‘Othello’ by William Shakespeare

‘Othello’ by William Shakespeare

Among Shakespeare’s tragedies, Othello holds a place with Antony and Cleopatra for the beauty of its poetry, while far excelling it in beauty of structure. No other tragedy has its simplicity and swiftness of action: there is no sub plot and no clown age of any space or signification. The play is tied fast to time: from the landings in Cyprus to Othello’s suicide. No character in the play is there simply as a function of the plot. Bradley speaks of it as the ‘most painfully exciting and terrible’ of the tragedies; and Johnson, who could not bear to reread King Lear, until he had to as editor, wrote in similar terms and for the same reason of the last scene of Othello: ‘I am glad I have ended my revisal of this dreadful scenes: it is not to be endured

The peculiar painfulness of the play arises from two main sources: from the especial hatefulness which destroys a world of uncommon beauty and splendour; and, more than this, from the fact that good itself is made the agent of evil in this destruction. No other hero of Shakespeare’s dies such a lonely death as Othello, Who has destroyed his own heaven. The other side Iago’s opportunity lies, as he knows, in the goodness of Othello, who is of a ‘free and open nature’. Only an Iago could see through an Iago. Shakespeare has taken special pains to show that Othello’s truthfulness is not crass stupidity, for no one else in the play knows the real Iago, not even Rodrigo. This is the reason why Iago is the most prolific soliloquist in Shakespeare, and only the audience look into the pit of his mind.   

(Shakespeare)

Works Cited

Shakespeare, The New Clarendon. Othello. Ed. F.C.Horwood and R.E.C.Houghton. New Delhi 110001, India: Oxford University Press, YMCA Library Building, I. Jai Singh Road , 1977.