Monday, October 15, 2007

Othello

I just got done reading Othello again. It's probably the play that horrified me the most when I first read it. Desdemona's plight - pleading her case - without understanding the charges - her testimony totally discounted - is a nightmare.

People say that Shakespeare wrote his plays in blank verse. True - but not the whole truth! As discussed here by a director, good chunks of Othello are in prose, and sometimes there are runs of rhyming lines.

We are left to imagine reasons for this inconsistency, which is characteristic of his plays.

He left lots of quotes
But not a damn note
On why, when immersed
In blankety verse,
He'd switch to compose
Some passage in prose,
Or even, at times,
Bust out the rhymes.

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