Othello...

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I just want to talk a little bit about why the heck Shakespeare keeps placing his plays in Venice? I am entirely confused on why this keeps coming up in his plays. He lived in England and maybe he visited Venice, but honestly he probably didn't. Why does he think he can keep placing these plays he writes in Venice? It's just interesting to me that this is his "preferable" place it seems.

Also, was Shakespeare racist? There's this "trend" where Moors and Jews keep showing up throughout his plays. But an interesting point that Dr. Way made in class was how we interpret "Moor" because the Moors in these plays can be many different people/races.

I wish I could get into Shakespeare's mind or simply ask him why he keeps including Moors and Jews and Venice in his plays. Is this significant to him? It's funny that we will never actually never know these things. We can only take educated guesses.

Random thoughts on Shakespeare's relevancy as I started reading Othello and all these things came up AGAIN.

What the heck... Shakespeare.

Also. Othello, what a play, right? I like to read for fun, and I like books, plays, or articles that interest me or teach me something. Othello was difficult for me to read because I felt I wasn't learning anything from the play.

Don't get me wrong, I think Othello brings up many good points to touch on, such as: Greed, Power, Race, Status, Jealousy, and some kind of evil personality. However, these were all touched on throughout the play, I still feel like it was difficult to learn something from it or to even teach a lesson from it to my future students.

So, could I teach Othello? What would my students learn from this play?
This is what I look for when reading Shakespeare's plays, and honestly I'm not sure. If anyone has an idea or advice to look for in this play, I'm totally open to opinions and thoughts.

In closing, Othello isn't my favorite. It didn't give me the spark I look for when reading Shakespeare's plays in relation to my future classroom.

However, that's just my simple opinion.


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