OTHELLO’s SHAKESPEARE: LANGUAGE ANALYSIS
In Othello we can find both prose and verses. Prose is the form of speech used by common people
in Shakespearean drama. There is no rhythm or meter in the line. It is everyday language.
Shakespeare’s audiences would recognize the speech as their language. Normally, when a
character in a play speaks in prose, you know that he is a lower-class member of society. These are
characters such as criminals, servants, and pages. However, sometimes important characters can
speak in prose. Othellois a play
primarily concerned with language’s ability to conceal the truth, and the play’s style reflects the
duality of speech. Nevertheless, Shakespeare’s plays are driven by their characters and every
choice that’s made about words, structure and rhythm tells you something about the person, their
relationships, or their mood in that moment.
In Othello Iago makes remarkable use of prose and verse as he manipulates those around him.
Whether wishing to be seen as a respectable advisor, humble servant, or a common solider Iago is
a master chameleon of speech. His snakelike sliding in and out of speech patterns mirrors his
ability to camouflage his nature to best suit his purpose. Iago usually speaks in blank verse. Blank
verse contains no rhyme, but each line has an internal rhythm with a regular rhythmic pattern. The
pattern most favored by Shakespeare is iambic pentameter. Iambic pentameter is defined as a
ten-syllable line with the accent on every other syllable, beginning with the second one. The
rhythm of this pattern of speech is often compared to a beating heart. From the opening scene,
Iago uses language to manipulate others and disguise his true intentions. When Iago tells Roderigo
he is showing the audience just how duplicitous he is. Iago shifts registers depending on who he is
talking to: when he warns Brabanzio that Othello is having sex with his daughter, he uses coarse,
crass language. But when he is talking in asides to the audience directly, Iago uses poetic,
metaphoric language. This line suggests that Iago uses vulgarity more as a rhetorical device to
anger his listener, than because it truly expresses who he is. Iago’s facility with language reveals
his cunning and intelligence and makes his manipulation of Othello believable.
If Iago can manipulate language to get others to do what he wants, Othello is manipulated by
language. The style of Othello’s speech reflects how he is manipulated. Othello begins the play
speaking in a lofty register. Although he protests that war has made him ineloquent, he proves the
opposite as he accepts a mission against the Turks: However, as Othello descends into jealous
reveries, he begins repeating himself, as when he says, this repetition suggests that he is so
overwrought he has lost control of his words. He also may be repeating himself to convince
himself that what Iago says is true, and that murdering Desdemona is the only acceptable course
of action. Once Othello resolves to kill Desdemona, his speech becomes poetic again, heavy with a
sense of the inevitability of what he is about to do: He kisses the sleeping Desedemona, saying. As
Othello is always honest in his speech, he is unable to detect the dishonesty in Iago’s words and
emotions.
