetermined my feel for reading and feeling out the tone of his work. It's just interesting to read plays like "Twelfth Night" and "Much Ado About Nothing" and see how the genre is truly placed upon the ending of the play.
The plays along with Othello all have the same framework- lies, deception, love, forbidden love, secrets etc but the way Shakespeare chose to end them sets the genre. In "Othello" all these elements are played out. Othello is lied to and believes that his love, has cheated on him eventually murdering her and then himself but consider if that never happened, if Othello had communicated to Desdemona his concerns and they turned it into a humorous situation, since she never in fact did cheat on him. She could laugh claiming how ridiculous an accusation it actually was. Wouldn't that be somewhat similar to the ending of "Twelfth Night" when the characters laugh at their own expenses when they find out Cesario was indeed a woman the entire time and Malvolio had been decieved by the forged letter and they all had been lied to at some point?
After reading this play for a second time and being able to compare it to Shakespeare's other works it is interesting to see how similar but different they are at the same time. I wonder if he had the genres of each play planned out ahead of time or if he just decided to go with the flow of writing and decide to end them however he felt at that particular time, because the label of genre really seems to be delegated at the end of his work. Or maybe he just preferred to keep his audience guessing...
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1 comment:
This is a great reflection on Shakespeare's blurring of generic lines, Kristi. I agree that genres are based on audience expectation, and can manipulate those expectations to dramatic effect. It's an interesting thought experiment to imagine watching this play for the first time without knowing that it is a "tragedy." When would we realize that the play is going to end badly for most of the characters?
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