Othello Critical Readings Flashcards
Loomba on why Othello is so easily manipulated
‘Iago’s machinations are effective because Othello is predisposed to believing his pronouncements about the inherent duplicity of women, and the necessary fragility of an ‘unnatural’ relationship between a young, white, well-born woman and an older black soldier.’
Honigmann on Iago’s role in the play
‘He is the play’s chief humourist.’
Dhillon on virtuous characters
‘Virtuous characters, by their very nature, are too credulous, trusting and unsuspecting, whereas the villains are so extremely wary.’
Dhillon on villains
‘Villains are generally subtle and
ingenious, excellent role players and actors..’
‘The villains pursue their ambitious projects with a cynical indifference to what anyone else thinks. They are fixated on themselves as the centre of the universe (Charney xii). Shakespeare’s villains are arbitrary and irrational in the pursuit of their wills, as if they need to consult with no one else among their many counsellors.’
‘Reject all arguments to the contrary.’
Loomba on black stereotypes
‘Godless, bestial and hideous, fit only to be saved.’
‘Propensity to violence.’
Honigmann on the relationship between Iago and the audience
‘There is much to be said on both sides. In the theatre our reactions are unlikely to remain the same ‘from the first scene to the last’; they fluctuate, and may come close to sympathizing with a villain. Dramatic perspective can even make us the villain’s accomplices: he confides in us, so we watch his plot unfolding from his point of view.’
Honigmann on Iago’s undoing
‘He has neither felt nor understood
the spiritual impulses that bind ordinary human beings together, loyalty, friendship, respect, compassion – in a word, love. Emilia’s love (of Desdemona) is Iago’s undoing.’
Leavis on Othello’s death
‘The final blow is as real as the blow it re-enacts, and the histrionic intent symbolically affirms the reality: Othello dies belonging to the world of action in which his true part lay.’
Leavis’ pathetic quote
‘The noble Othello is now seen as tragically pathetic, and he sees himself as pathetic too.’
Leavis’ learning quote
‘The tragedy doesn’t involve the idea of the hero’s learning through suffering.’
Loomba on a tolerant society or a warning
‘Did the play make the case for a tolerant society, or did it issue a warning not only to disobedient daughters but also to ‘open societies’ who let in outsiders, especially black ones?’
Kastan on the reasons behind tragedy
‘Human error or capricious fate? Is the catastrophe a just, if appalling, retribution, or an arbitrary destiny reflecting the indifference, or, worse, the malignity of the heavens?’
Kastan on Shakespearian tragedy
‘Tragedy, for Shakespeare, is the genre of uncompensated suffering.’
Kastan on the truth of tragedies
‘The emotional truth of the struggle rather than the metaphysical truth of the worldview that is at the centre of these plays.’
Berry on Emilia’s motives
Suggests that she shares Iago’s resentment of class and that this motivates her reticence with Iago.
Berger on Emilia’s motives
‘One of the motives imaginable for Emilia is a socially coded pleasure in watching ones better’s misbehave and suffer.’
Honigmann on Emilia’s attitudes
‘Fear of Iago, though not expressed explicitly, explains Emilia’s attitude as Shakespeare’s tragedy unfolds.’
Abraham on Emilia
‘Prey to the dominant ideology of wifely virtue.’
Nuttall and the Nietzschean oxymoron
‘Tragic joy.’
Mack quote about Cassandra that can be applied to Desdemona
‘She is doomed to know…she is doomed
never to be believed.’
Mack on the truth
‘Can convey it only through poetry.’ (willow song).
Mack quote about Hamlet’s madness that can be applied to Othello
‘The guise of the madman.’
Mack’s adage
‘Quos vult perdere Jupiter dementat prius’ (Those whom Jupiter wishes to destroy, he first drives mad)
Mack on the dramatic relevance of madness.
‘It was arresting in itself, and it allowed the combination in a single figure of tragic hero and buffoon, to whom could be accorded the licence of the allowed fool in speech and action.’
Jardine on Desdemona
Becomes the face of ‘female passivity.’
Thomas on Emilia and Desdemona
‘Emilia is a foil to Desdemona and corrects her occasional naivety.’
Djungdjung on Iago’s motives
‘Detachment from his emotions raises another question… whether Iago is truthful in revealing his motives.’
‘Ambiguity of his motives do not logically correspond to his actions.’
Coleridge on Iago
‘Motiveless malignity.’
Dugger on Iago’s motives
‘Othello has broken his homosocial bonds and must now pay for his crime.’
Bradley on death in tragedy
‘No play at the end of which the hero remains alive is, in the full Shakespearean sense, a tragedy.’
Bradley on suffering in tragedy
‘The suffering and calamity are, moreover, exceptional. They befall a conspicuous person. They are themselves of some striking kind. They are also, as a rule, unexpected, and contrasted with previous happiness or glory.’
‘Generally extending far and wide beyond him, so as to make the whole scene a scene of woe.’
Bradley on positions of seniority in tragedy
‘The consciousness of his high position never leaves him. At the end, when he is determined to live no longer, he is as anxious as Hamlet not to be misjudged by the great world, and his last speech begins.’
Haque on Othello’s death
Othello has not committed suicide; indeed, he is murdered by the instigator or a social
agent named Iago!
Hyman on cuckolding
An indirect form of homosexual intimacy because it is ‘two men symbolically uniting sexually by sharing the body of the same woman.’
