奧賽羅
维基百科，自由的百科全书
《Othello: The Moor of Venice》是莎士比亞大約於1603年所寫作的一齣悲劇。目前所知這齣戲最早於1604年11月1日在倫敦的 Whitehall Palace 首演。
目录 |
[编辑] Synopsis
Othello, a Moor who has just eloped with the fair Desdemona when the play opens, leaves Venice to command the Venetian armies against the Turks on the island of Cyprus, accompanied by his new wife and his lieutenant, Cassio. When they arrive, they find that the weather has destroyed the Turkish fleet. Iago, a standard bearer, repeatedly tries to undo Cassio, finally succeeding when he plants Desdemona's handkerchief on Cassio, managing to convince Othello that his wife has been unfaithful with the lieutenant. Othello kills Desdemona out of jealousy, before Iago's wife eventually reveals that Desdemona's affair was but an invention of Iago's. Iago immediately kills his wife also, and Othello then commits suicide in grief. At the end, Iago is taken off to be tortured and executed.
[编辑] Source
The plot for Othello was developed from a story in Cinthio's collection, the Hecatommithi, which it follows closely. The only named character in Cinthio's story is "Disdemona", which means "unfortunate" in Greek; the other characters are identified only as "the standard-bearer", "the captain", and "the Moor". In the original, the standard-bearer lusts after Disdemona, and is spurred to revenge when she rejects him.
Shakespeare invented a new character, Roderigo, who pursues the Moor's wife and is killed while trying to murder the captain. Unlike Othello, the Moor in Cinthio's story never repents the murder of his wife, and both he and the standard-bearer escape Venice and are killed much later. Cinthio also drew a moral (which he placed in the mouth of the lady) that European women are unwise to marry the hot-blooded, uncontrollable males of other nations.
[编辑] Othello's race
Although the play is very much concerned with racial difference, the protagonist's specific race is not clearly indicated by Shakespeare. Othello is referred to as a "Moor"; for Elizabethan Englishmen, this term could refer to the Arabs of North Africa, or to the people we would now call "black" (that is, people of sub-Saharan African descent). In his other plays, Shakespeare had previously depicted an Arabic Moor (in The Merchant of Venice) and a black Moor (in Titus Andronicus). In Othello, however, the references to the character's physical features do not settle the question of which race Shakespeare envisaged (Othello's line "Haply for I am black" does not help, since 'black' could simply mean 'swarthy' for Elizabethans). Popular consensus among average readers and theatre directors today leans towards the "black" interpretation, and Arabic Othellos have been rare.
[编辑] Themes and tropes
[编辑] Signifier / Signified
Othello subverts traditional theatrical symbolism. A contemporary audience would have seen black skin as a sign of barbarism or satanism as Aaron is in Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus: a "swarth Cimmerian... of body's hue spotted, detested and abominable" (Titus Andronicus, Act II, scene iii, ll. 72-74). A white soldier would have been understood of honesty. Iago indeed actively tries to convince other characters that Othello is a "barbary horse" that "covers" Desdemona, or a "black ram", horned and animalistically "tupping" her (Act I, scene i, l. 108, ll. 85-86); and that he himself is truthful to a fault. In Othello, however, the black character is "noble" and Christian; and the white soldier is a scheming liar.
Othello thus constantly challenges the link between a physical signifier and what is signified by it. For example, Iago – whose job as standard-bearer is to hold a sign of loyalty to Othello – says, of pretending to like the Moor: "Though I do hate him as I do hell pains/ Yet for necessity of present life/ I must show out a flag and sign of love/ Which is indeed but sign" (Act I, scene i, ll. 151-154a). Desdemona, too, sees a distinction between signifier and signified, saying she "saw Othello's visage in his mind" – not in his actual face (Act I, scene iii, l. 247). The play thus argues that the relationship between signifier and signified is arbitrary; the plot itself hinging on the significance of an utterly "made-up" sign – a handkerchief made to signify infidelity.
When Iago tells him Desdemona is an adulteress, Othello cries "Her name, that was as fresh/ As Dian's visage, is now begrimed and black/ As mine own face" – leading to a suicidal conclusion: "If there be cords or knives/ Poison or fire, or suffocating streams/ I'll not endure it" (Act III, scene iii, ll. 383b-387a).
[编辑] White / Black
The most basic aspects of traditional Western symbology – that white signifies purity and black signifies evil – are thus repeatedly challenged in Othello. One example is in the character of Bianca. Her name in Italian means "white", yet, as Iago tells the audience, her name is again "but sign" of purity, as she is in fact "a huswife that by selling her desires buys herself bread and clothes" (Act IV, scene i, ll. 95-96). Ironically, just before Desdemona pleads with Othello that she is not a whore, Bianca too protests to an accuser that she is "no strumpet, but of life as honest/ As you that thus abuse me" (Act V, scene i, ll. 122-123)– leading the audience to realize that, just as with Desdemona, the only evidence anyone has that Bianca is a whore is Iago's word, and Cassio's (he calls her a "customer," whore {Act IV, scene i, l. 120}).
[编辑] Heaven / Hell
Heaven nevertheless remains a signifier of truth, and hell a signifier of misrepresentation in the play. The words thus recur frequently throughout Othello, as Othello struggles to join other signifiers to them: for example he says to an innocent Desdemona that "Heaven doth truly know that thou art false as hell". This shows strong contrasts between the two.
[编辑] Iago / Othello
Although the title suggests that the tragedy belongs primarily to Othello, Iago also plays an undeniably central role. For one, he speaks more lines than Othello. Also, it is Iago who manipulates all other characters at his will, trapping them in an intricate net of lies. Other critics, most notably in the later 20th century (after F. R. Leavis), have focused on Othello. Some argue that his honour is his undoing; others address the hints of instability in his person (in Act IV Scene i, for example, he falls "into an epilepsy").
[编辑] List of characters
Persons Represented:
- Duke of Venice.
- Brabantio, a Senator, father of Desdemona.
- Other Senators.
- Gratiano, Brother to Brabantio.
- Lodovico, Kinsman to Brabantio.
- Othello, a noble Moor, in the service of Venice.
- Cassio, his Florentine Lieutenant
- Iago, his Ancient, the antagonist of the play
- Roderigo, a Venetian Gentleman.
- Montano, Othello's predecessor in the government of Cyprus.
- Clown, Servant to Othello.
- Herald
- Desdemona, Daughter to Brabantio, and Wife to Othello.
- Emilia, Wife to Iago, maid to Desdemona.
- Bianca, Mistress to Cassio.
- Miscellaneous: Officers, Gentlemen, Messenger, Musicians, Herald, Sailor, Attendants, etc.
[编辑] 奧賽羅的表演型態
[编辑] 歌劇
“奧賽羅”是以下兩齣歌劇的來源：
[编辑] 電影
- See also Shakespeare on screen (Othello).
There have been several film adaptations of Othello. These include:
- Othello (1922) starring Emil Jannings. Silent. [1]
- The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice (1952) by Orson Welles [2]
- Отелло (1955), USSR, starring Sergei Bondarchuk, Irina Skobtseva, Andrei Popov. Directed by Sergei Yutkevich. See 《Отелло》在互联网电影数据库（IMDb）
- Othello (1965) starring Laurence Olivier, Maggie Smith, Frank Finlay, and Joyce Redman [3]
- Othello (1981) part of the BBC's complete works of William Shakespeare. Starring Anthony Hopkins and Bob Hoskins. [4]
- Otello (1986) A film version of Verdi's opera, starring Plácido Domingo, directed by Franco Zeffirelli. Won the BAFTA for foreign language film. [5]
- Othello (1995) starring Kenneth Branagh, Laurence Fishburne, and Irene Jacob. Directed by Oliver Parker. [6]
- Kaliyattam (1997), in Malayalam, a modern update, set in Kerala, starring Suresh Gopi as Othello, Lal as Iago, Manju Warrier as Desdemona, directed by Jayaraaj. [7]
- O (2001) a modern update, set in an American high school. Stars Mekhi Phifer, Julia Stiles, and Josh Hartnett [8]
- Othello (2001). TV film. A modern-day adaptation in modern English, in which Othello is the first black Commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police. Made for ITV by LWT. Scripted by Andrew Davies. Directed by Geoffrey Sax. Starring Eamonn Walker, Christopher Eccleston and Keeley Hawes. [9]
[编辑] 外部連結
- Othello Study Guide
- Othello – original text of the play from Project Gutenberg
- The Tragedie of Othello – HTML version of the above text
- Othello - Full text, chapter indexed play by William Shakespeare.
- Othello – Online, slightly modernized version of the text
- Slashdoc : Othello - Scholarly essays on Shakespeare's Othello
