Critics for Othello Flashcards
Coleridge
Iago’s ‘motiveless malignity’
Kott
Iago is a ‘diabolical stage manager’
Spielman
Iago’s ‘verbal flurries’
Marilyn French on Othello
‘Othello’s values are of aristocratic Venice’
Marilyn French on Othello and Iago
Othello ‘is as egotistical as his ensign [Iago]’
Lisa Jardine
‘Desdemona becomes a stereotype of female passivity’
Phillip Armstrong
When criticising the portrayal of Ophelia in Hamlet concludes that the ghost of patriarchy haunts the Renaissance stage
Michael Mangan on Iago
Iago liberates ‘the suppressed other’ which is also ‘a potential self of each of them’
‘Iago is not an embodiment of evil: he is an ambitious and sexually insecure young man who resents Cassio’s professional successes’
Lord Byron
Byron wrote of female courtesans ‘overstepping the modesty of marriage’ (AO3/AO5)
Bonnie Greer on jealousy
‘it is only Othello’s jealousy, not Iago’s hatred, that is the real tragedy’
AC Bradley versus FR Levis
Bradley favoured Othello, claiming him ‘the most romantic figure among Shakespearean heroes’
Whereas FR Levis argues that Othello is responsible for his hamartia
Michael Bristol on race and sex
‘Othello is a test of racial and sexual persecution’
Valarie Wayne on the handkerchief
The handkerchief is ‘an emblem of Desdemona’s body’
Honigam on manipulation
‘His humour seems to make him cleverer than his victims’
Valerie Wayne on Iago and misogyny
‘Iago is the presence of misogynistic discourse in the Renaissance’
