Critics

Question 1

O’Toole

Answer 1

-lago is the ‘Machiavellian villain’
-‘there is no Othello without lago’

Question 2

Raatzch

Answer 2

-the phonetic affinity between ‘ego’ and ‘lago’

Question 3

Anita Loomba

Answer 3

-when Shakespeare wrote the play, blackness was equated with lechery
-associated with hyper sexuality, beastiality and homosexuality
-Mandeville’s Travels described the ‘fiends of hell’ (blacks) coupling with a Babylonian woman to create ‘monsters’
-these stories morphed into non christians (usually darker skinned people) coupling with animals
-Jean Bodin suggested that ‘promiscuous coition of man and animals took place, wherefore the regions of Africa produce for us so many monsters’
-the black man in Othello is also implied to be the devil

Question 4

Mario Praz

Answer 4

lago ‘incensed by the public report that Othello has cuckolded him’ seeing ‘parallels in may cases of retaliation instanced by the
Italian novelle’

Question 5

John W. Draper

Answer 5

assembles evidence that Elizabethan notions of honour made the cuckold a universally despised figure - argues that lago is ‘attempting along conventional lines to vindicate his honour’

Question 6

‘Gentleman of Exeter’ (1790) ‘An Apology for the Character and Conduct of lago’

Answer 6

Argues that because lago has a good reputation, someone would have
noticed beforehand if he was really evil (btw lago is 28)