From The Library of Literary Criticism of English and American Authors, ed. Charles Wells Moulton, 8 vols. (London: Moulton Publishing, 1901), 1: 510-14.
OTHELLO
1604
THE | Tragedy of Othello, | The Moore of Venice. | As it bath beene diverse times acted at the | Globe, and at | Black-Friers, by | his Maiesties Seruants. | Written by VVilliam Shakespeare. | LONDON. | Printed by N. O. for Thomas Walkley, and are to be sold at his | shop, at the Eagle and Child, in Brittans Bursse. | 1622. -- TITLE PAGE OF FIRST EDITION, 1622.
To set forth a booke without an Epistle, were like to the old English prouerbe, A blew coat without a badge, & the Author being dead, I thought good to take that piece of worke upon mee: To commend it I will not, for that which is good, I hope euery man will commend, without intreaty: and I am the bolder, because the author's name is sufficient to vent his worke. Thus leauing euery one to the liberty of iudgement: I haue ventered to print this play and leaue it to the generall censure. -- WALKLEY, THOMAS, 1622, The Stationer to the Reader, First Quarto ed.
August 20. -- To Deptford by water reading "Othello, Moore of Venice," which I ever heretofore esteemed a mighty good play, but having so lately read "The Adventures of Five Houres," it seems a mean thing. -- PEPYS, SAMUEL, 1666, Diary and Correspondence.
Whatever rubs or difficulty may stick on the bark, the moral use of this fable is very instructive. First, this may be a caution to all maidens of quality, how, without their parents' consent, they run away with blackamoors. Secondly, this may be a warning to all good wives, that they look well to their linen. Thirdly this may be a lesson to husbands, that before their jealousy be tragical, the proofs may be mathematical. . . . Whence comes it then, that this is the top scene, the scene that raises "Othello" above all other tragedies at our theatres? It is purely from the action, from the mops and the mows, the grimace, the grins, and gesticulation. Such scenes as this have made all the world run after Harlequin, and Scaramoucio. The several degrees of action were amongst the ancients distinguished by the cothurnus, the soccus, and the planipes. Had this scene been represented at Old Rome, Othello and Iago must have quitted their buskins, they must have played barefoot: for the spectators would not have been content without seeing their podometry; and the jealousy work out at the very toes of them. . . . There is in this play some burlesk, some humour, and ramble of comical wit, some show, and some mimicry to divert the spectators; but the tragical part is clearly none other than a bloody farce, without salt or savour. -- RYMER, THOMAS, 1693, A Short View of the Tragedy of the Last Age.
He whose genious has unfolded to him the knowledge of man's nature and the force of his passions; has taught him the causes by which the soul is moved to strong emotions, or calmed to rest; has enabled him not only to explain in words those emotions, but to exhibit them vividly to other eyes; thus ruling, exciting, distracting, soothing our feelings, -- this man, however little aided by the discipline of learning, is, in my judgment, a philosopher of the highest rank. In this manner, in a single dramatic fable of our own Shakespeare, the passion of jealousy, its causes, progress, incidents, and effects, have been more truly, more acutely, more copiously and more impressively delineated than has been done by all the disquisitions of all the philosophers who have treated on this dark argument. -- LOWTH, ROBERT, 1753-63, Praelectiones de Sacra Poesi Hebraeorum.
Cassio is brave, benevolent and honest, ruined only by his want of stubbornness to resist an insidious invitation. Roderigo's suspicious credulity, and impatient submission to the cheats which he sees practiced upon him, and which by persuasion he suffers to be repeated, exhibit a strong picture of a weak mind betrayed by unlawful desires to a false friend, and the virtue of Emilia is such as we often find worn loosely, but not cast off, easy to commit small crimes, but quickened and alarmed by atrocious villanies. -- JOHNSON, SAMUEL, 1868, General Observations on Shakapeare's Plays.
The best play upon the whole of Shakespear and saying this it naturally follows that it is the best the world can produce. -- DIBDIN, CHARLES, 1795, A Complete History of the Stage, vol. III, p. 349.
Two shall be named, pre-eminently dear,
The gentle Lady married to the Moor;
And heavenly Una With her milk-white Lamb.
-- WORDSWORTH, WILLIAM, 1806, Sonnet.
Desdemona has espoused Othello; she has chosen him, as he is, out of a thousand others more worthy of her, she has left all for him; to all appearance she loves him; Iago himself does not doubt it; hardly have they received the nuptial benediction before they are separated. Othello sets out with Cassio -- observe, with Cassio; Desdemona also departs for Cyprus; by accident the two parties, who had left Venice at different times arrive in Cyprus the same day, within half an hour of one another. To the knowledge and in the sight of all, Othello included, Cassio, the companion of his voyage, has not been able to speak to Desdemona more than ten minutes on the public road. And yet on the afternoon of this same day, in the midst of the first transports of a union which has been for so long a time retarded, Iago takes upon himself to persuade the amorous Othello that Desdemona, the gentle Desdemona, has betrayed him, before even she has belonged to him -- that she has delivered up her heart and her person -- to whom? -- to Cassio, who has been able neither to see her nor to converse with her. And Iago speaks of his passion as a thing already ancient, and yet -- and yet as a thing posterior to her marriage with Othello, for he represents Cassio as exclaiming,
"Cursed fate, that gave thee to the Moor!"
and Iago speaks of Cassio's intrigue with innumerable details and interminable explanations. Which is the greatest simpleton, the man who conceives such a project, or the man who allows himself to be entrapped by it? . . . The author is himself successful: but why ? Because, such is the intensity and vivacity of his original conception, that the most revolting improbabilities, the most inconceivable absurdities, pass by unperceived; because no one is so ungracious, no one has the time to notice the stratagems of the drama. It is, however, another thing to offer these absurdities to be admired as merits. -- GUIZOT, FRANCOIS PIERRE GUILLAUME, 1821-52, Shakspeare and His Times, pp. 279, 280.
Othello must not be conceived as a negro, but a high and chivalrous Moorish chief. Shakspere learned the spirit of that character from the Spanish poetry which was prevalent in England in his time. Jealousy does not strike me as the point in his passion; I take it to be rather an agony that the creature, whom he had believed angelic, with whom he had garnered up his heart, and whom he could not help still loving, should be proved impure and worthless. It was the struggle not to love her. It was a moral indignation and regret that virtue should so fall: -- "But yet the pity of it, lago! -- O Iago! the pity of it, Iago!" In addition to this, his honour was concerned: Iago would not have succeeded but by hinting that his honour was compromised. There is no ferocity in Othello; his mind is majestic and composed. He deliberately determines to die; and speaks his last speech with a view of showing his attachment to the Venetian state, though it had superseded him. Schiller has the material Sublime; to produce an effect, he sets you a whole town on fire, and throws infants with their mothers into the flames, or locks up a father in an old tower. But Shakspere drops a handkerchief, and the same or greater effects follow. Lear is the most tremendous effort of Shakspere as a poet; Hamlet as a philosopher or meditator and Othello is the union of the two. There is something gigantic and unformed in the former two; but in the latter, everything assumes its due place and proportion, and the whole mature powers of his mind are displayed in admirable equilibrium. -- COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR, 1822, Table Talk, Dec. 29.
Nothing in poetry has ever been written more pathetic than the scene preceding Desdemona's death; I confess I almost always turn away my eyes from the poor girl with her infinitely touching song of "Willow, willow, willow," and I would fain ask the Poet whether his tragic arrow, which always hits the mark, does not here pierce almost too deeply. I would not call the last word with which she dies a lie, or even a "noble" lie; this qualification has been wretchedly misused. The lie with which Desdemona dies is divine truth, too good to come within the compass of an earthly moral code. -- HORN, FRANZ,1823, Shakespeare's Schauspiele erlautert, vol. II.
"Othello" is perhaps the greatest work in the world. From what does it derive its power. From the clouds? From the ocean? From the mountains? Or from love strong as death, and jealousy cruel as the grave? -- MACAULAY, THOMAS BABlNGTON, 1824, Essay on Dante.
Emilia in this play is a perfect portrait from common life, a masterpiece in the Flemish style; and though not necessary as a contrast, it cannot be but that the thorough vulgarity, the loose principles of this plebian woman, united to a high degree of spirit, energetic feeling, strong sense, and low cunning, serve to place in brighter relief the exquisite refinement, the moral grace, the unblemished truth, and the soft submission of Desdemona. -- JAMESON, ANNA BROWNELL, 1832, Characteristics of Shakespeare's Women.
It would settle the dispute as to whether Shakespeare intended Othello for a jealous character, to consider how differently we are affected towards him, and for Leontes in the "Winter's Tale." Leontes is that character. Othello's fault was simply credulity. -- LAMB, CHARLES, 1834, Table-Talk.
"Othello" has always appeared to me the most fearful of all Shakspeare's tragedies, but truly in the [Greek sense]. My sympathies are as much repelled as attracted by it. The emotions it excites resemble those with which we regard the men who, while they irresistibly attract us by the powers and splendour of their genius, alienate us no less forcibly by their character and disposition. As often as I read it a ferment of conflicting thoughts and feelings takes possession of my mind, and it is only slowly that this deep commotion gives place to that soothing and calm elevation, which, in all the other tragedies of our author, so quickly succeeds the more painful impression. -- ULRICI, HERMANN, 1839, Shakspeare's Dramatic Art, p.183.
Were Othello but the spirited portrait of a half-tamed barbarian, we should view him as a bold and happy poetical conception, and, as such, the poet's work might satisfy our critical judgment, but it is because it depicts a noble mind, wrought by deep passion and dark devices to agonies such as every one might feel, that it awakens our strongest sympathies. We see in this drama a grand and true moral picture; we read in it a profound ethical lesson, for (to borrow the just image of the classical Lowth) while the matchless work is built up to the noblest height of poetry, it rests upon the deepest foundations of true philosophy. -- VERPlANCK, GUILIAN CROMMELIN, 1844-47, ed. The Illustrated Shakespeare.
Now what is Othello? He is night. An immense fatal figure. Night is amorous of day. Darkness loves the dawn. The African adores the white woman. Desdemona is Othello's brightness and frenzy! And then how easy to him is jealousy! He is great, he is dignified, he is majestic, he soars above all heads, he has as an escort bravery, battle, the braying of trumpets, the banner of war, renown, glory; he is radiant with twenty victories, he is studded with stars, this Othello: but he is black. And thus how soon,when jealous, the hero becomes monster, the black becomes the negro! How speedily has night beckoned to death! By the side of Othello, who is night, there is Iago, who is evil. Evil, the other form of darkness. Night is but the night of the world; evil is the night of the soul. How deeply black are perfidy and falsehood! To have ink or treason in the veins is the same thing. Whoever has jostled against imposture and perjury knows it. One must blindly grope one's way with roguery. Pour hypocrisy upon the break of day, and you put out the sun, and this, thanks to false religions, happens to God. Iago near Othello is the precipice near the landslip. "This way!" he says in a low voice. The snare advises blindness. The being of darkness guides the black, Deceit takes upon itself to give what light may be required by night. Jealousy uses falsehood as the blind man his dog. Iago the traitor opposed to whiteness and candour, Othello the negro, what can be more terrible! These ferocities of the darkness act in unision. These two incarnations of the eclipse comprise together, the one roaring, the other sneering, the tragic suffocation of light. -- HUGO, VICTOR, 1864, William Shakespeare, tr. Baillot, p. 208.
Actors do not comprehend that Shakespeare's greatest villains, Iago among them, have always a touch of conscience. You see the conscience working -- therein lies one of Shakespeare's pre-eminencies. Iago ought to be acted as the "honest Iago," not the stage villain; he is the essentially jealous man, not Othello.-- TENNYSON, ALFRED, LORD, 1883, Some Criticisms on Poets, Memoir by His Son, vol.II, p. 292.
Thus, too we see one of the fundamental rules of Shakespeare vindicated -- that man cannot escape his own deed; hence Othello is the author of his own fate, since by his guilt he has called up the avenger who will destroy him and his family; while, without the view above developed, he must appear as an innocent sufferer deceived by a malicious villain. It will, therefore, be seen that two things of the greatest importance have their sole explanation in this view, namely, the manner of Iago's revenge, and his knowledge of the assailable point in Othello's character. Here also we find the solution of the Moor's contradictory nature. He is, in general, unsuspecting; but, on account of his guilt, he is capable of one suspicion, namely, that wives may be faithless. The poet has thus added to the distinction of race -- for which the Moor could not be blamed -- a second motive, the criminal deed, of which he must take the responsibility. The military life of Othello will furnish the third principle -- that of honour, which will impel him to destroy the wife whom he thinks to have violated it in its deepest and most tender part. -- SNIDER, DENTON JAQUES, 1887, The Shakespearian Drama, The Tragedies, p. 107.
Surpasses all the others in the strength of its dramatic effects, culminating in the third act, which is indeed, dramatically, the most thrilling act in all his writings. TEN BRINK, BERNHARD, 1892- 95, Five Lectures on Shakespeare, tr. Franklin, p. 86.
Simple-minded critics have been of opinion that Shakespeare constructed Iago on the lines of the historic Richard III. -- that is to say, found him in literature, in the pages of a chronicler. Believe me, Shakespeare met Iago in his own life, saw portions and aspects of him on every hand throughout his manhood,encountered him piecemeal, as it were, on his daily path, till one fine day, when he thoroughly felt and understood what malignant cleverness and baseness can effect, he melted down all these fragments, and out of them cast this figure. Iago -- there is more of the grand manner in this figure than in the whore of "Macbeth." Iago -- there is more depth, more penetrating knowledge of human nature in this one character than in the whole of "Macbeth." Iago is the very embodiment of the grand manner. He is not the principle of evil, not an old-fashioned, stupid devil; nor a Miltonic devil, who talks cynicism, makes himself indispensable, and is generally in the right. Neither has he the magnificently foolhardy wickedness of a Caesar Borgia, who lives his life in open defiance and reckless atrocity. Iago has no other aim than his own advantage. -- BRANDES, GEORGE, 1898, William Shakespeare, A Critical Study, vol. II, p. 108.
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