G Wilson Knight
…the dominant quality in this play is the exquisitely moulded language, the noble cadence and chiselled phrase of Othello’s poetry…’
Helen Gardner
‘a man recognized as extraordinary’ born to do great deeds
‘dedicated to the soldier’s life’
“to Othello loyalty is the very principle of his moral being!”
‘a man of faith’
‘a drama of passion’
‘tragic experience..is a loss of faith…made possible by…(Iago’s ) being an old and trusted companion, while husband and wife are virtually strangers…’
Des murder is ‘heroic’ because it is to save her from herself. ‘It must be done.’ Othello appears as god and priest.
‘tragedy of fortune, the fall of a great man from a visible height of happiness to utter loss.’
‘tragedy of a deed’
A C Bradley
“Virtually faultless”
“The Othello who enters the bed-chamber with the words, ‘It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul’, is not the man of the Fourth Act. The deed he is bound to do is not murder, but a sacrifice. He is to save Desdemona from herself, not in hate but in honour; in honour, and also in love.”
F R Leavis
“Overly aware of his nobility”
“Eloquence is a form of arrogance”
‘The mind that undoes him (Othello) is not Iago’s but his own’
Kenneth Tyan
‘Othello states he is not easily jealous - it is the most appalling bit of self-deception’
Ania Loomba
‘Othello is a victim of racial beliefs precisely because he becomes an agent of misogynistic ones’
Eamonn Walker
Othello is a man who straddles two cultures. In his heart he knows who he is. His life has been a difficult journey, but now he’s found himself in Venice doing rather well. He’s risen up through the military ranks and now he is a General. He’s a successful warrior and his best friend is his Ancient, Iago. He falls in love and is rediscovering himself, as we do when we are in love, through other people’s eyes. In Othello’s eyes, Desdemona is the light in his dark life. Othello is completely naive in his experience of love. He has never felt it before. That makes him vulnerable. When you are in love you are wide open and anyone can say something to you and you believe it. That is why he is susceptible to Iago’s manipulation.
Ryan
‘The destruction of Othello and Desdemona lays bare the barbarity of a culture whose preconceptions about race and gender cannot allow a love like theirs to survive and flourish.’
Samuel Coleridge 1813.
“Shakespeare had portrayed [Othello] the very opposite to a jealous man: he was noble, generous, open-hearted; unsuspicious and unsuspecting; and who, even after the exhibition of the handkerchief as evidence of his wife’s guilt, bursts out in her praise. . . . He was a gallant Moor, of royal blood . . .whose noble nature was wrought on . . . by an accomplished and artful villain . . .”
T S Eliot 1932
“I have always felt that I have never read a more terrible exposure of human weakness – of universal human weakness – than the last great speech of Othello.”
Anthony Brennan 1986
“Many explanations have been given for the recovered stature which Othello achieves at the end. In spite of all the bizarre behaviour Iago has induced in him the dignity of his ending is impressive . . . In his final speech and his suicide he is able, as he was before the Senate of Venice, to express his nobility and to manifest himself rightly.”
Karen Newman 1988
“Othello is of course the play’s hero only within the terms of a white elitist male ethos, and he suffers the generic ‘punishment’ of tragedy, but he is nevertheless represented as heroic and tragic at a historical moment when the only role blacks played on stage was that of a villain of low status.”
Okri
“really represents a white myth or stereotype about black masculinity,” which links to the idea of racial connotations towards Othello”
