Othello critical quotes Flashcards
(19 cards)
LEAVIS: Othello/Iago
LEAVIS: The mind that undoes him is not Iago’s but his own.
PHILLIPS: Othello
PHILLIPS: Othello feels constantly threatened and profoundly insecure.
ELIOT: Othello
ELIOT: Othello is a terrible exposure of human weakness.
GREER: Othello/Iago
GREER: Othello’s jealousy, not Iago’s hatred, that is the real tragedy.
HONIGMANN: Iago (short)
HONIGMANN: Iago has a godlike sense of power.
BROWN: Iago
BROWN: An audience that believed in devils might see Iago as someone working in close allegiance to an evil power.
PHILLIPS: Desdemona
PHILLIPS: Desdemona is the love of a possession. She is a prize, a spoil of war.
JARDINE: Desdemona
JARDINE: Desdemona is a stereotype of female passivity.
BRADLEY: Desdemona
BRADLEY: Desdemona’s loyalty is her most distinctive quality. Though it leads to her death, she is consistent in her devotion to Othello, to the point of worship.
AUDEN: Iago
AUDEN: Practical joker of a peculiarly appalling kind.
ANDY SERKIS: Iago
SERKIS (played Iago in 2002): He is not the devil. He’s you or me being jealous and not being able to control our feelings.
FREUDIAN: Iago
FREUDIAN: Iago’s pain and distrust is caused by his repressed homosexual desire for Othello that is completely unrequited.
HONIGMANN: Iago
HONIGMANN: Since his victims lack humour, Iago appeals to us as more amusing.
HONIGMANN: Emilia
Emilia’s love (of Desdemona) is Iago’s undoing.
LOOMBA: Othello
Othello is a victim of racial beliefs precisely because he becomes an agent of misogynist ones.
LOOMBA: Othello (short)
(Othello has) a capacity for tenderness as well as a propensity to violence
LOOMBA: Venice
Venetian civility has been built by letting in the very foreigners who now threaten to undermine it
WARREN: Cassio
Cassio is a puppet in Iago’s hands
BRADLEY: Cassio
There is something very loveable about Cassio… we trust him absolutely to never pervert the truth.
