Form & Language

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Form

Shakespeare wrote the play in both verse and prose, and employed other literary techniques such as metrical irregularities, incomplete and shared lines, enjambment, caesuras and stress reversals.

Verse and prose

The play is written in both verse and prose.
Verse is language that is rhythmically organised according to particular patterns of metre and the arrangement of lines.
Prose is language that is not constructed according to any measurable pattern and is not set out in lines, but can still have a rhythm.

Iambic pentameter

In the plays of Shakespeare’s time, verse was the conventional medium of all literature, including drama, and his plays all consist largely of blank (unrhymed) verse usually written in iambic pentameter (10 syllable lines).
The iambic pentameter is used because is seems to imitate most naturally the rhythm of spoken English.

Verse

Verse tends to be given to noble and royal characters, expressing romantic or elevated feelings, and at certain heightened moments, they use rhyming couplets.
These are also used at the ends of scenes to give them an air of finality—often sinister—or for spells, songs or some other special form of discourse.

Prose

Prose was generally reserved for characters of lower social status, for comic or domestic scenes, or to indicate secrecy or conspiracy (Iago and drunken Cassio communicate in prose, and Iago and Roderigo when plotting in Act 2, Scene 1).

Irregularities

The monotony of several hours of blank verse is avoided by metrical irregularities, incomplete and shared lines, enjambment, caesuras and stress reversals.
These all obscure the normal verse rhythm and give variety, so that the audience is usually not conscious of the play’s dialogue being mainly in verse.

Fluency

Characters who suddenly become less fluent, articulate or capable of speaking in a smooth rhythm are often undergoing emotional disturbance or rapid thinking.
This is particularly noticeable in Othello’s speech in Acts 3 and 4.

Language

Many different words and phrases are repeated throughout the play and paradoxes dominate the construction of language as well.

Duplicity

In a play dealing with duplicity, seeming and opposites, one would expect the language of Othello to contain elements of doubleness.
The word ‘double’ is itself used several times e.g. ‘double-damned’ (4.2.37).

Othello and Iago

Othello is sometimes called ‘the General’ and sometimes called ‘the Moor’, which draws attention to contrasting aspects of his character and the contradictory attitudes of others towards him.
As well as two Othellos, there are two Iagos, the ‘honest’ Iago and the behind-the-scenes dishonest one.

Paradoxes

Paradoxes therefore dominate the construction of language in the play.
For example, oxymoronic phrases show that paradox is built into the language of the play:
- ‘Divinity of hell!’ (2.3.340).
- ‘excellent wretch’ (3.3.90).
- ‘fair devil’ (3.3.481).
- ‘this sorrow’s heavenly’ (5.2.21).
- ‘an honourable murderer’ (5.2.291).
- and the on-going concept of ‘honest Iago’.

Innuendo

Iago is also deliberate in his use of sexual innuendos and double entendres, as with ‘soliciting’ at the end of Act 2, but presumably Cassio and Desdemona are not; Cassio asks that Emilia will ‘procure’ him some ‘access’ to Desdemona (3.1.35-6).
All the time Iago’s language is lascivious and sexual in nature.

Reiteration

Another group of words seem to dominate the play because of their constant reiteration include:
- 52 ‘honests’.
- 29 ‘lieutenants’,
- 25 ‘lies’ and ‘devils’
- Over 20 ‘beds’.

Form and content

Saying something many times gives it credibility, especially to the unsuspecting hearer, or it suggests an obsession.
Othello is very good at hearing the wrong thing throughout the play and exaggerates certain concepts he has heard.
Here, Shakespeare deliberately matches the form to the content.