critics Flashcards
kastan
tragedy reveals ‘emotional truths’
nuttall
shakespearean tragedy explores ‘tragic joy’ and ‘the pleasure of tragedy’
mack
the madness of a tragic hero ‘contains both punishment and insight’
coleridge (iago)
iago is driven by ‘motiveless malignity’ and is a being ‘next to devil’
coleridge (othello)
he puts des on a pedestal and
cannot cope with the notion that she is less than perfect
dr johnson
‘the character of Iago is so conducted that he is hated and despised from the first to the last’
auden (iago)
‘the joker of the pack’ and is a ‘practical joker of a peculiarly appalling kind’
rhymer (des)
des is a “fool” for marrying a “blackamoor” - othello is a cautionary tale about marrying against your parents’ wishes
honigmann (iago)
‘he has neither felt nor understood the
spiritual impulses that bind ordinary human beings together, loyalty, friendship, respect, compassion
– in a word, love’ and ‘emilia’s love (of des) is Iago’s undoing’
bradley (othello)
‘shakespeare deliberately raised othello to the highest standard of nobility in order to emphasise the publicity and the symbolic universality of his fall’ and he is a victim of Iago’s ‘irresistible force’
loomba (othello)
othello is a victim of racial beliefs precisely because he becomes an agent of misogynist ones
bradley (emilia)
her (emilia) handing over of the napkin was stupidity and nothing worse
tennenhouse (des)
desdemona’s smothering is an example of the silencing of the female political voice
phillips
othello’s love of des is the love of a possession - she is a prize, a spoilt of war
french (des)
des accepts her culture’s dictum that she must be obedient to males and is self-denying in the extreme when she dies
jardine (des)
des is ‘too knowing, too-dependent’ and that she becomes a stereotype of female passivity in the face of adversity
newman (des)
her desire is punished because it threatens a white male hegemony in which women cannot be desiring subjects
