Othello: An Academic Discourse.

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Othello: An Academic Discourse

Introduction: Shakespeare and His Continuing Value as a Writer

Shakespeare's works continue to promote intellectual discussion across all spectrums of academic discourse in schools and universities. The universality of his themes, such as jealousy, love and revenge manifest themselves in the excellently crafted play Othello. The text reveals that such themes transcend time and culture, yet can provide particular insights in to the play's reception in a historical context; 400 years after initially being composed, it contains issues of inequality relating to class, race and gender which continue to be the focus of modern literary discourse. By overlaying such frameworks onto the text, modern audiences are able to evaluate the extent to which values have changed or remained static despite said contexts. One of theatre's key functions is to serve as a cultural artefact, which replicates or challenges the values of the time in which it was composed. Othello achieves this by strongly reflecting and indeed challenging the social attitudes of the time, particularly in relation to gender and race. The analyses of Othello that are contained within this volume demonstrate the multi-faceted nature of the text. Each reading is imbued with its own