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The language, style and the use of Symbolism in Othello
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literary analysis over the symbolism in othello
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Othello’s Diversity of Imagery
The diverse imagery found in Shakespeare’s drama Othello represents a world all by itself. And this world of imagery contributes to the prevailing sentiment of pain and suffering and unpleasantness.
There is no shortage of imagery in the play; this is for certain. Critic Caroline Spurgeon in “Shakespeare’s Imagery and What it Tells Us” sorts through the plethora of imagery in the play:
The main image in Othello is that of animals in action, preying upon one another, mischievous, lascivious, cruel or suffering, and through these, the general sense of pain and unpleasantness is much increased and kept constantly before us. More than half the animal images in the play are Iago’s, and all these are contemptuous or repellent: a plague of flies, a quarrelsome dog, the recurrent image of bird-snaring, leading asses by the nose, a spider catching a fly, beating an offenceless dog, wild cats, wolves, goats and monkeys.
To these Othello adds his pictures of foul toads breeding in a cistern, summer flies in the shambles, the ill-boding raven over the infected house, a toad in a dungeon, the monster ‘too hideous to be shown,’ bird-snaring again, aspics’ tongues, crocodiles’ tears, and his reiteration of goats and monkeys.’ In addition, [. . .] . (79)
The play’s imagery is oftentimes reflective of the fortunes of the protagonist. As the Moor’s status declines, the quality of the imagery in the play declines. In The Riverside Shakespeare Frank Kermode explains the relationship between imagery and Othello’s jealousy:
It is very important to see that Othello’s self-estimate – “one not easily jealious, but, being wrought, / Perplexed in the extreme” (V.ii.345-...
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...rizona Quarterly (Spring 1956), pp.5-16.
Kermode, Frank. “Othello, the Moor of Venice.” The Riverside Shakespeare. Ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1974.
Mack, Maynard. Everybody’s Shakespeare: Reflections Chiefly on the Tragedies. Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press, 1993.
Muir, Kenneth. Introduction. William Shakespeare: Othello. New York: Penguin Books, 1968.
Shakespeare, William. Othello. In The Electric Shakespeare. Princeton University. 1996. http://www.eiu.edu/~multilit/studyabroad/othello/othello_all.html No line nos.
Spurgeon, Caroline. “Shakespeare’s Imagery and What it Tells Us.” Shakespearean Tragedy. Ed. D. F. Bratchell. New York: Routledge, 1990.
Wilson, H. S. On the Design of Shakespearean Tragedy. Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1957.
The decision for Australia to adopt the Federal system was on the principle of which the State’s governments wanted to keep their power. For this reason there was the separation of powers between the newly formed Commonwealth government and the existing State governments. At a constitutional level, there are rulings in which the powers are separated, these rulings due to disputes have slightly changed since 1901. These changes all fell towards the one government, the Commonwealth (Federal) government. However this was not just a landslide event, the Constitution of Australia set up this imbalance of powers between the Commonwealth and State governments. We will explore this further in the points discussed later in this essay.
The Author to Her Book, by Emily Bradstreet is a poem in which Bradstreet is laments about the publishing of her writings without her permission. The purpose of the piece is for Bradstreet to express the love, pride and remorse she feels toward her new book and is displayed elegantly through the metaphor of a mother and child. Lines eleven and twelve contribute to the poem’s purpose; they show that Bradstreet is unsatisfied with her work, and desires to fix it. Unfortunately, the book has already been published, and it is too late for her “child” to attain perfection in its mother’s eyes.
Anne Bradstreet can be considered as a strong-willed but sensitive Puritan woman. Her poetry includes a combination of sarcasm and dispute against certain issues involving the unequal rights between men and women, and sentimental writings about her own emotions. She mostly writes about her feelings towards events going on in her personal life and not so much about politics or social phenomena. She did not write so as to put on a show or to be socially correct, but about her genuine feelings. She writes about being a woman and all the things that come with it, family, love, sorrow and seeking equality. She also incorporates her religious beliefs strongly in her poem as a driving force to reconciliation between herself and God. Anne Bradstreet was an eloquent poet who was able to convey her innermost feelings to the reader through various techniques and diction.
Anne Bradstreet is seen as a true poetic writer for the seventeenth century. She exhibits a strong Puritan voice and is one of the first notable poets to write English verse in the American colonies. Bradstreet’s work symbolizes both her Puritan and feminine ideals and appeals to a wide audience of readers. American Puritan culture was basically unstable, with various inchoate formations of social, political, and religious powers competing publicly. Her thoughts are usually on the reality surrounding her or images from the Bible. Bradstreet’s writing is that of her personal and Puritan life. Anne Bradstreet’s individualism lies in her choice of material rather than in her style.
It is not uncommon in the writing world to use poetic form to reflect inner meaning. Bradstreet did an exemplary job at showing the reader poetic content that was doubtful and a form that solidified her faith. During the time this poem was written, having doubts in one’s faith was considered taboo to talk about. Bradstreet showed her courageous and brave attitude when she decided to write about questioning her own beliefs. Even though she wrote this poem for herself, the courageous act of acknowledging her own doubts spoke for those Puritans who did not have the courage to. Since she had the strong poetic form reflecting her faith, this enabled her to write about her doubts in a better light. The poem shows that even in times of external peril, internal strength is what helps a person prevail.
Before coming directly to the forming of the love-theme that differentiates Othello from other Shakespeare plays that utilize the same theme, I turn arbitrarily to Iago to inspect a distinguishing mark of his of which the relevance to thematic form in the play will appear a little later. When Iago with unperceived scoffing reminds Roderigo, who is drawn with merciless attraction to the unreachable Desdemona, that love effects an unwonted nobility in men, he states a doctrine which he “knows” is true but in which he may not “believe.” Ennoblement by love is a real possibility in men, but Iago has to view it with bitterness and to try to undermine it. (333-34)
...e from her love to the world. Perhaps, she believed that in this love of her, she became God-like and God thus punishes her. Nevertheless, the presence of God in her poems is more than clear. Perhaps, it was due to religious beliefs that she though that it was wrong to feel too strong feelings to world and she considered herself to be a sinner who deserves punishment. Today, there are few followers of Bradstreet, but she, her ideas and her thoughts about sufferings still remain in modern books.
In Anne Bradstreet's poem "The Author to Her Book," the controlling metaphor is the image of a baby being born and cared for. This birth imagery expresses the complex attitude of the speaker by demonstrating that the speaker's low regard for her own work and her actions are contradictory.
Bradstreet was a Puritan and was therefore raised with a simplistic view of the world. This, combined with the fact that she was a woman, carried over into her way of writing. Her writing style was not eloquent but plain, humble, and pleasant to read. Her poems dealt with topics such as faith, family, and adversity and were easy to understand. Bradstreet had great faith which she gained through the experiences she encountered in life.
In the poems “The Author to Her Book” by Bradstreet and “The Road Not Taken” by Frost, the themes share a similarity of their speakers’ lives. While Bradstreet focused on the speaker’s writing, Frost based his poem on the speaker’s choices in life. The main focus of “The Author to Her Book” is the writing referred to as her “Book” in the title and the speaker as the “Author”. The narrator’s work of literature are compared to a child through several metaphors. Bradstreet began with “Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain, Who after birth didst by my side remain”(Bradstreet) to show how the speaker compared the literature as her “offspring” that she gave “birth” or actually wrote and like a helpless child, stayed with her to be cared for. Therefore the speaker would continually review her writings flaws or “ill-formed” behavior. Anne Bradstreet focused her poem on writing literature through the speaker’s perspective of the countless imperfections. Robert Frost’s theme of “The Road Not Taken” is vaguely similar with the speaker’s life as the main focus. The speaker goes on with his life till h...
In Anne Bradstreet’s colonial poem, “The Author to Her Child,” Bradstreet compares the idea of raising a child to be perfect to the writing and revising process of a book. Bradstreet uses a metaphysical conceit to compare the complexity of her role as a mother to the love of her book. This conflict is developed through series of events throughout the poem when Bradstreet conveys the tone through the complex metaphor of raising a child to perfecting a book.
In the opening stanza, Anne Bradstreet as the speaker in the poem addresses the concern that her largely male audience is likely to have is that they might think that she does not have the ability to write and that she might insult other poets or historians. She also claims that it is outside of her scope of work to express epic events and tales.
This poem is a firsthand account of how Anne Bradstreet was feeling when she experienced the loss of her granddaughter, Elizabeth. Although Bradstreet's attitude on Elizabeth's death seems to reflect her belief in God's plan, the diction suggests otherwise.
In all of Bradstreet’s works she is constantly expressing herself through her figurative language that whoever reads the poetry can’t help but sense the feelings through any piece. An...
Bradstreet, Anne. “The Prologue”, “The Author to Her Book”, “Before The Birth Of One Of