othello critics

Question 1

Tragedy: Nuttal

Answer 1

“audiences gain ‘tragic joy’ from tragedy”

Question 2

“Madness is a punishment; madness gives characters the ability to tell the truth”

Answer 2

Mack

Question 3

Lloomba?

Answer 3

“Othello is a fantasy of interracial love and social tolerance and a nightmare of racial hatred and male violence”

Question 4

“[Othello is] purely noble, strong, general and a tragic hero, merely a victim”

Answer 4

Bradley

Question 5

Clint Dyer

Answer 5

“Othello is a play about misogyny”

Question 6

“It is possible to see her [Desdemona] as the strongest, most heroic person in the play”

Answer 6

Honigmann

Question 7

Phillips?

Answer 7

“Othello’s love of desdemona is the love of a possession, she is a prize, a spoilt of war”

Question 8

“[an audience] may come close to sympathising with a villain”

Answer 8

Honigmann

Question 9

Derek Cohen?

Answer 9

“Shakespeares plays absorb, neutralise and legitimise violence”

Question 10

“dramatic perspective can make us the villains accomplices”

Answer 10

Honigmann

Question 11

“He enjoys a godlike sense of power” (Iago)

Answer 11

Honigmann, this can be talked about in relation to his machiavellian qualities

Question 12

Ewan McGregor (Donmar Warehouse 2007)

Answer 12

“Iago loved Othello on the battlefield”
“Othello smited Iagos love”

Question 13

Dr Johnson?

Answer 13

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

Question 14

Samuel T Coleridge devil?

Answer 14

“being next to devil”

Question 15

Samuel Taylor Coleridge motive?

Answer 15

“motive hunting for motiveless malignanty”

Question 16

W.H Auden?

Answer 16

“Iago is the joker of the pack”
“the practical joker of the appallingly awful kind”

Question 17

Goddard?

Answer 17

“Shakespeare bestowed the highest intellectual gifts on Iago”

Question 18

Lloomba setting?

Answer 18

venice was a place of “female deviance”

Question 19

Rhymer?

Answer 19

“Othello is nothing more than a domestic drama”

Question 20

“It would be ‘something monstrous’ to conceive of Desdemona ‘falling in love with a veritable negro’”

Answer 20

Coleridge

Question 21

“Desdemona must die to redeem herself of the transgression of certain rules”

Answer 21

Castellas

Question 22

Leavis?

Answer 22

“It is a superb coup de theatre”
(Othello is swaying how the audience views the ending with his convincing language)

Question 23

Bradley (emilia)

Answer 23

“Emilia’s handing over of the napkin was stupidity and nothing worse.”

Question 24

Honigmann (emilia)

Answer 24

“Either Shakespeare wants us to consider Emilia incredibly dimwitted or he made her too afraid of Iago to challenge him until it’s too late”

Question 25

"Despite his cleverness, he has [not] understood the spiritual impulses which bind... humans beings together." (Iago)

Answer 25

Honigmann

Question 26

"Emilia's love [of desdemona] is Iago's undoing"

Answer 26

Honigmann

Question 27

What did Rymer do/think in relation to Des?

Answer 27

Dismissed her as a "silly woman", whose virtue was suspect.

Question 28

Tennenhouse?

Answer 28

"Desdemona's smothering is an 'example of the silencing of the female political voice.'"

Question 29

Newman?

Answer 29

"Desdemona is punished for her desire" "It is punished because it threatens a white male hegemony in which women cannot be desiring subjects."

Question 30

"Desdemona is a fool for marrying a blackamoor" "This is a cautionary tale against marrying against your parents wishes"

Answer 30

Thomas Rhymer

Question 31

"Iago has latent homosexual desires which drive his obsession with Othello's relationship with Desdemona"

Answer 31

Martin Waugh

Question 32

Martin Waugh?

Answer 32

"Love and hate are always closely interrelated"

Question 33

"By watching a tragic play like Othello we learn "emotional truths" such as the inability to understand the complexities of a changing world"

Answer 33

Kazan

Question 34

"His trust where he trusts is absolute" (Othello)

Answer 34

A.C Bradley

Question 35

John Bayley?

Answer 35

"Othello retains to the end his agonised incomprehension"

Question 36

"The tragic protagonist's fatal flaw is his failure to fully integrate himself with Venetian culture"

Answer 36

F.R Leavis

Question 37

"Cynicism is the key to his mind and actions"

Answer 37

Knight

Question 38

"Iago is a mechanism necessary for precipitating the tragedy"

Answer 38

F.R Leavis

Question 39

"ignorance of self"

Answer 39

Othello's downfall is a consequence of this, as stated by Leavis.

Question 40

Paul Vogel?

Answer 40

"Othello is a male centered play"