Context — Othello — Eduqas GCSE English Literature C720
Eduqas GCSE English Literature · C720
Context
Introduction
What you need to know
The background that helps a reading of Othello: Venice and Cyprus at war with the Ottoman Turks, a Black general in a white Christian state,
how Shakespeare's audiences saw Moors and Black Africans, a daughter's duty in marriage, and the play's source and date.
Context earns no marks of its own in this exam, so use it only in a phrase that sharpens a point about the play.
When the play was written and first seen: around 1603 to 1604, acted at court on 1 November 1604 with Richard Burbage as Othello, and printed in a 1622 quarto and the 1623 First Folio.
Venice and Cyprus: a rich trading republic that hired soldiers to fight its wars, and the island it held against the Ottoman Turks until Famagusta fell in 1571, so Shakespeare's first audiences knew the Turks had really taken Cyprus.
Moors and Black Africans in Shakespeare's England: the Moroccan ambassador's six months at Elizabeth I's court in 1600, the Black people living in England at the time, the Queen's letters of 1596 and proclamation of 1601 seeking to have some deported, and beliefs that linked dark skin with sin and devils.
Shakespeare's source, Cinthio's Italian story of 1565, in which only Disdemona is named, the ensign desires her, and the Moor and the ensign kill her together.
A daughter's duty to obey her father in marriage, and a husband's honour bound up in his wife's faithfulness.
How to use context in an Eduqas answer: no marks are given for it in the Shakespeare section, so a brief mention earns credit only where it supports an interpretation, never as a separate paragraph.
Eduqas's Shakespeare questions don't mark context: the extract question (15 marks) and the whole-play essay (20 marks, plus 5 for spelling, punctuation, vocabulary and sentence structures) both mark response and analysis of language, form and structure (AO1 and AO2). Use context only in a phrase that supports an interpretation, and say which question each worked paragraph practises.
