Othello Criticism

Question 1

“When we are reading…

Answer 1

…any of [Shakespeare’s] great criminal characters… we think not so much of the crimes which they commit as of the ambition, the aspiring spirit, the intellectual activity which prompts them to overleap those moral fences” - Charles Lamb

Question 2

“The character of Iago…

Answer 2

…is so conducted that he is from the first scene to the last hated and despised.” - Dr Samuel Johnson

Question 3

“Since his victims…

Answer 3

…lack humour, Iago appeals to us as more amusing: dramatic perspective compels us to see with his eyes and to share his ‘jokes’” - E.A.J Honigmann

Question 4

“Othello really is…

Answer 4

…we cannot doubt, the stoic-captain whose few words know their full sufficiency.” - F.R Leavis

Question 5

“Othello is a…

Answer 5

…victim of racial beliefs precisely because he becomes an agent of misogynist ones” - Ania Loomba

Question 6

“As a Moor…

Answer 6

…he is clearly presented as Other, but not necessarily an offensive Other; the qualifier noble Moor does not extricate him from the realm of the exotic, yet it undermines the perception of him as evil” -Elliott Butler-Evans

Question 7

“Tragedy, for Shakespeare…

Answer 7

…is the genre of uncompensated suffering.” - David Scott Kastan

Question 8

“Tragedy with Shakespeare…

Answer 8

…is concerned always with persons of ‘high degree’” - A.C Bradley

Question 9

“Emilia’s love…

Answer 9

…(of Desdemona) is Iago’s undoing” - E.A.J Honigmann

Question 10

“The English saw Venice…

Answer 10

…as a place for female deviance …female ‘openness’ was dangerous and immoral” - Ania Loomba

Question 11

“Othello is both…

Answer 11

…a fantasy of interracial love and social tolerance, and a nightmare of racial hatred and male violence.” - Ania Loomba

Question 12

“Because Othello is needed…

Answer 12

…in order to combat the Turks, the senate is willing to regard him as “more fair than black” but for Desdemona’s father such colour-blindness is not possible.” - Ania Loomba

Question 13

“[Cyprus] is an…

Answer 13

…uneasy middle ground between civilization, represented by ‘The City’ Venice and Desdemona, and ancient chaos, identified with the Turks, Iago and the savage origins of Othello himself.” David M. Zesmer

Question 14

“In short a…

Answer 14

…habit of self-approving self- dramatision is an essential element in Othello’s make-up” - F R Leavis

Question 15

“Although a wife herself…

Answer 15

…[Emilia] seems to mediate between wives and whores, between Desdemona and Bianca.” - James L Calderwood

Question 16

“Othello’s tragedy is…

Answer 16

…that …he is living the life of a chivalric warrior in a world run by money and self-interest.” - Sean McEvoy

Question 17

“Dramatic perspective can…

Answer 17

…even make us the villain’s accomplices: he confides in us, so we watch his plot unfolding from his point of view.” - E.A.J Honigmann

Question 18

“Othello’s nature is…

Answer 18

…all of one piece. His trust where he trusts is absolute. Hesitation is almost impossible to him.” - A.C. Bradley

Question 19

“Othello does not…

Answer 19

…Kill Desdemona in jealousy, but in a conviction forced upon him by the almost superhuman art of Iago” - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Question 20

“[Desdemona] is shown…

Answer 20

…to be so pure that she cannot conceive of the impurity Othello accuses her of, and so obedient that she goes to bed to be murdered” - Felicity Rosslyn

Question 21

“[Shakespeare] made the…

Answer 21

…bravest warrior onstage a woman (Desdemona)” - Joan Ozark Holmer