"Speak of me as I am, nothing extenuate,/ Nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak/ Of one that loved not wisely but too well."
~ Othello, Othello V.ii.340-342
2. Is the play a tragedy or comedy, a melodrama or a farce? If a comedy, is it primarily romantic or satiric? Does it mingle aspects of these types of drama? How important to experiencing the drama is the audience's awareness of the classification of the play?
This play is one hundred and ten percent tragedy. One of the characteristics of a tragedy is death, and even though they come at the end, you can still tell it's a tragedy before everyone gets stabbed. Basically, the whole play is Iago plotting, Cassio fighting, Roderigo whining, and Othello being ridiculously angry. It's nothing but drama - there's pretty much no way the plot could twist into something that concludes happily. Also, we see Othello's tragic flaw: his excessive love for Desdemona. If he hadn't loved her so much, he wouldn't have reacted so irrationally and strangled her to death. Then come the deaths - Cassio gets Roderigo, Othello strangles Desdemona, Iago stabbing Emilia, Othello stabbing Iago (although he doesn't die... he should have), and as the big finale, Othello committing suicide. The only hint of comic relief in the whole play is the punny clown who was involved for approximately .249 seconds. But he was mostly annoying. Hmm. Well, what it all comes down to is that the audience really didn't have to know it was a drama - they would find out in at least the first 10 minutes.
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