context

• set in the jacobean era
• Chain of being

  • Black people seen as lower on the chain of being than their white counterparts
  • Women lower than men
  • King and God at the very top
• Race

  • Black people seen as lascivious
  • Loomba - blacks and Muslims thought to be emotional and jealous
  • Often associated with witchcraft
  • Black people associated with the devil = darker skin
• Gender

  • Jacobean society was patriarchal
  • Women seen as objects - "I won his daughter"
• Religion

  • Battling the Turks seen as a religious war against Islam
  • Hellish language would have been shocking
  • Many believed black people couldn't be Christian as they were not aligned with God
  • Women untrustworthy because of Eve's sin
• The Renaissance man

  • Ideally self-controlled
• Venice

  • Cultural and trading hub
  • Women thought of as promiscuous
• Jealousy and chaos

  • Shakespeare's contemporaries had a fear of the return to chaos
  • Chaos was the undoing of God's creation, a return to darkness and a break in the chain of being
  • Jealousy seen as an illness
• Cuckoldry

  • Becoming a horned beast
  • A man's biggest fear
  • Young women captivated their husbands but also seen as a target by other men
• Tragedy

  • Tragic hero must have a high standing at the start - change in the heroe's fortune
  • Anagnorisis - moment of realisation
  • Catharsis
  • Unity of time and place
  • Jacobean tragedy revolved around an obsession with death, sexual desire and physical decay - sin associated with sexuality
• The Booke of Honour and Armes (William Segar) - among persons of reputation, Honour is preferred before life