Othello - Critical Quotes

Question 1

Ot (pos) Johnson 1765

Answer 1

‘fiery openness of Othello, magnanimous artless and credulous’

Question 2

Ot (pos) Dowden 1889 (2)

Answer 2

‘free and lordly creature’; ‘blinding sandstorm of his own passion’

Question 3

Ot (pos) A. C. Bradley 1918 (2)

Answer 3

‘most romantic figure among Shakespeare’s heroes’; ‘savage passions’

Question 4

Ot (neg) T S Eliot

Answer 4

‘a terrible exposure of human weakness’

Question 5

Ot (neg) Liz Lewis

Answer 5

‘Iago’s manipulation of Othello…occurs only because of the views of women the Moor already possessed’

Question 6

Ot (neg) F R Leavis

Answer 6

‘the tragic protagonist was responsible for his own downfall’

Question 7

Ia (mot mal) S T Coleridge 1835

Answer 7

‘motiveless malignity’

Question 8

Ia (mot mal) E E Stoll 1940

Answer 8

‘he is Satan, though without a God’

Question 9

Ia (audience) E E Stoll 1940

Answer 9

‘we both start at the danger and are also impressed by the confidence the dishonest man inspires’

Question 10

Ia (audience) E A J Honigman (3)

Answer 10

‘make[s] us the villain’s accomplice’ - ‘he confides in us’ - ‘the play’s chief humourist’

Question 11

Ia (audience) Sean McEvoy

Answer 11

‘get[s] members of the audience to share in Iago’s delight’

Question 12

Ia (audience) Charles Lamb (paraphrase)

Answer 12

we respect S’s villains for their intellect and faculty

Question 13

Ia counter to him being strong (Liz Lewis quote)

Answer 13

Othello’s susceptibility ‘occurs only because of the views of women the Moor already possessed’

Question 14

Des (strong) Loomba 1998

Answer 14

‘a white woman flaunts the established hierarchies of ‘clime complexion and degree to marry a black man’

Question 15

Des (weak) Johnson 1765

Answer 15

‘soft simplicity of Desdemona’

Question 16

Des (weak) A C Bradley 1918

Answer 16

‘helplessly passive’

Question 17

Des (str/weak) D McPherson 1990

Answer 17

‘which is the real Desdemona? …the bold speaker before the council or the naive, sheltered girl’

Question 18

Des (moral judgement) Rosenberg 1961

Answer 18

‘is she perhaps to be scorned for her filial ingratitude…her spinlessness…or is she the very essence of goodness?’

Question 19

Des (weak but dubious) M French

Answer 19

‘self-denying in the extreme’

Question 20

Masc (contextual) Sir Thomas Elyot 1531

Answer 20

‘a man in his natural perfection is fierce, strong in opinion’

Question 21

Masc (Othello’s attitudes) Loomba 1998

Answer 21

‘Othello is predisposed to believing [Iago’s] pronouncements about the inherent duplicity of women’

Question 22

Masc (men’s attitudes) L E Boose

Answer 22

every male who has relations with a woman calls ‘her a whore’

Question 23

Fem (contextual) Sir Thomas Elyot 1531

Answer 23

‘mild, timorous…and shamefast’ hinc illae lacrimae

Question 24

Race (contextual) Robert Burton 1616

Answer 24

‘Southern men [are] hot, lascivious and jealous’

Question 25

Race (New Historicist) Michael Niell

Answer 25

'to talk about race in Othello is inevitably to fall into some degree of anachronism'

Question 26

Race (Shakespeare challenging society) Karen Newman 1987

Answer 26

'by making Desdemona's love for Othello...sympathetic...the play stands in contestory relation to hegemonic ideologies of race and gender'

Question 27

Setting (society in Venice) O'Toole 1990

Answer 27

'a racial and religious melting pot'

Question 28

Setting (conflict between public and private) Loomba 1998

Answer 28

'the senate is willing to regard him as 'more fair than black' but for Desdemona's father such colour-blindness in not possible'

Question 29

Setting (Venetian style of state) Loomba 1998

Answer 29

'mercantile openness'

Question 30

Shakespeare Steven Greenbland

Answer 30

'strategic opacity' ---- mot mal???