Language and Style—William Shakespeare
Abstract
Language and style drive our interest in a third take on drama. In a play, words do many things. They convey feelings and attitudes. They reveal character. They initiate events and effect action. We consider, next, how language—dialogue, specifically—does all these things simultaneously. Our text is an excerpt from Act IV, Scene iii of Shakespeare’s Othello . We listen to a revealing conversation between Othello’s wife Desdemona and Iago’s wife Emilia about adultery. We then hear the radically different language used by Iago and Othello as they talk about sex.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Shakespeare
Adaptation
and Literary Criticism
Renaissance Literature and Culture
Theatre and Performance Studies
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Routledge eBooks
- Pages
- 94–96
- Publication date
- 11 March 2026
- Language
- EN
- Document type
- Book chapter