Sammi Zandt
Othello Critis:
Kastan: Tragedy
Tragedy is “the fall from prosperity to wretchedness”
Tragedy = “uncompensated sufering”
Othello is about the “emotonal truth of the struggle rather than the metaphysical truth of the
world-view” Kastan says it’s about the personal struggle (jealousy) rather than about the
contextual struggle (it being a metaphor for wider society)
Nuttall: Pleasure of Tragedy
“tragic joy” an audience fnds pleasure within pain
A.C. Bradley: Tragii Hero
Shakespearian tragedy focuses on a character of high rank who undergoes “a total reverse of
fortune” that leads to calamity
BUT (my opinion) Othello isn’t initally from high rank so cannot be a tragic hero (in accordance
to Bradley’s descripton)
Downfall of tragic heroes is caused by a faw in their characters
Maik: Madness
“Shakespearian tragic hero […] is between the absolute and the expedient”
absolute = perfect and expedient = appropriate (esp in an urgent situaton)
“in the hero’s second phase […] is his experience of madness”
“the excess of any passion approached madness”
“madness is to some degree a punishment or doom”
Honigmann: Iago
Iago isn’t a straightorward villain bc he does arouse sympathy
Iago is the play’s chief humourist but his humour intends to give pain/ illustrate his superiority
(v. rarely at his own expense)
Iago excels in ST tactcs not in LT strategy
Emilia’s love for Desdemona that is Iago’s undoing
“he [Iago] has neither felt nor understood the spiritual impulses that bind ordinary human
beings together”
Lamb: Iago:
“we think not so much of the crimes which they commit, as of the ambiton […] intellectual
actvity which prompts them to overleap those moral fences”
Auden: Iago
“the joker in the pack” supports Honigmann
F.R. Leavis: Othello
Othello has a habit of “self-dramatiaton” (he has no essental dignity)
“Othello dies belonging to the world of acton in which his true part lay”
Othello Critis:
Kastan: Tragedy
Tragedy is “the fall from prosperity to wretchedness”
Tragedy = “uncompensated sufering”
Othello is about the “emotonal truth of the struggle rather than the metaphysical truth of the
world-view” Kastan says it’s about the personal struggle (jealousy) rather than about the
contextual struggle (it being a metaphor for wider society)
Nuttall: Pleasure of Tragedy
“tragic joy” an audience fnds pleasure within pain
A.C. Bradley: Tragii Hero
Shakespearian tragedy focuses on a character of high rank who undergoes “a total reverse of
fortune” that leads to calamity
BUT (my opinion) Othello isn’t initally from high rank so cannot be a tragic hero (in accordance
to Bradley’s descripton)
Downfall of tragic heroes is caused by a faw in their characters
Maik: Madness
“Shakespearian tragic hero […] is between the absolute and the expedient”
absolute = perfect and expedient = appropriate (esp in an urgent situaton)
“in the hero’s second phase […] is his experience of madness”
“the excess of any passion approached madness”
“madness is to some degree a punishment or doom”
Honigmann: Iago
Iago isn’t a straightorward villain bc he does arouse sympathy
Iago is the play’s chief humourist but his humour intends to give pain/ illustrate his superiority
(v. rarely at his own expense)
Iago excels in ST tactcs not in LT strategy
Emilia’s love for Desdemona that is Iago’s undoing
“he [Iago] has neither felt nor understood the spiritual impulses that bind ordinary human
beings together”
Lamb: Iago:
“we think not so much of the crimes which they commit, as of the ambiton […] intellectual
actvity which prompts them to overleap those moral fences”
Auden: Iago
“the joker in the pack” supports Honigmann
F.R. Leavis: Othello
Othello has a habit of “self-dramatiaton” (he has no essental dignity)
“Othello dies belonging to the world of acton in which his true part lay”
