“Men should be what they seem”
My favorite production of Othello: the National Theatre's 2013 production. Here's the trailer.
The military setting
Iago and Othello
Desdemona and Emilia
Thursday, January 29 (5) - Introduction to Shakespeare; Over the long weekend, read these selections from Machiavelli's The Prince and the first 80 lines or so (up until Brabantio enters at a window) of 1.1 of Othello. These lines can be found in your anthology on pages 1248-1251. Remember you are welcome to use a single edition of the text. You are to use this scene-by-scene analysis of the play as you read. I encourage you to watch the Ian McKellan version as you read. Pilot essay due Monday. Lots of exciting stuff to be getting on with!
Monday, February 2 (1) - Thinking about drama; Reading Shakespeare
Tuesday, February 3 (2) - Background to Othello; Machiavelli; 1.1; By tomorrow, finish 1.1.
Wednesday, February 4 (3) - 1.1; By Friday, read these selections of Castiglione's The Book of the Courtier. You need only read the circled numbers. Bring your headphones tomorrow.
Thursday, February 5 (4) - KUBUS ON KAIROS - Watch the first scene of the Laurence Olivier production, below (1:30-7:00). Take notes on the production. Where and when is it set? What do you notice about Finlay's Iago? If Bob Hoskins' Iago in the BBC production we watched yesterday is a hysterical, cackling jokester-psycopath, then who is this Iago? Observe the way he speaks, moves, and engages Roderigo. Is he enraged? bitter? sarcastic? sadistic? commanding? Then, compare that Iago to Ian McKellen's, above, watching the entire first scene (up to 8:30). Michael Billington, a famous theatre critic, called McKellen's Iago "the most complex and fascinating Iago" he had seen. How is he different? Michael Neill, the editor of the Oxford Shakespeare edition of Othello argues that McKellen "riveted viewers' attention by means of the psychological intensity that informed the minutest details of his meticulously observed performance." An example of such a detail is McKellen's decision to take out, light, inhale, and exhale at very particular moments, in very deliberate fashion. When and why does he make these decisions? Watch out for what Neill calls "McKellen's false warmth" toward Roderigo. Watch carefully and see if you can identify moments of Iago's "psychological intensity." Lastly, listen to the corresponding scene of the Tom Hiddleston production (about the first 6 minutes). Close your eyes and listen attentively. Do not follow along in your text. Focus less on what the actors are saying than how they are saying it. Note your observations.
Friday, February 6 (5) - KUBUS ON KAIROS - First, finish what you were unable to finish yesterday. Be prepared to discuss your observations on Monday. Then, if you haven't read the selections from The Book of the Courtier, do so, taking notes on how Castiglione would have his courtiers conduct themselves. Like with Machiavelli's The Prince, keep Castiglione in mind when reading Othello. Use the rest of the period to begin reading 1.2-3. Have scene 2 finished by Monday and scene 3 by Tuesday.
Monday, February 9 (6) - Othello
Tuesday, February 10 (1) - Othello; Big announcement (see below)
Wednesday, February 11 (2) - Othello
Thursday, February 12 (3) - Set Othello speech analysis; Othello; Over the weekend, read 2.1.1-entrance of Othello.
Tuesday, February 17 (5) - Othello; Take until Friday to finish the speech analysis. I'd like to see more of you in my office to discuss them prior to submission. Finish reading 2.1 by tomorrow.
Wednesday, February 18 (6) - Othello; Alan and JP will bring us 1 discussion question each about the beginning of 2.1 to kick off tomorrow's class. Kevin and Spencer, be prepared to do the same for the end of 2.1 on Friday. These questions should be ones that get us to think about what is really at stake in this scene.
Thursday, February 19 (1) - Othello; Spencer's out, but here are his questions: "What does the discussion about the different types of women tell us about Iago? Is Cassio really in love with Desdemona, or is Iago just manipulating it to seem that way? Is Iago really worried about both Cassio and Othello sleeping with his wife, or is that just a weak excuse for him to be malicious?"
Friday, February 20 (2) - Othello; Over the weekend, read 2.2-2.3. What to spot: (1) Cassio's most unattractive self: Is this who he really is, or is this just a moment of weakness for an otherwise ideal courtier? (2) Othello's rage not only has the ability to keep the peace (as we've seen before), but also to threaten. (3) 1.3, 2.1, and 2.3 have a very similar structure. Describe it, and then ask yourself why. (4) Iago as artist.
Monday, February 23 (3) - Othello 2.3
Tuesday, February 24 (4) - Othello 2.3; The infinitive, "to iago," is...
...to juggle (to astound, to astonish, to amaze)
...to manipulate, to maneuver
...to program (through repetition), to hypnotize, to puppet, to ventriloquize
...to move players into check
...to bide time, to strike (to hunt, to "trash"), to camouflage, to spring a trap, to corner
...to backhand
...to pervert
---to exploit weakness such that you remain respected, to praise only to slander
Wednesday, February 25 (5) - Othello, in-class verse analysis
Thursday, February 26 (6) - Set Research Assignment, Part 2
Friday, February 27 (1) - The Annotated Bibliography; Over the weekend, read 3.1-3.2 in addition to this article.
Monday, March 2 (2) - Research queries?; Othello 3.1-3.2. By Wednesday, read 3.3. How does Othello, in a matter of 300 lines go from professing his great love for Desdemona to damning her to hell? Go through and put a name to each one of Iago's tactics. This is my favorite scene in any play; let's have a little fun with it.
Tuesday, March 3 (3) - MLA Quiz; Othello
Wednesday, March 4 (4) - Othello
Thursday, March 5 (5) - Othello
Friday, March 6 (6) - Othello
Tuesday, March 10 (2) - Othello; We hear from Othello in soliloquy for the first time. Why does he think Desdemona might have betrayed him? What are the reasons he gives? And then, what do you make of the quick transformation as soon as Desdemona enters? What other 'Osmotic Iagoisms' do you find? Keep a growing list of things Iago does to Othello in this scene.
Wednesday, March 11 (3) - Othello
Thursday, March 12 (4) - Othello
Priorities for the impending, perennial, protracted pause: Over the break, complete AB#2 of your research paper. It is due in class on Monday, March 23 and to turnitin.com by 8am. In anticipation of the next phase of the project, have a look at this document for pointers on how to integrate secondary material. Harvard also has this new website for students such as yourselves. Very handy. Take advantage. Additionally, be sure to finish Othello. Have a good break. Write well, read well... and live.
SPRING BREAK
Monday, March 23 (1) - Othello 3.4; As the week progresses, be sure to re-read the scene we will be discussing the next day. I'd like for you all to increasingly make references to other moments in the text; let's not get bogged down in the scene we're currently discussing, rich though it may be.
Tuesday, March 24 (2) - Othello 3.4; Review this page on choosing the correct word to describe a writer's diction. And this one on adjectives to describe tone.
Wednesday, March 25 (3) - Othello 4.1
Thursday, March 26 (4) - Othello 4.1-4.2
Friday, March 27 (5) - Othello 4.2-4.3; AP style-analysis review; And another
Monday, March 30 (6) - Set Research Assignment, Part 3; Synthesizing your research; Outlining; Sample #1, Sample #2, Sample #3
Tuesday, March 31 (1) - Othello 5.1
Wednesday, April 1 (2) - In-class verse analysis
Thursday, April 2 (3) - Othello 5.2
Tuesday, April 7 (4) - Othello 5.2
Wednesday, April 8 (5) - In-class, open-ended essay on Othello
Thursday, April 9 (6) - Get your hands on an edition of Hamlet. I'll recommend a few in class; Othello 5.2; Drafting the essay; Integrating secondary sources into your own writing
Friday, April 10 (1) - Sample research essays; Remember that there is a mandatory AP pre-administration session next Friday at 2PM. Over the weekend, read 1.1 of Hamlet.
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Study Links
"6 reading habits from Harvard"
Achebe, "The Truth of Fiction"
Questions for analyzing novels
“In reading exam papers written by misled students, of both sexes, about this or that author, I have often come across such phrases — probably recollections from more tender years of schooling — as ‘his style is simple’ or ‘his style is clear and simple’ or ‘his style is beautiful and simple’ or ‘his style is quite beautiful and simple.’ But remember that ‘simplicity’ is buncombe. No major writer is simple. The Saturday Evening Post is simple. Journalese is simple. Upton Lewis is simple. Mom is simple. Digests are simple. Damnation is simple. But Tolstoys and Melvilles are not simple..."
-Nabokov, Lectures on Russian Literature
Othello Study Links
National Theatre Rehearsal Pack
Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud, the Moorish Ambassador to Elizabeth I, a contemporary image of a Moor housed at The Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon
Required Course Texts
The Little Brown Handbook, 11th edition
Vocabulary Workshop (Level H)
Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing, 11th edition
Killgallon, Sentence Composing for College
Austen, Persuasion, Oxford World's Classics, ed. James Kinsley and Deidre Shauna Lynch
Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Oxford World's Classics, ed Cedric Watts
Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment: Pevear & Volokhonsky Translation (Vintage Classics)
Greene, The Power and the Glory
Wharton, The Age of Innocence (Norton Critical Edition)
Students should also expect to purchase a few paperback titles at my discretion.
Suggested Reading
Stanley Fish, How to Write a Sentence
E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel
David Mikics, Slow Reading in a Hurried Age
Francine Prose, Reading like a Writer
James Wood, How Fiction Works
“... one cannot read a book: one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a rereader. And I shall tell you why. When we read a book for the first time the very process of laboriously moving our eyes from left to right, line after line, page after page, this complicated physical work upon the book, the very process of learning in terms of space and time what the book is about, this stands between us and artistic appreciation. When we look at a painting we do no have to move our eyes in a special way even if, as in a book, the picture contains elements of depth and development. The element of time does not really enter in a first contact with a painting. In reading a book, we must have time to acquaint ourselves with it. We have no physical organ (as we have the eye in regard to a painting) that takes in the whole picture and can enjoy its details. But at a second, or third, or fourth reading we do, in a sense, behave towards a book as we do towards a painting. However, let us not confuse the physical eye, that monstrous achievement of evolution, with the mind, an even more monstrous achievement. A book, no matter what it is - a work of fiction or a work of science (the boundary line between the two is not as clear as is generally believed) - a book of fiction appeals first of all to the mind. The mind, the brain, the top of the tingling spine, is, or should be, the only instrument used upon a book.”
- Nabokov, Lectures on Literature
Below are 5 of my annotated pages from various texts and 1 of David Foster Wallace's copy of DeLillo's Players. The pages of the texts that you will be working with most closely should look just like these.
Due Dates
Wednesday, January 7 – Come to class having read the entirety of the text
Monday, January 12 -- Topic for Writing #1
Friday, January 23 -- In-class poetry analysis
Wednesday, January 28 -- Creative writing assignment due
Monday, February 2 – Final Draft of Pilot Essay, hard copy in class and to turnitin.com by 8am
Friday, February 20 -- Othello Speech Analysis
Wednesday, February 25 - Othello, in-class verse analysis
Tuesday, March 10 - Annotated Bibliography #1
Monday, March 23 - Annotated Bibliography #2
Monday, March 30 - Annotated Bibliography #3
Wednesday, April 1 - In-class verse analysis
Wednesday, April 8 - In-class, open-ended essay
Tuesday, April 7 - Thesis/Outline
Monday, April 27 - Final research essay
Your research text selections.
General Literary Terms
allegory, allusion, anachronism, arete, bildungsroman, canon, characterization, chiasmus, close reading, conceit, diction, epiphany, epistolary novel, fable, fabliaux, frame narrative, genre, irony, leit-motif, metafiction, mood, motif, novel, novella, poetry, prose, satire, tone, verisimilitude, verse
Elements of Fiction
character, climax, conflict, denouement, dialogue, dynamic character, foil, narration, plot, point of view, suspense, tension, unity, unreliable narrator
Poetic Terms
alexandrine, alliteration, anapest, apostrophe, assonance, ballad, blank verse, caesura, canticle, canto, carpe diem, consonance, contrapasso, couplet, dactyll, elegy, end rhyme, english sonnet, enjambment, epic, epic simile, free verse, half rhyme, heroic couplet, imagery, in medias res, internal rhyme, lyric, metaphysical, meter, ode, pastoral, pathetic fallacy, personification, prosody, quatrain, rhyme, slant rhyme, sonnet, sprung rhythm, stanza, terza rima, verse
Drama Lingo
blank verse, catastrophe, catharsis, chorus, comedy, deus ex machina, dialogue, drama, hamartia, hubris, metadrama, miasma, mimesis, monologue, peripeteia, stasimon, strophe, tragedy, tragic flaw, tragic hero
Rhetorical Devices
a priori, anadiplosis, anaphora, antithesis, apophasis, asyndeton, hyperbole, parallelism, parataxis, pathos, polysyndeton, procatalepsis, stychomythia, synesthesia
Figures of Speech
catachresis, euphemism, idiom, metaphor, metonymy, oxymoron, paradox, personification, simile, synecdoche, synesthesia
The College Board's official course description:
An AP English Literature and Composition course engages students in the careful reading and critical analysis of imaginative literature. Through the close reading of selected texts, students deepen their understanding of the ways writers use language to provide both meaning and pleasure for their readers. As they read, students consider a work’s structure, style and themes, as well as such smaller-scale elements as the use of figurative language, imagery, symbolism and tone.
Strake Jesuit's official course description:
In AP Lit & Comp. you will learn to read like an artist-critic, studying texts not only for their development of themes and cultural ideas but also for their technical mastery and innovations. How do writers employ language to create texts that engage their cultural moment and literary history in rich, often ambiguous ways? Why is first-person the right choice in A Farewell to Arms? Why so many disease images in Hamlet? What makes Joyce's sentences so terribly beautiful? You will read literature from a variety of genres and periods, always with an eye to unlocking its deeper mysteries. To read well you will first unlearn bad habits. No longer will quick reading, that nervous skim before class, do. No. You will learn to read slowly, to savor each sentence, each line, each paragraph or stanza for its multiple meanings, its suggestions, its silences. In time, you will learn the wisdom of Nabokov's remark that you can only re-read a book. Your writing assignments will be frequent and varied, from one-page response essays due the day of a reading, to longer, more formal essays of evaluation and analysis, to expository and creative pieces. Always, you will learn to sharpen your thinking and hone your writing, to give both an edge gained only by rethinking and rewriting. You will have conferences with me before and after essays are due. You will edit each other's essays for argument and style. And you will revise, revise, revise. This class offers an intensive reading experience and a full-on writing workshop.
If you do not mind (even if you do mind) bring in the Killgallon text on each day 5.