Critical articles on othello. SparkNotes: Othello: Suggestions for Further Reading 2019-02-14

Perceptions of Race in Othello by Shakespeare

From this time forth I never will speak word. Emily Flynn In Shakespeare's play, Othello, the men hunt the women, as a human hunts animals in the wild. Some persons, more nice than wise, have thought this whole character unnatural, because his villainy is without a sufficient motive. But this love is destroyed as soon as jealousness enters into the mind of Othello. In fact, on this interpretation, Iago almost loves Othello, precisely because he has given his tormentor the opportunity to exercise his greatest talent and achieve his highest joy. Attacking the play as merely an unfortunate and implausible stage adaptation of the Italian prose tale from which its plot derives, Rymer argues that Othello ignores a number of key principles of dramatic composition, specifically the neoclassical prescription that a play ought to trace, in real time and a focused manner, the events of a single day in a single location.

Othello Essays

He recognizes no standard beyond himself; indeed, he hardly seems to grasp the reality of other people at all, save as tools, marks and dupes — always means, never ends. Instead of seeing literary criticism as solving a puzzle, it's better to view it as joining a conversation. With Iago as the predominant force that instigates Othello to see the unfaithfulness of his beautiful and youthful wife, Desdemona, with his preferred lieutenant, Michael Cassio. It is a play in which ocular proof comes from a mystical strawberry handkerchief rather than a ghost of. The key difference between comedy and tragedy is the ability to reconcile and tolerate the inevitable foibles of the human condition. Pairing a sustained reading of the formal and affective qualities of Othello with analysis alert to both discontinuities and consistencies in almost 400 years of critical and theatrical response to the play, Pechter demonstrates that the interpretive traditions that have grown up around Othello often say more about the preoccupations of their creators than about the play they purport to elucidate.

Othello: A Survey of Criticism :: Internet Shakespeare Editions

If the author fails finally to remove the puzzle from Iago, that is something he shares with every other commentator. Third, he cites his own cupidity in extracting money from Roderigo. What a contrast the character of Othello forms to that of Iago! Maybe he is an aspect of human character taken to an extreme and detached from everything else that is human. Iago the Character The factor which differentiates Othello from its greatest peers of tragedy is the role of its villain, Iago, more than anything else. Still, she honours the patriarchal dictum that, once married, the wife owes her husband the same respect and duty she had shown her father. Katherine Gleason As William Shakespeare's only truly Aristotelian tragedy, Othello has no subplot or comic relief, and, when originally performed, had little spectacle in the way of the set or action. The man exerts dominance and expects the woman to accept her submissive role in relation to his dominance.

Othello Literary Criticism

We see this in Othello, as it costs many of the characters their lives, because of a feeling false hope and manipulation, in the hope that what they wanted would be theirs. That came a wooing with you, and so many a time, When I have spoke of you dispraisingly, Hath ta'en your part, to have so much to do To bring him in? In addition to prompting a reassessment of Iago, the nineteenth-century view of Shakespeare's characters as expressions of fundamental truths about human nature stimulated a growing interest in Desdemona. Othello 1604 is widely regarded as one of S. She is his counterpart; and, like him, is almost sanctified in our eyes by her absolute unsuspiciousness, and holy entireness of love. Emilia does not express such opinions in the company of men.

Racism, misogyny and ‘motiveless malignity’ in Othello

The fact that they are obliged to elope makes the illicit nature of their relationship in the eyes of Venice immediately clear. Suggestions for Further Reading Bradbrook, Muriel C. All three women of the play are accused of prostitution and inappropriate sexual conduct, yet it appears that none of them are guilty. What he is doing in carrying out his plot is, accordingly, destroying those that remind him of his nagging lack, and he does this by relying on his strengths — his craftiness, coolness, and hardness. I shifted him away, And laid good 'scuse upon your ecstasy, Bade him. We will be able to best realize the tragic effect jealousy if we consider first the nature of the relation between Othello and Desdemona.

Coleridge’s famous critique of ‘Othello’ and Iago

However, Helen Gardner believed him to be 'a man of action and heroic in his deeds'. Whether this is actually the case will be explored later in these notes. God be wi' you; take mine office. Merely having Othello done away with would not have satisfied his craving to scheme against others. Mary Floyd-Wilson's English Ethnicity and Race in Early Modern Drama 2003 also understands early modern notions of ethnicity and race as unstable.

Othello: A Survey of Criticism :: Internet Shakespeare Editions

Using these views of Othello. A feminist critic might also claim that psychoanalytic criticism can't tell us much about Desdemona because Shakespeare doesn't give us access to her mental state. He not only takes a significant share in it but also gives immediate directions to most of the remaining characters of the play, especially to Othello, the noble Moor. As far is Othello is concerned, if he is tempted into conversation and interaction with his wife, then her overpowering sexuality will deter him from the right and inevitable course of action. Nay, when I have a suit, Wherein I mean to touch your love indeed, It shall be full of poise, and fearful to be granted. These are just some of the topics covered by the online articles opposite, and that take the literary criticism of Othello into new essay areas. Cornered, Iago produces the dream story: Cassio spoke in his sleep, embraced him, called him Desdemona, and cursed the Moor.

Perceptions of Race in Othello by Shakespeare

New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. If Othello had overheard it, it would have prevented the whole catastrophe; but then it would have spoiled the play. Othello has been a major focus of race critics as it is one of only two of Shakespeare's plays to feature a nonwhite character. Jealousy, when set upon a person who has already harboured inside them, it spreads. These conflicts are initiated by a sole character, Iago, for the most part. Such motives actuate other people, but in the case of Iago they seem wide of the mark. Yea, whilst he is still allowed to bear the divine image, it is too fiendish for his own steady view,—for the lonely gaze of a being next to devil, and only not quite devil,— and yet a char-acter which Shakspeare has attempted and executed, without disgust and without scandal! The extract presents a sustained attack by Coleridge on Shakespeare for his lack of.