IAGO CRITICS

Question 1

Samuel Johnson

Answer 1

• “The character of Iago is so conducted that he is from first scene to the last hated and despised”

Question 1

E.A.J Honigmann

Answer 1

• “Iago excels in short –term tactics, not in long-term strategy”
• “Despite his cleverness, he has neither felt nor understood the spiritual impulses that bind ordinary human beings together: loyalty, friendship, respect, compassion- in a word, love”
• “Dramatic perspective can even make us [Iago’s] accomplices: he confides in us, so we watch his plot unfolding from his point of view”
• Iago “enjoys a godlike sense of power”

Question 2

G.Wilson Knight

Answer 2

“Cynicism is the key to his mind and actions”

Question 3

A.C Bradley

Answer 3

Explores Iago’s humanity, hunts down his motives and admires his “intellect and will”

Question 4

Thomas Rhymer

Answer 4

Iago is “too villainous to be believed”

Question 5

F.R Leavis

Answer 5

Iago is “a mechanism necessary for precipitating the tragedy”

Question 6

Coleridge

Answer 6

• Iago has “the motive-hunting of a motiveless malignity”