OTHELLO - Critics Flashcards
McEvroy on consummation
‘Divesting them for bed then suddenly, swords out, &tilting one at other’s breasts in opposition bloody’
- love turns to violence on the marriage bed.
- interruption
McEvroy on love
‘Male chivalry opposes their crude, more destructive nature’
Tragedy is explored through ‘conflicting codes of love’ - BEGINNING
then - I understand the anger behind your words but not your words’
‘When Othello begins to be convinced by Iago that his wife has been unfaithful, his identity as a chivalric warrior - & reverts to male bond with Iago’
I loved her for the dangers she is passed - farewell speech
Bonnie Greer on Des & Othello
Des is young beautiful and Othello is old and black, shows how he objectifies her worth through his appearance - a ‘prize’
-> subsequent jealousy leads to tragedy
- eloquence - fragile soul
IF PROVE A LAWFUL PRIZE SHES YOURS FOREVER
Loomba in Othello
Othello becomes a victim of racist beliefs because he is an agent of
Misogynist ones
HA! WHEREFORE? - ha as if he has received proof
- startlingly and rash ????
‘Cold even like thy chastity’ ‘O cursed slave’
Location, skin & class adds up to nature itself : ‘the valiant of this warlike isle that so approve the moor’
‘Like the base Indian’
‘Black bestial and hideous with a propensity to violence’
- beginning scene - forced to get away from stereotypes
Leavis about Othello
No real anagnorisis despite his knowledge of mistake
The fact he tends to sentimentalise should cause us not to sentiment self-dramatisation
Speaks his last words as the fighting man who has done the state some service - tragedy is concentrated in this speech as it would not have been had he learnt through suffering
Rude am I in my speech vulnerability?
Colin Burrows tragedy
Those who want to see the bad bleed have a clear idea of what bad is
True in Iago- as Othello has promoted Cassio
- however his motive is unclear ‘will not speak a word’
McEvroy comparing tragedies
Shakespeare explores her power and language operates in relation to suffering
Aristotle, one plot one sufferer one place but Shakespeare includes interacting classes show how tragedy impacts all
CASSIO VS OTHELLO - TREATMENT OF BIANCA & DESDEMONA AFTER LOSING MILITARY STATUS
COLERIDGE on Iago
‘Being next to the devil’
Warnken about Othello
No mere puppet
Lie-
with her?
With her, on her
WH AUDEN Iago
Practical joker of most appealing kind
What’s he that says I play the villain
Charles lamb
We question the ambition/aspiring spirit which causes us to overleap these more these moral fences
Iago - from this line forward I’ll not speak a word
Honnigman - Iago (LINK to Simon Bubb)
‘Fellow feeling evoked through the complexity of his character
Dramatic perspective = sympathy - Simon bubb - more soliloquy- we can connect with Iago more than O
Enjoys a godlike sense of power
Mack’s views - tragedy and madness
Access of any passion
Allows for hero and buffoon
Gives unexplained insight and can say things usually criticise by society in madness ‘privileged’
Bradley - tragic hero
Story of one hero or two - story lead up to their bathetic decline so must before a conspicuous person
-> reason we should not feel sympathy for Othello as he insists on a dignity retained in death
.. who experiences a total reversal of fortune which would frighten an Medieval audience who may feel the plaything of an inscrutable power
-> Cassio now rules in Cyprus’s -> ‘affects whole nation’
Jenny NUTTAL
Pleasure is mild sat beside the thunderous term tragedy therefore we feel an awkwardness when our own morality is brought into question by experiencing pleasure
Are we glad when Othello learns the truth?
oxymoron, tragic joy
