Study Hub

Study Guides

This pupil-friendly study guide includes a unit summary, clear notes, common mistakes, and quick questions with answers.

Back to Study HubBrowse Year 9 English Guides

Year 9 - English

'Othello' and Shakespeare's conventions of tragedy

'Othello'

Unit Summary

In this unit, pupils explore Shakespeare's 'Othello'. They start by learning about Aristotelian tragedy and how Shakespeare adapted it. They read long extracts from across the play, and consider the presentation of Othello, Iago and Desdemona. Finally, they look at key themes, such as jealousy.

Lesson Summary

You will learn to explore Shakespeare's structural conventions of tragedy in the play.

Key Notes

  • Shakespeare's tragedies, like many Jacobean tragedies, focus on the consequences of the disruption of social order
  • Elizabethan social order was based on ideas about creation from Genesis, where God gave everything a place in the world
  • Order, disorder and chaos are key themes and motifs. As civil order is disrupted, the natural world responds with chaos
  • The five-act structure tracks the downfall of a noble tragic hero, causing disorder and finally restoring order

Vocabulary To Learn

  • The Great Chain of Being: A hierarchy that Elizabethans believed God ordained for the earth.
  • Anagnorisis: A moment of insight where the tragic hero understands their circumstances.
  • Peripeteia: A pivotal action that changes the protagonist's fate from secure to vulnerable.
  • Disruption: A disturbance which interferes with the normal functioning of something.

Common Mistakes To Avoid

  • Shakespeare wrote only according to Aristotle's notion of tragedy.

3 Quick Questions (With Answers)

1. Explain this English learning goal in two key points.

Shakespeare's tragedies, like many Jacobean tragedies, focus on the consequences of the disruption of social order. Elizabethan social order was based on ideas about creation from Genesis, where God gave everything a place in the world.

2. Define this language term and use it in a sentence. 'The Great Chain of Being'

A hierarchy that Elizabethans believed God ordained for the earth.

3. Correct this common English misunderstanding.

Mistake: Shakespeare wrote only according to Aristotle's notion of tragedy. Correction: Shakespeare had his own beliefs about tragedy and combined them with Aristotle's ideas.

More Lessons In This Unit

Browse all guides in the Year 9 English guide library.