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LiteratureQuestions-.edited1.docxLiterature Questions
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Question One (1)
The Theme of Love Across Othello, The Moor of Venice, and Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare are presented differently. Though the characters are protagonists in both, they face different obstacles holding them back, and there is no hope for success. There is a need to resolve the conflicts between the parties to settle down.
On the contrary, the two thematic issues take different approaches, as presented by William Shakespeare in his two plays. The play Othello, the Moor of Venice is a dynamic play that opens when Othello, a heroic black military general, opts to appoint Cassio as chief lieutenant instead of Lago. That is where the downfall begins because Lago plans for his defeat by plotting a love affair between Desdemona and Cassio which he uses against Othello. So, in Othello, the couple was newly married, and they were plotted against as a result of jealousy and greed.
The same author does not present this point of view of love in Romeo and Juliet. in Romeo and Juliet, there is a disagreement between the families of the two lovers, Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet. The love between the two begins when the Montagues gatecrash a party organized by the Capulet. Juliet was to marry her father’s chosen bridegroom in the county of Paris. When the ceremony is being organized for Juliet to get married off, Romeo intercepts, and in that event, her cousin to Juliet dies. To bring back the relationship, Juliet is advised to fake her death, which happens. When Romeo discovers that Juliet is motionless, he also takes his life because he could not survive without Juliet. When Juliet now wakes and notices that Romeo is Dead, she decides to take her life; she would not survive without having Romeo around.
The love stories in these plays differ in many ways because, in Othello, no death has been involved that halt the relationship between Othello and Desdemona. Desdemona is lawfully married to Othella, but Lago chooses to use Desdemona only for the downfall of Othella. Shakespeare proves that love can be used against someone, and love can be manipulated and become blinding at some point. Characters in this play that best illustrate the blinding nature include; Desmond and Othello, Emilia and Lago, and Brabantio and Desdemona.
Lago takes Othello's love for Desdemona to his advantage but against Othello. Lago reveals that Othello had deceived her father about their marriage and that the father was coming for them. Since everything has been planned and taken care of, Othella finds himself in those situations that provide answers to his doubts. The questions he has are ever answered by a like-minded case, something that makes him conclude that he has been only taken for a ride by Desdemona; he feels that he has been abused. Later, Othello finds out that Desdemona is innocent, but this intricates another need to investigate the actions of Cassio and Desdemona. Lago uses Cassio's love for Bianca against him.
Lago and Roderigo also use the love of Brabantio to serve their means. Both Roderigo and Lago only want to get Othello in trouble. He says, "I am one sir, that comes to tell you, your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs…. O heaven, how got she out? Treason of the blood!" She is used only for their reason, and the plan is to have the love between Othella and Desdemona grow as cold as possible.
The ends of the two plays are tragic. The nature of tragedy matters, but it is still a tragedy. Othella ends up killing his wife, Desdemona, due to false love, which was just a trick used by Lago. In the same scenario, Emilia is murdered by Lago, for she reveals the betrayal behind the whole saga. This leads to regret from Othella, who notices that he had killed Desdemona for nothing. That leads to him also dying beside his wife, Desdemona.
The ending of this book could be similar to that of Romeo and Juliet, who was also caught up in a similar end to culminate the love they had been pushing for years. The difference is evident because, in Romeo and Juliet, the characters kill themselves at different times in a short period. Romeo finds Juliet in Pretense and thinks Juliet is dead, then decides to stab himself. Juliet woke up, found Romeo dead, and chose to follow the same path, stabbing herself. The tragedy in Othella involved violence, while this one did not involve violence. In Othella's disaster, the characters killed each other, then Othella killed himself.
In conclusion, the theme of love has been explored from different perspectives in the two plays. The first perspective is that of true love that the characters get obsessed with then leads to a tragic end. The other view explored true love and the role those around us play in the blossoming and rising of love issues. The people around us can manipulate and change the stories of love leading to conflicts between those who love each other (Levenson, & Shakespeare, 1987).
Question Two (2)
Many aspects are left out when adoptions are made, and originality is not maintained. Though the plot remains the same, with scenes coming at specific times, the modern movie adaptions of the Shakespearian drama, Othella has improvised different scenes. In Shakespearian English, they used Old English that was commonly spoken between the 5th Century to the mid- 12th Century. This language had a Germanic origin which started from the Ingvaeonic or Germanic Northern Sea. This language was a class of Anglo-Saxon.
A lot has changed if we compare the two movies, the one in 1995 and the one in 2018. The changes have been brought about by the improved Technology in this other movie and enhanced subject. There is no dramatic monologue that was in the previous film. In the 2018 movie, the characters speak modern English and are pursuing a specific goal. The old English has many Latin words like thou, thee, and thy. There was also a Scandinavian influence on the development of English.
Here, the movie begins at this point where the three is police attacking a grown-up man with allegations of peddling drugs. These allegations make the police commit a crime by killing the man, which should not have happened. This would mean that the person in charge was to resign. The protests of the blacks are what are contributing to this kind of pressure. In the original version, Racial prejudice is not brought out as strongly as in this book's current performance.
The styles used in the original play mainly were dramatic monologues. The characters mostly communicated to the audience on the Stage alone. This was brought out through recitation, and the characters took their time to make those recitations. In the 2018 production, there are no recitations, and it is a regular conversation in modern-day English. The characters have to present a couple of interviews, and Othella has to give several speeches in different instances.
The nature of war in the original version has been in the previous version is not as compared to the nature of war in the modern one. Here the lines of battle are different, then, it is the police versus the people. Especially the blacks, wars against drug and substance abuse, and war against the oppression of the black people. Something that is coming out is how this modern dram has narrowed down to this line of thought of fighting against racism and pressure on the blacks. We can see racism in operation because the blacks are being oppressed; the only opportunity they had for salvation is again being taken on for a ride by people who can not support the vision of Othella of having zero tolerance and zero racism.
Well, the effect of translation and adaptation to any text can always be huge, but we have just discussed a few of them in our previous paragraphs. Generally, translation may not maintain the language, meaning, and the styles that have been used originally. As we have discussed above, there is much lost in the event of translating and adopting that text.
Question Three (3)
Morphological Structure Difficulties
O! sir, content you; I follow him to serve my turn upon him; We cannot all be masters, nor all masters Cannot be indeed follow’d. You shall mark Many a duteous and knee -crooking knave, That, doting on his obsequious bondage, Wears out his time, much like his master’s ass, For nought but provender, and when he’s old, cashier’d; Whip me such honest knaves. Others there are Who, trimm’d in forms and visages of duty, Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves, And, throwing but shows of service on their lords, do well thrive by them, and when they have lin’d their coats Do themselves homage: these fellows have some soul; And such a one do I profess myself. For, sir, It is as sure as you are Roderigo, Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago: In following him, I follow but myself; Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty, But seeming so, for my peculiar end: For when my outward action doth demonstrate The native act and figure of my heart In compliment extern, ’tis not long after But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve For daws to peck at: I am not what I am
In the passage above, extracted from Othella, you notice something different, especially about the sentence structure. There is a change of word order in most of the highlighted sentences. There is also a wrong Subject-Verb- Agreement in sentences like "Were I the Moor, I would not be Lago.” The use of where instead of -was- in this sentence reshapes the meaning.
Difficulties in Understanding the Vivid Descriptions
’Zounds! Sir, you're robb’d; for shame, put on your gown; Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul; Even now, now, very now, an old black ram Is tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise! Awake the snorting citizens with the bell, Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you. Arise, I say
Encountering such a passage at first in Othella, I was like, this is not well placed. This was where the conflict was building up; the Lago had just approached the parents of Desdemona and told them the news of Othello moving out with their daughter without proper procedures. At first, I was confused, not knowing precisely what Zounds meant. Immediately there is a mention of robbed, and who is the robber? A black ram was stealing the white ewe. Such passages may challenge the first-time readers, who may not precisely understand what the author intended.
O heaven! How got she out? O, treason of the blood:
Fathers, from hence trust not your daughters’ minds
By what you see them act. Are there no charms
By which the property of youth and maidhood
May be abus’d? Have you not read, Roderigo,
Of some such thing (Page 8)
Above is another sampled passage that has been described vividly and may challenge the readers when understanding the meaning, yet the meaning is hidden in it. They continue discussing the act of her leaving the house unexpectedly. The connection between the truth and the lie they have is so tiny that they manage to convince the father of the daughter's failures.
Use of Old English Metaphors and Symbols may Prove Difficult
Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors,
My very noble and approved good masters,
That I have taken away this old man’s daughter,
It is most true; true, I have married her:
The very head and front of my offending
Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech,
And little bless’d with the soft phrase of peace;
For since these arms of mine had seven years’ pith,
Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used
Their dearest action in the tented field;
And little of this great world can I speak,
More than pertains to feats of broil and battle;
And therefore, little shall I grace my cause
Shakespeare utilized a figurative and symbolic language that would only be understood after digesting it several times. He uses such vocabulary to communicate in his plays. Many writers encounter challenges with vivid use of language. Though research has shown that over 74 million people have read his works worldwide, the same research has shown that the same people have had challenges in understanding his work, especially those encountering the work for the first time. As we conclude this part, Shakespeare has used fewer context word bounds that are considered more fluid, dynamic, and informal texts when presenting his work (Shakespeare, 1991).
A poll was undertaken in Lancaster, Barcelona; Joensuu showed what people like and dislike about the Shakespearian writings. The results almost agreed with what I had perceived and proven over time. Although most people loved the innovativeness, creativity, complexity, poetic eloquence, prestigiousness, realism, open adaptation, and location of the texts, some still had a negative feelings towards his work. Some people in the exact areas felt and disliked his overcomplication, pretentiousness, pedantic, archaic language difficulty, many characters, wordiness, and pronunciation changes. These are some of the difficulties encountered with Shakespearean writings.
Question Four (4)
I attended hamlet by Shakespeare by watching the play organized by Bob Jones University's Rode Heaver Auditorium cast in 2020. I noticed several elements of drama from the theatrical presentation; However, it was launching a classic play; there was advancement in Technology through the sets of equipment used to forecast the production.
The Stage: was in an auditorium with a capacity of 2,600 people, mainly used for concerts, opera, and drama series performances, as well as a living Gallery accompanied by other fine performances. It had one of the best-equipped collegiate stages in the Southeast. It was equipped with automatic contour curtains, a revolving stage orchestra pit, three separate stage elevators, and a giant turntable. It also had a scene shop, dressing rooms, storage docs, property rooms, and a large wardrobe for productions.
The audience: there is an essential aspect of drama. There are two types of audience they can be passive and active. This type of audience in this play was an engaged audience. The characters faced them while doing their recitations, and they would sometimes break into laughter whenever a character became comic.
Space is another element that makes drama realistic. Space comprises the area where the performance takes place and is used to communicate a specific meaning. The space where the action takes place in this play varies from the grave site, state house, and pastime area. Characters are transformed in different places, and together, they communicate a specific meaning.
Conflict: Conflict happens when a character cannot achieve a specific objective due to a particular obstacle along the way. The block may be either internal or external. Sometimes it may be between characters or between characters and their environment. The manifestation of conflict may be through physical, psychological, or verbal means. As dominated in the play, the battle of vengeance introduced in Hamlet is more psychological. This young prince seeks to avenge the death of his father, the King of Denmark.
Contrast is another element that presents the dissimilar or opposite so that they may highlight or stress the existing differences. Contrast is evident in many ways through the presentation of the themes, characters, settings, seasons, and times and elements present. The current King is contrasted from the previous one in that the current one is greedy and has exceptional attention to women, something that the other King had no regard for. He only loved his wife, and that is the Queen. The different settings can prove that Hamlet is not mad as supposed by the King.
Tension: is also another critical aspect of drama. It is a tension that brings about the issue of suspense, and suspense keeps the audience locked and intact, waiting for the characters' next move. After learning that the now-present King had a hand in the death of the King, there is tension whenever Hamlet appears on the scene. As the audience, we have no idea of his next move and action; that is tension.
Role and Character: Another critical aspect of having clear and well-illustrated parts of characters. Only one-character doubles roles here but the rest have well-defined and concrete roles that define precisely who and what role they play in the book (Radford, 2020).
Reference
Radford P. (2020). Hamlet. Bob Jones University
Shakespeare, W. (1991). Othello:[1622]. Oxford Text Archive Core Collection.
Levenson, J. L., & Shakespeare, W. (1987). Romeo and Juliet. Manchester University Press.
Shakespeare, W. (1991). Hamlet:[1604]. Oxford Text Archive Core Collection.
Styan, J. L. (1960). The elements of drama. Cambridge University Press.
