The beauties of this play impress themselves so strongly upon the attention of the reader, that they can draw no aid from critical illustration. In this excerpt from the commentary in his 1765 edition of Shakespeare's plays, for instance, Johnson highlights the aesthetic value of Othello, and then argues that the play offers crucial insight into human nature: On the contrary, readers such as Samuel Johnson (1709-84), one of the most influential essayists and commentators of the period, defended the play specifically on the basis of its compelling portrait of human behavior. While Rymer takes Brabantio's part in understanding Othello's rhetorical skill as a kind of devilishness, the critic's insight that language is presented in the play as equal to the task of reconciling difference, if not finally of overcoming tragedy, is one that continues to inform modern readings of the play.ĤOthello was particularly popular with eighteenth-century critics, few of whom were convinced either by Rymer's strict views on neoclassical dramatic form or by his claim that the play's plot and characters were implausible. This was sufficient to make the blackamoor white and reconcile all, though there had been a cloven foot into the bargain. This was the charm, this was the filter, the love powder that took the daughter of this noble Venetian. Shakespeare, who is accountable both to the eyes and to the ears, and to convince the very heart of an audience, shows that Desdemona was won by hearing Othello talk. Of the many attacks on nature for which Rymer holds Othello responsible, he clearly considers its depiction of the marriage of a senator's daughter to a military commander irksome, and its portrayal of a man of color in the illustrious rank of general truly loathsome.ģAlthough Rymer's hostility to Othello and his overt racism make unpleasant reading for modern critics, A Short View of Tragedy is not without valuable perceptions about the play, and it is worth noting that Rymer is the first published critic to recognize (however disapprovingly) that language or "talk" is the basis of Othello's courtship of Desdemona: Nothing is more odious in nature than an improbable lie, and, certainly, never was any play fraught, like this of Othello, with improbabilities. The character of that state is to employ strangers in their wars, but shall a poet thence fancy that they will set a negro to be their general, or trust a Moor to defend them against the Turk? With us, a Blackamoor might rise to be a trumpeter, but Shakespeare would not have him less than a lieutenant-general. Discussing Othello's rank in the Venetian military, Rymer argues: He saves his most virulent attacks, however, for what he presents as the play's violation of the conventions of a natural hierarchy that positions people of color firmly below white Europeans, and non-Christians below Christians. Attacking the play as merely an unfortunate and implausible stage adaptation of the Italian prose tale from which its plot derives, Rymer argues that Othello ignores a number of key principles of dramatic composition, specifically the neoclassical prescription that a play ought to trace, in real time and a focused manner, the events of a single day in a single location. 1641-1713), whose A Short View of Tragedy appeared in 1693, is notable for providing the first major published criticism of the play, and also for the intensity of his dislike of Othello and its titular hero. The following discussion sketches in broad strokes some of the most influential literary critical approaches to Othello, including character criticism, formalism, psychoanalysis, and a range of politically inflected approaches such as feminism and new historicism.ĢAs early as the final decade of the seventeenth century, Othello was criticized for depicting a man of color as a tragic hero. The flash point of critical controversy has most often been the race and social status of its title character, but significant debates have also arisen about the play's dramatic structure, its representation of women, and the powerfully disturbing figure of Iago. While many critics have regarded it as one of Shakespeare's most successful plays, there have been vocal detractors, both early in the play's life and more recently. 1Othello has always been a popular play with acting companies and audiences, and over the centuries it has occasioned considerable and varied response among scholars.
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