"She has deceived her father, and may thee."--Brabantio to Othello

After DEAR time, we took a "pop" quiz. I put "pop" in quotes because had you done the homework from last night, this should have been an easy A. A lot of you are so apathetic about Shakespeare and I'm trying to figure out why. Is it because you can't figure out the language? Is it because it's structured as a play? Is it because you don't understand what's going on in terms of the drama? Most of the time, I think it's a matter of feeling overwhelmed with the language and not knowing what's going on. But as I told you yesterday, Shakespeare is the great equalizer. Everyone reading Shakespeare is a "first-time reader." I have read Othello many times by now, and each and every time I read, I interpret something differently or come across a new meaning I hadn't thought of before. That's the beauty of it. I hope you all find that as we read this play. In getting back to what I was saying, the "pop" quiz shouldn't have been a difficult one. As I breezed through the grades, I saw a lot of 100's and grades in the upper 90's which I was glad to see. For those of you who didn't do as well as you'd hoped, let this be a reminder to actually DO your homework. We don't assign homework just as "busy work." Homework is assigned so we can either move further along in the text we're reading or as an extension of what we had been working on in class so we can make sure you've mastered the concept. So bottom line, DO IT. It will benefit you in the long run. 

When we jumped back into the text, there was a lot going on. Brabantio insisted that Othello go see the Duke at once about him marrying Desdemona. Remember, this is his little girl and she just went and married herself to Venice's one and only biggest bad boy. He's not too happy. But what we come to find is that Othello has lived a rough life. Not only has he been in countless wars, but he was actually enslaved and then earned his freedom. Desdemona fell in love with his stories and thus, fell in love with him. And he, in turn, fell in love with her because she was the one person who really understood him. Perfect match, no?

Trouble is brewing. As soon as the Duke says it's okay for Desdemona to join Othello when he goes off to war, Brabantio gives Othello a chilling message: "She has deceived her father, and may thee." He tells Othello that she tricked him, so there's no telling that she may do the same to him. FORESHADOWING. We'll have to keep reading to see if this comes true or not. 

For tonight's homework, see if you can summarize the four chunks of Iago's soliloquy we'll be reading and watching a clip of tomorrow. This speech gives us an inside to Iago's mind and what motivates him to do the things he does.

DEETS:

In-class:

--DEAR

--"Pop" Translation Quiz

--Read and annotate Act 1, Scene 3

HW:

--Read and annotate Iago's soliloquy at the end of Scene 3