Friday, February 3, 2006

Reading

• Othello, Acts 4–5
• Queen Elizabeth I, “Edict Arranging for the Expulsion from England of Negroes and Blackamoors” (BC, 302)

Notes

We’ll continue thinking about stereotypes in Othello. How do various characters allow those stereotypes to influence their behavior? Is there any way for them to break out of the implicit and explicit expectations that others place on them? (But of special interest today will be the attitudes of the English toward minority groups.)

We’ll also begin to think about the way symbols work in the play by spending time on the infamous handkerchief.