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Othello criticism Flashcards

1
Q

Dolan (2001) on Othello

A

‘domestic tyrant who murders his wife on spurious grounds’

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2
Q

F.R Leavis (1937) on Othello

A

‘self-pride becomes stupidity, ferocious stupidity, an insane and self deceiving passion’

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3
Q

Swinburne (19th Century) on Othello

A

‘the noblest man of man’s making’

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4
Q

Bradley (1904) on Othello

A

‘the most romantic figure among Shakespeare’s heroes’

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5
Q

Bradley (1904) on Othello’s transformation

A

‘the fact that Othello was newly married makes his jealousy credible’

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6
Q

Fintan O’Toole (2000) on Othello’s transformation

A

‘Iago’s brilliance lies not in what he puts in Othello’s mind but in what he pulls out of it’

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7
Q

Bradley (1904) on Othello’s final speech

A

‘He is to save Desdemona from herself, not in hate but in honor; in honor, and also in love. His anger has passed; a boundless sorrow has taken its place’

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8
Q

T.S Eliot (20th Century) on Othello’s final speech

A

‘Endeavoring to escape reality, he has ceased to think about Desdemona, and he is thinking about himself’

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9
Q

T.S Eliot (20th Century) on Othello’s final speech

A

‘Othello succeeds in turning himself into a pathetic figure’

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10
Q

Coleridge (19th century) on Iago

A

‘a being next to the devil driven by motiveless malignity’

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11
Q

F.R Leavis (1937) on Iago

A

‘Iago is a mechanism necessary for precipitating the tragedy’

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12
Q

Dr Leah Scragg (1970) on Iago

A

‘an example of the typical stage Machiavel who personifies self-interest, hypocrisy, cunning’

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13
Q

Tennenhouse (1986) on Desdemona

A

‘Desdemona has to be destroyed because she is subversive’

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14
Q

Marilyn French (1982) on Desdemona

A

‘accepts her cultures dictom that she must be obedient to males and is self denying in the extreme when she dies’

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15
Q

Emma smith (2020) on Desdemona

A

‘she goes from being a person to being a prop.’

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16
Q

E.A.J Honigmann (20th century) on Iago

A

‘Despite his cleverness Iago 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’

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17
Q

Penny Gay (1998) on Emilia

A

‘Whereas Desdemona is a pathetic victim of circumstances, it is arguable that Emilia is the truly tragic female figure in this story: a more complex woman, whose death is brought about as much by her own inner conflicts of loyalty as by her psychopathic husband.’

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18
Q

Carol Thomas Neely (1985) on Emilia

A

‘She moves from tolerating men’s fancies to exploding them’.

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19
Q

Carol Thomas Neely (1985) on Roderigo

A

‘Roderigo… shows in exaggerated fashion the dangerous combination of romanticism and cynicism and the dissociation of love and sex which all the men share’.

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20
Q

Carol Thomas Neely (1985) on Brabantio

A

‘Brabantio shifts abruptly from protective affection for the chaste Desdemona… to physical revulsion from the sexuality revealed by her elopement’.

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21
Q

Carol Thomas Neely (1985) on Bianca

A

‘The play’s humanisation of her… underlines the folly of the male characters who see her as merely whore’.

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22
Q

Ania Loomba on Race

A

‘Othello is both a fantasy of interracial love and social tolerance’

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23
Q

Ania Loomba on Love

A

‘love and violence in the play are crucially cut up’

24
Q

Kirschbaum on Othello

A

‘Othello is “understandably human - but he is not greatly noble”’

25
Q

Caryl Phillips on the relationship between Desdemona and Othello

A

“Othello’s love of Desdemona is ‘the love of possession. She is a prize, a spoil of war”

26
Q

Caryl Phillips on Othello

A

“Othello feels constantly threatened and profoundly insecure”

27
Q

Ania Loomba (1998) on Race

A

“England was increasingly hostile to foreigners, both officially and at popular level.”

28
Q

Lisa Jardine (1983) on Desdemona

A

” Desdemona becomes a stereotype of female passivity”

29
Q

Fred West on Iago

A

“It is not sufficient to simply drape Iago in allegorical trappings and proclaim him Mister Evil. Such a limited view of Iago is an injustice to the complexity of his character”

30
Q

Andy Serkis (who played Iago in 2002) on Iago

A

“He is not the devil. He’s you or me being jealous and not being able to control our feelings”

31
Q

Ania Loomba

A

“Othello is a victim of racial beliefs precisely as he becomes an agent of misogynistic ones”

32
Q

Schlegel (1700s) on Othello

A

“Othello’s descent into murderous jealousy not a shocking reversal, but as the inevitable return to an innately barbarous man to his ostensibly uncivilised roots.”

33
Q

Bradley (1904) on Iago

A

“Evil has nowhere been portrayed with such mastery as in the character of Iago.”

34
Q

Raatzch on Iago

A

‘the phonetic affinity between ‘ego’ and ‘Iago’’

35
Q

John Quincy Adams on Race

A

‘black and white blood cannot be intermingled’

36
Q

Robert B. Heilman on Othello

A

‘the least heroic of Shakespeare’s tragic heroes’

37
Q

J.Wain on Love

A

Iago being ‘less than a complete human being because love had been left out of his composition’

38
Q

Bradley (1904) on Love

A

‘[Iago] was destroyed by the power that he attacked, the power of love; and he was destroyed by it because he could not understand it; and he could not understand it because it was not in him’

39
Q

Jameson on Desdemona

A

‘less quickness of intellect and less tendency to reflection than most of Shakespeare’s heroines’

40
Q

Heraud (1865) on Desdemona

A

‘there exists fiction in whatever is romantic. She suffers from illusion and loves to be deluded’

41
Q

W. H. Auden (1963) on Desdemona

A

‘In the ‘willow scene’, it ‘is as if she had suddenly realised that she had made a mésalliance and that the sort of man she ought to have married was someone of her own class and colour like Ludovico’

42
Q

Ania Loomba on Race

A

‘Women and blacks are the other in this play’

43
Q

Kirsch on Othello and jealousy

A

‘the tragedy of Othello is that he fails to love himself and this leads to his jealousy’

44
Q

Rogers on Iago and Love

A

“Suffering from repressed homosexuality” and “unknowingly views Desdemona as a rival for the love of Othello”

45
Q

Anderson on Iago

A

‘Shakespeare’s play raised questions about the correlation of our outer appearances and inner qualities’

46
Q

Bayley on Emilia

A

She is “The mouthpiece of repressed femininity”

47
Q

Bastin on Bianca

A

‘Bianca alters the essence of Othello. bringing a measure of humanity that gives depth to the narrative’

48
Q

Norris on Bianca

A

‘Bianca is also an allusion to the problematic status of women both in this period and today’

49
Q

Hall on Bianca

A

‘Bianca is a sexually free woman who is nevertheless pure in spirit’

50
Q

Ridley on Roderigo

A

‘He is a pathetic figure….trying to swim in a sea much too rough for him’

51
Q

Barker on Rodrigo

A

‘He goes to the devil with his eyes open, yet blindly’

52
Q

Kermode on Roderigo

A

“Iago’s deception of Rodrigo depends on the young man’s willingness to believe that Desdemona is sexually corruptible”

53
Q

Ruth Vanita on Desdemona

A

“Desdemona is ‘trapped in the predicament of being a woman’”

54
Q

S. N. Garner on Desdemona

A

“Her willingness to risk censure of her father and society is some measure of her capacity for love “

55
Q

Rebecca Warren on Brabantio

A

“wronged patriarch” “too selfishly materialistic”

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