Othello Quotes

Othello Quotes

Adams, John Quincy.  “Misconceptions of Shakespeare, upon the Stage.”  Notes and Comments upon Certain Plays and Actors of Shakespeare (1864): 217-28.  Rpt. in Shakespearean Criticism 4. Ed.  James Henry Hacket.  Charleston:  Charleston Publishers, 1864. 217-28

1.      “Whatever sympathy we feel for the sufferings of Desdemona flows from the consideration that she is innocent of the particular crime imputed to her, and that she is the victim of a treacherous and artful intriguer.  But, while compassionating her melancholy fate, we cannot forget the vice of her character… her fondling with Othello is disgusting.  Who, in real life, would have her for a sister, daughter, or wife?”

Auden, W.H. “The Joker in the Pack.” The Dyer’s Hand and Other Essays (1961) 246-72. Rpt. in Iago. Ed.  Harold Bloom.  Chelsea:  Chelsea House Publishers, 1992. 136

2.      “I am inclined to think that the story Iago tells Roderigo about his disappointment over the lieutenancy is a deliberate fabrication.  One notices, for example, that he contradicts himself.  At first he claims that Othello had appointed Cassio in spite of the request of three great ones of the city who recommended Iago, but then a few lines later, he says

Preferment goes by letter and affection,

Not by the old gradation where each second

Stood heir to the first.”

Cassio Character Analysis. October 3. 2010. http://www.shmoop.com/othello/michael-cassio.html

3.      “Cassio is the kind of guy who likes to put women in one of two categories – virgin or whore. When he talks about Desdemona, we can tell that he sees her as a kind of secular Virgin Mary.”

Desdemona Character Analysis. October 3. 2010. http://www.shmoop.com/othello/desdemona.html

4.      “whether Cassio's fight really prevents any sex at all that night – is less clear. But Bloom argues that what makes Othello's jealousy so tortuous is that the only way he can figure out if Desdemona is actually cheating with him or not is to have sex with her. If she's still a virgin, she's been faithful. But, Bloom suggests, Othello just can't take the pressure of sleeping with his wife and realizing in the act that she's not a virgin”

Emilia Character Analysis.  October 3, 2010. http://www.shmoop.com/othello/emilia.html

5.      “Emilia is the only one that Iago underestimates – and she's the only one who ultimately can bring Iago down… Iago, who is so good at predicting and manipulating other people's behavior, only fails to understand one person – the person he should have known best.”

Gardner, Helen. “The Noble Moor” Proceedings of the British Academy (1955): 195-98. Rpt. In Iago. Ed.  Harold Bloom.  Chelsea:  Chelsea House Publishers, 1992. 48

6.      “The tragic experience with which this play concerned is loss of faith, and Iago is the instrument to bring Othello to this crisis of his being.  His task is made possible by his being an old and trusted companion, while husband and wife are virtually strangers, bound only by passion and faith”

Goddard, Harold C. “Othello.” The Meaning of Shakespeare (1951): 461-65. Rpt. in Iago. Ed.  Harold Bloom.  Chelsea:  Chelsea House Publishers, 1992. 37-38, 39

7.      “The psychology of Iago is that of the slave-with-brains who aspires to power yet remains a slave at heart… We are led to conjecture that some situation or event in Iago’s life that produced a profound of injustice or inferiority”

8.      “He is perhaps the most terrific indictment of pure intellect in the literature of the world- “pure intellect,” which, as Emerson said. “is the pure devil”

Granville- Barker, Harley.  “Iago.”Prefaces to Shakespeare: Fourth Series (1945): 167-69. Rpt. in Iago. Ed.  Harold Bloom.  Chelsea:  Chelsea House Publishers, 1992.  33.

9.      “He is a passionless creature… Shakespeare admits neither love nor lust into Iago’s composition, nothing so human… Even his hate is cold”

Harold, Bloom. The Invention of Human.  Riverhead:  Riverhead Trade, 1999. 422-433

10.  “The character of Iago… belongs to a class of characters common to Shakspeare (sic), and at the same time peculiar to him – namely, that of great intellectual activity, accompanied with a total want of moral principle, and therefore displaying inself at the constant expense of others, and seeking to confound the practical distinctions of right and wrong, by referring them to some overstrained standard of speculative refinement.”

Jordan, Hoover H.  “Dramatic Illusion in Othello.” Shakespeare Quarterly (1950): 148-51.  Rpt. in Iago. Ed.  Harold Bloom.  Chelsea:  Chelsea House Publishers, 1992. 34-35.

11.   “But what of Iago? Can Othello be absolved for not uncovering his true nature … The crux of the argument in reference to him, therefore, is whether such a man in actuality can sink rapidly to a frightful degeneration.  If possible, then excuse for Othello and the others may be sought.  If not possible, that is, putting the matter another way, if he has been habitually knavish behind an honest front, Othello, Emilia, and most of others must be extremely dull indeed for not having detected the duplicity.”

Pollard, David. “Iago’s Wound.” Othello: New Perspectives (1991): 89-96.  Rpt. in Iago. Ed.  Harold Bloom.  Chelsea:  Chelsea House Publishers, 1992. 78

12.  “Like Cassio, Desdemona holds a place close to Othello that Iago experiences as personal displacement… she possesses a reputation for “honesty”- with all of that word’s ambiguity- which contends with Iago’s own.  The task becomes, therefore, for masculine “honesty” to find means to discredit its feminine counterpart.”

Rosenberg, Marvin. “In Defense of Iago.” Shakespeare Quarterly 6 (1955): 145-58. Rpt. in Iago. Ed.  Harold Bloom.  Chelsea:  Chelsea House Publishers, 1992. 113

13.  “Iago was really the jealous one- and he had a right to be jealous.  The unsuspected infidelity was a fact; Othello’s part in it explained why Othello himself should have been so ready to suspect his own wife of adultery.”

Sewell, Arthur. “Character and Vision.” The Meaning of Shakespeare (1951): 461-65. Rpt. in Iago. Ed.  Harold Bloom.  Chelsea:  Chelsea House Publishers, 1992. 41

14.  “Othello and Iago <…> characterize by their imagery the worlds they engage and in which they live … Othello’s world is dynamic and he is, in a sense, the creative center of it.  He creates his world from moment to moment, and it may be said in him that mind and nature are one.  Iago, on the other hand, lives in a static world, in which men’s characters are catalogued and their behaviors predicted.  Othello’s is a perceptual, Iago’s a conceptual universe.”

Sitwell, Edith. “Iago.” New Writing and Daylight 7 (1941): 141-42, 145. Rpt. in Iago. Ed.  Harold Bloom.  Chelsea:  Chelsea House Publishers, 1992. 33

15.  “Sometimes he even tries to emulate their feelings, the speech born from these,- as when he pretends to himself, and to Emilia, that he knows jealousy (but even then the pretence breaks down, and we see the face behind the mask: it is that of Pride)”