Othello & King Lear - A comparison

SHAKESPEARE; Othello & King Lear - A comparison

If Shakespeare was alive today it is certain that there

would be a lot written about him. We would read reviews of

his new plays in newspapers, articles about his poetry in

the literary papers, and gossip about his love life and his

taste in clothes splashed across the glossy magazines. His

views about everything under the sun, from the government to

kitchen furniture, would probably appear regularly in the

colour supplements. His face would be familiar on television

talk shows, his voice well-known from radio broadcasts.

There would be so much recorded evidence about his life and

his opinions that it would not be hard to write about him.

Shakespeare, however, lived some four hundred years ago

in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, when there was no tele-

vision or radio, nor even any newspapers as we know them

Othello Act I, Scene III - 'Most potent, grave and...

"A Bedchamber, Desdemona in Bed asleep", from Othe...

"Desdemona in bed asleep", from Othello (Act V, sc...

today. Although he was respected as an important person in

his own lifetime, nobody ever thought of writing about him

until well after his death. And Shakespeare did apparently

not believe in keeping a diary either. So it is largely by

luck that the little evidence we have, such as the entry of

his birth in the parish register, has survived at all.

And yet, by looking carefully at contemporary pictures, by

reading contemporary accounts, it is possible to get a good

idea of how the boy whose birth is recorded in the Stratford

register of 1654 grew up into the man who wrote such famous

plays still known all over the world, as we type.

Imagery used in Othello and King Lear.

In Othello and King Lear Shakespeare uses a lot of

imagery. The main image in Othello is that of animals in

action, preying upon one another, mischievous, lascivious,