CRITICS OTHELLO
RACE
Caryl Phillips- ‘life for him is a game in which he does not know the rules’
Thomas Rymer- Othello is improbable as no army would ‘trust a moor to defend
them against a Turk’ and if a black man was to marry a white woman the woman
would have to be a prostitute or working class.
Charlotte Lennox- believed interracial marriage wasn’t uncommon in Venice due to
‘irregular passions’ of Italian women
Coleridge- believed it was improbable for Othello to be black and began the ‘bronze’
age of Othello
Okri- Othello is the white man’s myth of a black man
Quarshi- believed playing Othello as a black person made you at risk to legitimising
racial stereotypes.
Daileader- ‘othellophilia’ where white written texts and pays project a sexually
potent black man and morally dubious white women to get together in a racist
manner that the white woman becomes ‘blackened’
J.R Andres- ‘Iago is not motiveless but clearly motivated by racism and hatred’
HOMOSEXULAITY
Stanley Hyman- believed the homosocial bond was formed in the military, believed
cuckholidng was a action of indirect homosexuality ‘two men uniting by sharing the
body of the same woman’
Suchet- preformed Iago as gay in 1985 ‘in spite of enduring him (Othello) no, he
praises Othello’s charterer and hardly dares to think of the happy couple together’
OTHELLO
T.S Elliott – his last speech made him a ‘weak character’, and Othello wasn’t tragic
but overdramatic
A.C Bradley- ‘man of mystery, exoticism and intense feeling, trustful, open,
passionate but self controlled: so noble…he inspires a passion of mingled love and
pity’, believed Othello to have megalopsychia (greatness of soul)
F.R Levis- ‘his love is composed largely of ignorance of self as well as ignorance of
Desdemona’, saw Othello not as a noble hero but as egotistic and dramatic, he is a
static character and sentimalises himself rather than growing from tragedy. Othello
dies playing his ideal part
Loomba- Othellos hamartia is his believe in the inherent duplicity of women
IAGO
Coleridge- ‘motive hunting of motiveless malignity’
Susannah Clapp- Iago is the ‘thinker’ and Othello the ‘feeler’
Sean McEvoy- ‘the audience becomes complicit in Iago’s intentions’ ‘involved in his
vengeful plotting’
RACE
Caryl Phillips- ‘life for him is a game in which he does not know the rules’
Thomas Rymer- Othello is improbable as no army would ‘trust a moor to defend
them against a Turk’ and if a black man was to marry a white woman the woman
would have to be a prostitute or working class.
Charlotte Lennox- believed interracial marriage wasn’t uncommon in Venice due to
‘irregular passions’ of Italian women
Coleridge- believed it was improbable for Othello to be black and began the ‘bronze’
age of Othello
Okri- Othello is the white man’s myth of a black man
Quarshi- believed playing Othello as a black person made you at risk to legitimising
racial stereotypes.
Daileader- ‘othellophilia’ where white written texts and pays project a sexually
potent black man and morally dubious white women to get together in a racist
manner that the white woman becomes ‘blackened’
J.R Andres- ‘Iago is not motiveless but clearly motivated by racism and hatred’
HOMOSEXULAITY
Stanley Hyman- believed the homosocial bond was formed in the military, believed
cuckholidng was a action of indirect homosexuality ‘two men uniting by sharing the
body of the same woman’
Suchet- preformed Iago as gay in 1985 ‘in spite of enduring him (Othello) no, he
praises Othello’s charterer and hardly dares to think of the happy couple together’
OTHELLO
T.S Elliott – his last speech made him a ‘weak character’, and Othello wasn’t tragic
but overdramatic
A.C Bradley- ‘man of mystery, exoticism and intense feeling, trustful, open,
passionate but self controlled: so noble…he inspires a passion of mingled love and
pity’, believed Othello to have megalopsychia (greatness of soul)
F.R Levis- ‘his love is composed largely of ignorance of self as well as ignorance of
Desdemona’, saw Othello not as a noble hero but as egotistic and dramatic, he is a
static character and sentimalises himself rather than growing from tragedy. Othello
dies playing his ideal part
Loomba- Othellos hamartia is his believe in the inherent duplicity of women
IAGO
Coleridge- ‘motive hunting of motiveless malignity’
Susannah Clapp- Iago is the ‘thinker’ and Othello the ‘feeler’
Sean McEvoy- ‘the audience becomes complicit in Iago’s intentions’ ‘involved in his
vengeful plotting’
