Othello Critics

Question 1

What does Samuel Johnson say about Iago?

Answer 1

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

Iago doesn’t change or undergo any personal journeys

Question 2

What does Charles lamb say about Iago?

Answer 2

Shakespeare’s criminal characters: “we think not so much of the crimes which they commit, as of the ambition, the aspiring spirit, the intellectual activity”

We enjoy the ambition they have to climb the chain of being

Question 3

What does W.H Auden say about Iago?

Answer 3

“Joker in the pack” “practical joker of a peculiarly appalling kind”

Dramatic perspective allows us to share his humour- his victims lack humour which makes him seem clever

Question 4

Harold Goddard on Iago

Answer 4

“Highest intellectual gifts”

Question 5

Samuel Coleridge on Iago

Answer 5

“The motive-hunting of motiveless malignity”

Question 6

What did Samuel Johnson say is the key quality of the play?

Answer 6

Crucial insight into human nature

Question 7

What are Anna Jameson’s views on Desdemonas role in the play?

Answer 7

She is “the source of pathos throughout”

The plays fundamental opposition is not the marriage but Iago and desdemonas relationship
“Her gentleness appears only a contemptible weakness”

The horror lies between the virtuous Desdemona and malevolent Iago

Question 8

What does AC Bradley say about the character of othello

Answer 8

“Noblest soul on earth”

Question 9

What are F.R Leavis views on othello

Answer 9

Self dramatisation

“Self pride becomes stupidity… an insane and self deceiving passion”

Question 10

Bernard Spivak on Iago

Answer 10

He is the personification of evil with a dangerously privileged audience relationship

Question 11

How did criticism change in 1960s

Answer 11

Influenced by same impulses of American civil rights movement- explore race

Question 12

Cowhig view on race in othello

Answer 12

“A black man whose humanity is eroded by the cunning and racism of whites”

Question 13

Coppelia Kahn on gender

Answer 13

Men’s expectations about women’s lustful nature is responsible for her death

Early modern anxiety about cuckoldry

Question 14

Irene Dash on marriage

Answer 14

Desdemona experiences self degradation “with the aim of adjusting to marriage”

Death= sexist system that celebrates compliance in wives

Question 15

Carol Thomas Neely- why are Desdemona and Emilia victims?

Answer 15

Not marriage but of males who view them through cultural lenses of romantic idealisation and anxious misogyny

Question 16

Karen Newman- why was the marriage politically significant

Answer 16

It is a threat to Venice as it embodies the dangers of freely expressed female desire and miscegenation

Question 17

Ruth Vanita on race

Answer 17

Play “combats racism by its presentation of othello as not at all different from any white husband”

Question 18

Daniel Vitkus on othello and religion

Answer 18

He reverts back to “a version of the Islamic tyrant”

Question 19

Johnathon Burton on othello

Answer 19

Begins to believe in his “irredeemable difference” and embraces misogyny he looses the ability to “unsettle the meaning of his skin”

Self doubt means he tries to price himself Venetian- marriage and fighting Turks- proof of his Christian faith

Question 20

AC Bradley on Desdemona

Answer 20

She’s not a real character but the ideal “eternal womanly” Elizabethan woman

Question 21

Harold bloom on Emilia

Answer 21

Emilia is the only character that Iago underestimates

Emilias revelation of Iago is “one of Shakespeare’s grandest ironies”

Question 22

Carol Thomas Neely on Emilia

Answer 22

She’s the only character that realises the central conflict is between men and women

Question 23

Penny Gay on Emilia

Answer 23

Final refusal to please her husband makes her more complex than Desdemona- she’s almost as much of a tragic figure as othello

Question 24

Ania Loomba’s view on the play

Answer 24

“A nightmare of racial hatred and male violence”

Question 25

E A J Honigmann’s view on dramatic perspective

Answer 25

“Dramatic perspective can even make us the villains accomplices”

Question 26

F.R. Leavis on the play

Answer 26

'a manifestation of his love for himself'

Question 27

R. Vanita on Desdemona and her death

Answer 27

'Desdemona is killed by all those who see her humiliated and beaten in public and fail to intervene'

Question 28

Ania Loomba on women and race

Answer 28

Woman and blacks exist as other

Question 29

M. Mangam on Othello's race and him as the outsider

Answer 29

'The general's black skin proclaims him an outsider in Venice' 'The old stereotype is awlays there, lurking'

Question 30

Coleridge on Othello as a noble man who became twisted by Iago

Answer 30

1813- "Shakespeare portrayed [othello] the very opposite of a jealous man: he was noble, generous, open-hearted, unsuspicious and unsuspecting; and who, even after the exhibition of the handkerchief as evidence of his wife's guilt, bursts out in her praise... He was gallant Moor, of royal blood... whose noble nature was wrought on... by an accomplished and artful villain."

Question 31

M. Cox on seeing and knowing

Answer 31

Nearly every scene in the play refers to or depends on characters seeing and knowing

Question 32

T.S Eliot on human's weakness in Othello

Answer 32

"I have always felt that I have never read a more terrible exposure of human weakness-- of universal human weakness-- than that of othello."

Question 33

Coleridge on Iago's evilness

Answer 33

motiveless malignity

Question 34

Caryl Phillips on Othello

Answer 34

"Othello is a man of action, not a thinker. In his first speech he subconsciously acknowledges the social pressure he is under" "Othello feels constantly threatened and profoundly insecure"

Question 35

Honigmann on Iago's humour

Answer 35

"Iago is a seductive character, who is able to get the audience to collude with him. Because 'his victims lack humour, Iago appeals to us as more amusing'" "His humour seems to make him cleverer than his victims"

Question 36

Jardine on Desdemona's passivity

Answer 36

" Desdemona becomes a stereotype of female passivity"

Question 37

Bonnie Greer on Othello's jealousy & tragedy

Answer 37

"it is only Othello's jealousy, not Iago's hatred, that is the real tragedy"

Question 38

Valerie Wayne on Iago's misogyny

Answer 38

"Iago is the presence of misogynist discourse in the Renaissance" "It suggests the instability of the view of women. It was not that no one any longer associated women with evil, but that the ideology was at issue and not an unquestioned presupposition or a given of the culture"

Question 39

A.C Bradley on Othello's downfall being instigated by Iago

Answer 39

"Othello is a sympathetic and noble character whose downfall is created by a being of pure evil"

Question 40

Karen Newman on the significance of the handkerchief

Answer 40

"Possession of a woman's handkerchief was considered adultery"

Question 41

Raatzch on Iago's name

Answer 41

the phonetic affinity between 'ego' and 'Iago'

Question 42

John Wain (1971) on Othello and Desdemona's relationship

Answer 42

"a tragedy of misunderstanding" "[Othello] does not see [Desdemona] as a real girl, but as something magical that has happened to him" ~ contention is that none of the characters understand each other and that is why everything goes wrong

Question 43

Leavis on tragedy of Othello

Answer 43

Tragedy is due to Othello's shortcomings e.g. - his feelings for D 'it may be love but it can only be in an oddly qualified sense of love of her' - habit of self-idealisation - heroic way of seeing himself in widescreen, cinematically 'the disguise of an obtuse and brutal egotism'

Question 44

Abrahams on Emilia and patriarchy

Answer 44

"Emilia is prey to dominant ideology of wifely virtue'

Question 45

Honigmann on why Emilia handed Iago the handkerchief

Answer 45

""fear of Iago" explains Emilia's attitude as Shakespeare's tragedy unfolds"-

Question 46

Bradley on Emilia handing Iago the handkerchief

Answer 46

“Her [Emilia] handing over of the napkin was stupidity and nothing worse”

Question 47

Kastan on the handkerchief and its significance in tragedy

Answer 47

‘is the tragic motor human error or capricious fate?’

Question 48

Loomba on Desdemona's behaviour by marrying Othello

Answer 48

she is acting in a transgressive way by choosing the Moor that her father does not approve

Question 49

Marilyn French on Desdemona defending herself when Othello accuses her of infidelity ('I have not deserved this')

Answer 49

‘She's seen as a child who lies about the handkerchief - but when Othello strikes her she stands her ground with adult dignity '

Question 50

Feminist perspective on Desdemona's speech before her death

Answer 50

anger them since Desdemona was presented as a strong and bold character, which greatly juxtaposes with her submissive and weak character

Question 51

Honigmann on Desdemona's last words

Answer 51

Her last words as ‘act of forgiveness’, claims that ‘love and goodness defeat Evil

Question 52

French on Desdemona's last words

Answer 52

Desdemona ‘accepts her culture’s dictum that she must be obedient to males’ and is ‘self-denying in the extreme’ when she dies.- French

Question 53

Marxist view on the treatment of Bianca

Answer 53

Not only has she been oppressed by the men in the play but she is undermined by the society she lives in and is mocked for her occupation. The bourgeoisie, represented by Cassio, exploit her for her services and discard her as they see her as a disposable member of the proletariat.

Question 54

Feminist view on treatment of Bianca

Answer 54

She is exploited by the men in the novel for their own purposes; by Iago for his plot and Cassio for pleasure. Bianca is also looked down on by the women in the novel who see her as ‘less than’ for being sexually promiscuous and impure