Critical quotations Flashcards
Sanders
Othello’s psychological complexity and the tight focus on his relationships with Desdemona and Iago exert a ‘relentless emotional grip’ on the audience
G. R. Elliot
For many, this play is ‘the world’s supreme secular poem of “human love divine”‘. Othello is one of the greatest lovers in dramatic literature. The play exerts a hold on our emotions because of the intensity of the central couple’s emotions.
E. A. J. Honigmann - ‘Othello’ as a tragedy
claims Othello is ‘the most unbearably exciting’ of Shakespeare’s tragedies.
Caryl Phillips - Desdemona
Othello’s love of Desdemona ‘is the love of a possession. She is a prize, a spoil of war’
Caryl Phillips - Othello
has commented that Othello is “a man of action, not a thinker”.
Also suggets that his position is tenuous: “In his very first speech he subsconsciously acknowledges the social pressure he is under” as a black man in a white world when he makes references to his service to the state.
E. A. J. Honigmann - Iago
Believes Iago is a seductive character, who is able to get the audience to collude with him for a few reasons:
- Because his victims ‘lack humour, Iago appeals to us as more amusing’ than the other characters.
- Shakespeare’s ‘dramatic perspective compels us to see with his eyes, and to share his “jokes”.’
- ‘His humour also makes him seem cleverer than his victims’
Rymer - Desdemona (1697!)
Dismissed Desdemona as a ‘silly Woman’. He was offended by Desdemona’s conversation with Iago in Act2sc1, commenting that Desdemona was behaving like any ‘Countrey Kitchin-maid with her Sweet-heart’.
Othello’s psychological complexity and the tight focus on his relationships with Desdemona and Iago exert a ‘relentless emotional grip’ on the audience
Sanders
For many, this play is ‘the world’s supreme secular poem of “human love divine”‘. Othello is one of the greatest lovers in dramatic literature. The play exerts a hold on our emotions because of the intensity of the central couple’s emotions.
G. R. Elliot
claims Othello is ‘the most unbearably exciting’ of Shakespeare’s tragedies.
E. A. J. Honigmann - ‘Othello’ as a tragedy
Othello’s love of Desdemona ‘is the love of a possession. She is a prize, a spoil of war’
Caryl Phillips - Desdemona
has commented that Othello is “a man of action, not a thinker”.
Also suggets that his position is tenuous: “In his very first speech he subsconsciously acknowledges the social pressure he is under” as a black man in a white world when he makes references to his service to the state.
Caryl Phillips - Othello
Believes Iago is a seductive character, who is able to get the audience to collude with him for a few reasons:
- Because his victims ‘lack humour, Iago appeals to us as more amusing’ than the other characters.
- Shakespeare’s ‘dramatic perspective compels us to see with his eyes, and to share his “jokes”.’
- ‘His humour also makes him seem cleverer than his victims’
- ‘Dramatic perspective can even make us the villain’s accomplices: he confides in us’ - does he? how do we know that he is being honest?
E. A. J. Honigmann - Iago
Dismissed Desdemona as a ‘silly Woman’.
He was offended by Desdemona’s conversation with Iago in Act2sc1, commenting that Desdemona was behaving like any ‘Countrey Kitchin-maid with her Sweet-heart’.
Rymer - Desdemona (1697!)
Michael Long
Othello experiences a ‘collapse of the personality’
Michael Mangan - Othello
Othello is ‘simultaneously the civilised man and the babarian’
Michael Mangang - idealisation
- Othello’s ‘idealisations’ render him ‘vulnerable’
- this is because such highly constructed beliefs about women are ‘fragile and subject to collapse’
Neely - Desdemona
Desdemona represents a ‘middle-ground’ between ‘abstinence and lust’
Kott
‘Iago is a diabolical stage manager’
Bradley - Iago
‘Iago’s actions are those of a man who has been unjustly wronged’
A.C. Bradley - Iago
‘the almost superhuman art of Iago’
C. Phillips (probs Caryl)
‘Othello feels constantly threatened and profoundly insecure’
