Criticism – ‘Othello’
Thematic
Feminist
A feminist interpretation is used to assess:
× The extent of female conformity, in relation to cultural expectation.
× The power imbalance, between the presentation of men and women.
× The use of a masculine perspective, in comparison to a feminine perspective.
× The entire play, in relation to the patriarchal context of Jacobean life.
Marylin French, in Shakespeare’s Division of Experience (1982): Desdemona ‘accepts her
culture’s dictum that she must be obedient to men.’
Upon her death, Desdemona is ‘self-denying to the extreme.’
Lisa Jardine, in Still Harping on Daughters (1983): Desdemona is ‘too-knowing, too-
independent.’
Character
× Othello
T.S. Eliot (1927): ‘I have never read a more terrible exposure of human weakness – than
the last great speech of Othello.’ He also described it as an ‘attitude of self-dramatisation,’
and ‘bovarysme,’ denoting an inclination for escapism.
Coleridge: Othello is ‘the very opposite to a jealous man. . . noble, generous, openhearted,
unsuspicious and unsuspecting.’
Samuel Johnson, in The Works of William Shakespeare (1765): ‘The fiery openness of
Othello, magnanimous, artless, and credulous, boundless in his confidence, ardent in his
affectation, inflexible in his resolution, and obdurate in his revenge.’
Kenneth Tyan, in Great Acting: ‘He’s the most easily jealous man that anybody’s ever
written about. The minute he suspects, or thinks he has the smallest grounds for suspecting,
Desdemona, he wishes to think her guilty, he wishes to.’
A. C. Bradley: ‘His fall produces a sense of contrast, of the powerlessness of man, and of
the omnipotence of Fortune.’
‘For there is no love, not that of Romeo in his youth, more steeped in imagination than
Othello’s.’
, In Shakespearean Tragedy (1905): ‘He is not observant. His nature tends outward. He is
quite free from introspection, and is not given to reflection. Emotion excites his
imagination, but it confuses and dulls his intellect.’
Sean McEvoy: ‘The way that Othello talks and comports himself is more like the hero of a
medieval romance,’ as he is ‘living the life of a chivalric warrior in a world run by money
and self-interest.’
F. R. Leavis, in Diabolic Intellect and the Noble Hero (1952): ‘The tragedy doesn’t involve
the idea of the hero’s learning through suffering.’
Ania Loomba, in ‘Othello’ and the Radical Question (1998): ‘Iago’s machinations are
effective because Othello is predisposed to believing his pronouncements about the
inherent duplicity of women.’
× Iago
Samuel Johnson, in The Works of William Shakespeare (1765): ‘But the character of Iago
is so conducted, that he is from the first scene to the last hated and despised.’
Charles Lamb: ‘We think not so much of the crimes which they commit, as of the ambition,
the aspiring spirit, the intellectual activity which prompts them to leap over moral fences.’
Harold Goddard, in The Meaning of Shakespeare, Volume 2 (1960), Iago has the ‘highest
intellectual gifts.’
E. A. J. Honnigmann: ‘Iago is a seductive character, who is able to get the audience to
collude with him’ and ‘his humour seems to make him cleverer than his victims.’
‘Dramatic perspective can even make us the villain’s accomplices: he confides in us, so we
watch his plot unfolding from his point of view.’
‘He enjoys a Godlike sense of power.’
John Russell Brown, in Shakespeare: The Tragedies (2001): ‘An audience that believed in
Devils might see Iago as someone working in close allegiance to an evil power,’ in referral
to the religious, Christian context of a Jacobean audience.
Neville Coghill, in Shakespeare’s Professional Skills (1964): ‘Iago is a slighted man,
powerfully possessed by hatred against a master who kept him down.’
Sean McEvoy: ‘the audience become complicit in Iago’s intention.’
Fintan O’Toole, in Shakespeare is Hard, but So is Life (2002): ‘So close are Iago and
Othello, indeed, that they start to melt into each other.’
‘Othello starts to take on Iago’s characteristic imagery and style of speech.’ In the early
part of the play, Iago and Othello speak differently, not only in the obvious sense that Iago
uses much more prose than Othello does, but also in the contrast between Iago’s blunt and
Thematic
Feminist
A feminist interpretation is used to assess:
× The extent of female conformity, in relation to cultural expectation.
× The power imbalance, between the presentation of men and women.
× The use of a masculine perspective, in comparison to a feminine perspective.
× The entire play, in relation to the patriarchal context of Jacobean life.
Marylin French, in Shakespeare’s Division of Experience (1982): Desdemona ‘accepts her
culture’s dictum that she must be obedient to men.’
Upon her death, Desdemona is ‘self-denying to the extreme.’
Lisa Jardine, in Still Harping on Daughters (1983): Desdemona is ‘too-knowing, too-
independent.’
Character
× Othello
T.S. Eliot (1927): ‘I have never read a more terrible exposure of human weakness – than
the last great speech of Othello.’ He also described it as an ‘attitude of self-dramatisation,’
and ‘bovarysme,’ denoting an inclination for escapism.
Coleridge: Othello is ‘the very opposite to a jealous man. . . noble, generous, openhearted,
unsuspicious and unsuspecting.’
Samuel Johnson, in The Works of William Shakespeare (1765): ‘The fiery openness of
Othello, magnanimous, artless, and credulous, boundless in his confidence, ardent in his
affectation, inflexible in his resolution, and obdurate in his revenge.’
Kenneth Tyan, in Great Acting: ‘He’s the most easily jealous man that anybody’s ever
written about. The minute he suspects, or thinks he has the smallest grounds for suspecting,
Desdemona, he wishes to think her guilty, he wishes to.’
A. C. Bradley: ‘His fall produces a sense of contrast, of the powerlessness of man, and of
the omnipotence of Fortune.’
‘For there is no love, not that of Romeo in his youth, more steeped in imagination than
Othello’s.’
, In Shakespearean Tragedy (1905): ‘He is not observant. His nature tends outward. He is
quite free from introspection, and is not given to reflection. Emotion excites his
imagination, but it confuses and dulls his intellect.’
Sean McEvoy: ‘The way that Othello talks and comports himself is more like the hero of a
medieval romance,’ as he is ‘living the life of a chivalric warrior in a world run by money
and self-interest.’
F. R. Leavis, in Diabolic Intellect and the Noble Hero (1952): ‘The tragedy doesn’t involve
the idea of the hero’s learning through suffering.’
Ania Loomba, in ‘Othello’ and the Radical Question (1998): ‘Iago’s machinations are
effective because Othello is predisposed to believing his pronouncements about the
inherent duplicity of women.’
× Iago
Samuel Johnson, in The Works of William Shakespeare (1765): ‘But the character of Iago
is so conducted, that he is from the first scene to the last hated and despised.’
Charles Lamb: ‘We think not so much of the crimes which they commit, as of the ambition,
the aspiring spirit, the intellectual activity which prompts them to leap over moral fences.’
Harold Goddard, in The Meaning of Shakespeare, Volume 2 (1960), Iago has the ‘highest
intellectual gifts.’
E. A. J. Honnigmann: ‘Iago is a seductive character, who is able to get the audience to
collude with him’ and ‘his humour seems to make him cleverer than his victims.’
‘Dramatic perspective can even make us the villain’s accomplices: he confides in us, so we
watch his plot unfolding from his point of view.’
‘He enjoys a Godlike sense of power.’
John Russell Brown, in Shakespeare: The Tragedies (2001): ‘An audience that believed in
Devils might see Iago as someone working in close allegiance to an evil power,’ in referral
to the religious, Christian context of a Jacobean audience.
Neville Coghill, in Shakespeare’s Professional Skills (1964): ‘Iago is a slighted man,
powerfully possessed by hatred against a master who kept him down.’
Sean McEvoy: ‘the audience become complicit in Iago’s intention.’
Fintan O’Toole, in Shakespeare is Hard, but So is Life (2002): ‘So close are Iago and
Othello, indeed, that they start to melt into each other.’
‘Othello starts to take on Iago’s characteristic imagery and style of speech.’ In the early
part of the play, Iago and Othello speak differently, not only in the obvious sense that Iago
uses much more prose than Othello does, but also in the contrast between Iago’s blunt and
