Iago

Question 1

% of lines spoken by Iago in the play

Answer 1

43% (more than any other character)

Question 2

Synetic Theatre production

Answer 2

2010 - saw three characters play Iago simultaneously to demonstrate his duplicitous nature

Question 3

A.C. Bradley on Iago’s evil nature (2)

Answer 3

‘Evil has been nowhere else portrayed with such mastery’

‘almost destitute of humanity’

Question 4

Alexandra Melville on Iago’s honesty

Answer 4

‘Iago’s reputation for straightforward honesty is the foundation of his deceptions’

Question 5

Peter Hollands on Iago’s control of events

Answer 5

‘stage manager’

Question 6

A.C. Bradley on Iago’s unrelenting plotting (2)

Answer 6

‘Iago delivers blow on blow, never allowing his victim to recover from the confusion of the first shock’

‘the conflict advances without pauses and with accelerating speed to the catastrophe’

Question 7

A.C. Bradley on Iago’s luck (2)

Answer 7

‘The evil is almost irresistible, aided at every step by fortunate accidents and the innocent mistakes of its victims’

‘The skill of Iago was extraordinary but so was his good fortune’

Question 8

Sean McEvoy on the audience’s complicity

Answer 8

‘The audience becomes complicit in Iago’s intention and, like it or not, is soon involved in his vengeful plotting’

Question 9

Coleridge on why Othello’s kills Desdemona

Answer 9

‘Othello does not kill Desdemona in jealousy, but in a conviction forced on him by the almost superhuman art of Iago’

Question 10

Blake on Iago’s use of false information

Answer 10

‘he publishes doubt and calls in knowledge’

Question 11

A.C. Bradley on Iago’s control

Answer 11

‘mere puppets in his hands’

Question 12

Martin Wine on Iago and Shakespeare’s aligned intentions

Answer 12

Iago as a playwright with the same goal as Shakespeare – ‘to create the dramatic illusion of reality from mere words’

Question 13

Laurie Maguire on Iago’s use of information

Answer 13

‘Iago puts a wedge between words and facts, between language and reality, and then hands the power of interpretation to Othello’

Question 14

Laurie Maguire on the symbolism of the handkerchief

Answer 14

‘the handkerchief, woven anew with every story threaded into it, becomes an emblem for the way the narrative works in this play’

Question 15

A.W. Schlegel on Iago’s strengths and weaknesses

Answer 15

Iago only understands selfish emotions - which makes him adept at rousing the passions of Othello, yet unable to predict the actions of Emilia (who betrays him and admits her own part in the plot) or to see the truth of Desdemona’s love for Othello (not purely sexual)

Question 16

A.C. Bradley on Iago’s motives

Answer 16

Wants to be ‘the master of the General who has undervalued him and of the rival who has been preferred to him’

Question 17

Fred West on Iago’s motives

Answer 17

‘must now manipulate people and outwit his adversaries to demonstrate his superiority’

Question 18

Kiernan Ryan on Iago’s motives

Answer 18

It is ‘perverse to resist the evidence that Iago hates and destroys Othello essentially because he is black’ – suggests that continually calling him ‘The Moor’ exposes this racist attitude

Question 19

Arrigo Boito, wrote the libretto for Verdi’s Otello

Answer 19

‘Othello is Jealousy and Iago Envy’

Question 20

Orson Welles on Iago’s sexual nature

Answer 20

Argues that Iago must be impotent

Question 21

Freudian argument regarding Iago and Othello’s relationship

Answer 21

Delusional jealousy must involve an element of homosexual attraction – idea that Iago’s hatred of Othello comes from repressed desire for him

Question 22

G.K. Hunter on Iago’s motives

Answer 22

‘his motivations belong clearly enough to a recognisable human type’, refutes the idea that Iago is a ‘stage devil’

Question 23

Coleridge on Iago’s motives

Answer 23

‘the motive-hunting of motiveless malignity’

‘the passionless character of Iago’

Question 24

Robert Heilman on Iago’s motives

Answer 24

‘the hate is prior and a motive is then discovered’

Question 25

W.H. Auden on Iago’s motives

Answer 25

‘the joker in the pack’

Question 26

F.R. Leavis on Iago’s role

Answer 26

‘not much more than a necessary piece of dramatic mechanism’

Question 27

Thomas Rhymer on the implausibility of Iago’s character

Answer 27

Iago’s character is not plausible because no villain would be thought so honest by all the other characters

Question 28

Guy Hollands on Iago’s character development

Answer 28

‘Iago doesn’t change significantly in the course of the play’

Question 29

Daniel Stempel

Answer 29

Iago is a Machiavel

‘Iago, the champion of the absolute autonomy of the will, shows no remorse’

Question 30

Martin Rosenburg on Iago’s human nature

Answer 30

Interpretations of Iago as a symbol of evil or Satan ‘fail to do justice to Iago’s flesh and blood qualities…passions and frustrations’

Question 31

A.C. Bradley on the human qualities of Iago’s character (2)

Answer 31

Iago ‘though thoroughly selfish and unfeeling, was not by nature malignant’

‘traces of conscience, shame and humanity, though faint, are discernible’

Question 32

Fred West on Iago’s psychopathic nature (2)

Answer 32

‘moral blank’

‘complex psychopath. He does not regard his own actions as horrendously evil’

Question 33

Hervey Cleckley, psychiatrist

Answer 33

Iago ‘carried out his schemes of hate and treachery without adequate motivation in the ordinary sense’

Question 34

Warren on Iago’s destructive desires

Answer 34

‘revels in his ability to destroy’

Question 35

Hazlitt on Iago’s heartless nature

Answer 35

‘we only see the hollowness of his heart’

Question 36

William Empson on the use of the word honest

Answer 36

‘The fifty-two uses ofhonestandhonestyinOthelloare a very queer business’

Question 37

Cox on Iago’s luck

Answer 37

‘Lucky’ would be ‘more appropriate than honest’

Question 38

John McRae on Iago’s humanity

Answer 38

‘Iago is not the devil. He is supremely human’