How Does Othello Rate? Essay -- GCSE Coursework Shakespeare Othello

How Does Othello Rate? Is this the best, the second-best, the worst of William Shakespeares tragedies? Where does it place in the lineup? Lets consider where it deserves to be and why in this essay. The play is so quotable consider Desdemonas opening lines before the Council of Venice My noble father, / I do see here a divided duty, or Othellos last words Killing myself, to die upon a kiss. Could the continuing reputation of Othello be attributed to the quotable ultimate form in which the Bard of Avon expressed his ideas? Robert B. Heilman says in The Role We Give Shakespeare If we use the word support, however, we do name a expressive style in which Shakespeare serves. It is the way of venerable texts whose authenticity has impressed itself on the human imagination he has said many things in what seems an ultimate form, and he is a fountainhead of course credit and universal center of allusion. A rose by any other name comes to the mouth as readily as Pride goeth before a fa ll, and seems no less wise. A quotable line is one that has shed its context and taken on independent life. Very significantly, Shakespeare scenes and character relationships have besides taken on independent life and have provided basic formulations upon which other writers rely. (24-25). Francis Ferguson in Two Worldviews Echo Each Other ranks the play Othello quite proud among the Bards tragedies Othello, written in 1604, is one of the masterpieces of Shakespeares tragic period. In splendor of language, and in the sheer power of the story, it belongs with the greatest. But some of its admirers realize it too savage. . . .(131) The Bards presentation of emotions, character, of good a... ...othing. Essays on Shakespeare. Ed. Gerald Chapman. Princeton, NJ Princeton University Press, 1965. Heilman, Robert B. The Role We Give Shakespeare. Essays on Shakespeare. Ed. Gerald Chapman. Princeton, NJ Princeton University Press, 1965. Levin, Harry. General Introduction. The Riversid e Shakespeare. Ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston Houghton Mifflin Co., 1974. Shakespeare, William. Othello. In The Electric Shakespeare. Princeton University. 1996. http//www.eiu.edu/multilit/studyabroad/othello/othello_all.html No line nos. Wright, Louis B. and Virginia A. LaMar. The Engaging Qualities of Othello. Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprint from Introduction to The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice by William Shakespeare. N. p. Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1957.