Othello criticism Flashcards
Dolan (2001) on Othello
‘domestic tyrant who murders his wife on spurious grounds’
F.R Leavis (1937) on Othello
‘self-pride becomes stupidity, ferocious stupidity, an insane and self deceiving passion’
Swinburne (19th Century) on Othello
‘the noblest man of man’s making’
Bradley (1904) on Othello
‘the most romantic figure among Shakespeare’s heroes’
Bradley (1904) on Othello’s transformation
‘the fact that Othello was newly married makes his jealousy credible’
Fintan O’Toole (2000) on Othello’s transformation
‘Iago’s brilliance lies not in what he puts in Othello’s mind but in what he pulls out of it’
Bradley (1904) on Othello’s final speech
‘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’
T.S Eliot (20th Century) on Othello’s final speech
‘Endeavouring to escape reality, he has ceased to think about Desdemona, and he is thinking about himself’
T.S Eliot (20th Century) on Othello’s final speech
‘Othello succeeds in turning himself into a pathetic figure’
Coleridge (19th century) on Iago
‘a being next to the devil driven by motiveless malignity’
F.R Leavis (1937) on Iago
‘Iago is a mechanism necessary for precipitating the tragedy’
Dr Leah Scragg (1970) on Iago
‘an example of the typical stage Machiavel who personifies self-interest, hypocrisy, cunning’
Tennenhouse (1986) on Desdemona
‘Desdemona has to be destroyed because she is subversive’
Marilyn French (1982) on Desdemona
‘accepts her cultures dictom that she must be obedient to males and is self denying in the extreme when she dies’
Emma smith (2020) on Desdemona
‘she goes from being a person to being a prop.’
E.A.J Honigmann (20th century) on Iago
‘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’
Penny Gay (1998) on Emilia
‘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.’
Carol Thomas Neely (1985) on Emilia
‘She moves from tolerating men’s fancies to exploding them’.
Carol Thomas Neely (1985) on Roderigo
‘Roderigo… shows in exaggerated fashion the dangerous combination of romanticism and cynicism and the dissociation of love and sex which all the men share’.
Carol Thomas Neely (1985) on Brabantio
‘Brabantio shifts abruptly from protective affection for the chaste Desdemona… to physical revulsion from the sexuality revealed by her elopement’.
Carol Thomas Neely (1985) on Bianca
‘The play’s humanisation of her… underlines the folly of the male characters who see her as merely whore’.
Ania Loomba on Race
‘Othello is both a fantasy of interracial love and social tolerance’
Ania Loomba on Love
‘love and violence in the play are crucially cut up’
Kirschbaum on Othello
‘Othello is “understandably human - but he is not greatly noble”’
Caryl Phillips on the relationship between Desdemona and Othello
“Othello’s love of Desdemona is ‘the love of possession. She is a prize, a spoil of war”
Caryl Phillips on Othello
“Othello feels constantly threatened and profoundly insecure”
Ania Loomba (1998) on Race
“England was increasingly hostile to foreigners, both officially and at popular level.”
Lisa Jardine (1983) on Desdemona
” Desdemona becomes a stereotype of female passivity”
Fred West on Iago
“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”
Andy Serkis (who played Iago in 2002) on Iago
“He is not the devil. He’s you or me being jealous and not being able to control our feelings”
Ania Loomba
“Othello is a victim of racial beliefs precisely as he becomes an agent of misogynistic ones”
Bradley (1904) on Iago
“Evil has nowhere been portrayed with such mastery as in the character of Iago.”
Raatzch on Iago
‘the phonetic affinity between ‘ego’ and ‘Iago’’
John Quincy Adams on Race
‘black and white blood cannot be intermingled’
Robert B. Heilman on Othello
‘the least heroic of Shakespeare’s tragic heroes’
J.Wain on Love
Iago being ‘less than a complete human being because love had been left out of his composition’
Bradley (1904) on Love
‘[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’
Jameson on Desdemona
‘less quickness of intellect and less tendency to reflection than most of Shakespeare’s heroines’
Heraud (1865) on Desdemona
‘there exists fiction in whatever is romantic. She suffers from illusion and loves to be deluded’
W. H. Auden (1963) on Desdemona
‘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’
Ania Loomba on Race
‘Women and blacks are the other in this play’
Kirsch on Othello and jealousy
‘the tragedy of Othello is that he fails to love himself and this leads to his jealousy’
Rogers on Iago and Love
“Suffering from repressed homosexuality” and “unknowingly views Desdemona as a rival for the love of Othello”
Anderson on Iago
‘Shakespeare’s play raised questions about the correlation of our outer appearances and inner qualities’
Bayley on Emilia
She is “The mouthpiece of repressed femininity”
Bastin on Bianca
‘Bianca alters the essence of Othello. bringing a measure of humanity that gives depth to the narrative’
Norris on Bianca
‘Bianca is also an allusion to the problematic status of women both in this period and today’
Hall on Bianca
‘Bianca is a sexually free woman who is nevertheless pure in spirit’
Ridley on Roderigo
‘He is a pathetic figure….trying to swim in a sea much too rough for him’
Barker on Rodrigo
‘He goes to the devil with his eyes open, yet blindly’
Kermode on Roderigo
“Iago’s deception of Rodrigo depends on the young man’s willingness to believe that Desdemona is sexually corruptible”
Ruth Vanita on Desdemona
“Desdemona is ‘trapped in the predicament of being a woman’”
S. N. Garner on Desdemona
“Her willingness to risk censure of her father and society is some measure of her capacity for love “
Rebecca Warren on Brabantio
“wronged patriarch” “too selfishly materialistic”
Thomas Rymer on Race
‘This may be a caution to all Maidens of quality who, without their parents’ consent, they run away with blackamoors’
A.C Bradley on Othello
“As tragic hero, merely a victim, he is blameless, honourable and romantic and thus his fall is entirely the fault of Iago, who colonises his mind.”
F.R Leavis on Othello
“Iago’s prompt success is not so much Iago’s diabolic intellect as Othello’s readiness to respond”
Veronika Walker on Cassio
“Cassio in the end seems to represent the better man. The higher sophisticate in Othello’s mind than his own self”
Solomon Plaatje on Race
Othello demonstrates to us that “nobility and valour, like depravity and cowardice, are not the monopoly of any colour”
John Knox on Women
Women are “weak, frail, impatient, feeble and foolish..”
S.N Garner on Desdemona
“Desdemona’s liveliness assertiveness, and sensuality are corroborated in her marrying Othello. The crucial fact of her marriage is not that she elopes, but that she, a white women, weds a black man”
Kiernan Ryan on Iago
‘The really disturbing thing about Iago is not that he’s an unfathomable psychopath, but that he’s pathologically normal and theatrically irresistible.’
Neville Coghill on Iago
‘Psychologically, Iago is a slighted man, powerfully possessed by hatred against a master who (as he thinks) has kept him down, and by envy for a man he despises who has been promoted over him.’
Nicholas Hytner on Iago
‘It’s quite clear that the reason Iago is able to do what he does to Othello is because Othello trusts him more completely than two men in civilian life would trust each other. It’s a given in the army; military life is based on loyalty and a code of honour amongst soldiers. Their bond of friendship and of mutual trust clearly goes back years. Of course, that’s why Iago feels betrayed, because he believes that seniority and length of service should be what determines promotion.’
Andrew McCulloch on Othello
‘And yet the tragedy is that…Desdemona will never have the chance to educate her husband out of the braying masculinity that is all he has ever known or needed…This is his tragedy. Quite simply, love could have made a whole man out of him.’
A.C Bradley on Desdemona
‘Desdemona is helplessly passive. She can do nothing whatever. She cannot retaliate even in speech; no, not even in silent feeling.’
Sam Mendes on Desdemona
‘Desdemona made a very specific decision to marry this man…You want someone with the courage of her convictions and the presence of mind to make that decision…That makes her in some ways extremely strong, an active participant in the drama, rather thanan insipid feeble girl.’
E.A.J Honigmann on Desdemona
“Desdemona is a ‘character who is misunderstood: by her father, Brabantio, who calls her a ‘maiden never bold’; by Iago, who thinks she must soon realise her folly in marrying Othello; by Roderigo, who thinks that she can be bought with presents; and by Cassio, who thinks she is indeed perfection.’”
E.A.J Honigmann on Emilia
‘fear of Iago, though not expressed explicitly, explains Emilia’s attitude as Shakespeare’s tragedy unfolds’.
Rebecca Warren on Cassio
‘We are forced to conclude that his worthiness outweighs his weakness’
Veronica Walker on Cassio
Cassio acts as a foil to Othello as his ‘treatment of women depicts a slovenly attitude with romance, one that thinks of women as more of a plaything or passing fancy; this is highly contrasted with Othello’s legitimate love and appreciation for women on the whole.’
Eamon Grennan on Bianca
‘Far from being the object men have made of her in their speech, her own verbal energy represents a danger to men’s sense of propriety and order in their world.’
A.C Bradley on Cassio
“Cassio is a true gentleman, with a natural gentleness and courtesy that stand out in the Venetian world, though they also leave him ill-prepared for Iago’s treachery.”
Harold Bloom (1998) on Cassio
“Shakespeare’s insight into human psychology is especially acute in his portrayal of Cassio, whose lamentation over his lost reputation reflects the essential role that honour plays in one’s self-concept and sense of purpose.”
F. R. Leavis (1937) on Cassio
“He (Cassio) remains curiously superficial, a man defined by his charming persona and military skill, but whose vanity and emotional volatility expose him to Iago’s manipulations.”
Thomas Rymer
“There was no instructive moral or poetic justice because Othello isn’t punished, so the ending is barbarous”
