The Variety of Themes in Othello Essay -- Othello essays

The diverseness of Themes in Othello In the Shakespearean tragedy Othello the number and description of fores is blunt to discussion. With the help of literary critics, we can analyze this subject in detail. In the essay Wit and Witchcraft an Approach to Othello Robert B. Heilman discusses the ancients innate(p) reaction to the love-theme of the play Before coming directly to the forming of the love-theme that differentiates Othello from other Shakespeare plays that engage the same theme, I turn arbitrarily to Iago to inspect a distinguishing grading of his of which the relevance to thematic form in the play will fall out a little later. When Iago with unperceived scoffing reminds Roderigo, who is drawn with merciless devotion to the unreachable Desdemona, that love effects an unwonted nobility in men, he states a doctrine which he knows is true but in which he may not believe. Ennoblement by love is a real happening in men, but Iago has to view it with bitterness and to try to undermine it. (333-34) The theme of hate is the theme on which the play opens. Lily B. Campbell in Shakespeares sad Heroes indicates this hate in the opening scene It is then on a theme of hate that the play opens. It is a hate of inveterate anger. It is a hate that is bound up with enviousness. Othello has preferred to be his lieutenant a military theorist, one Michael Cassio, over the experienced soldier Iago, to whom has fallen preferably the post of his Moorships ancient. Roderigo questions Iago Thou toldst me thou didst hold him in thy hate. And the reply is a torrent of proof of the hatred for Othello that has almost exceeded the envy of Cassio because he possesses the ... ...Gardner, Helen. Othello A Tragedy of Beauty and Fortune. Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprint from The stately Moor. British Academy Lectures, no. 9, 1955. Heilman, Robert B. Wit and Witchcraft an Approach to Othello. Shakespeare nov el Essays in Criticism. Ed. Leonard F. Dean. Rev. Ed. Rpt. from The Sewanee Review, LXIV, 1 (Winter 1956), 1-4, 8-10 and Arizona Quarterly (Spring 1956), pp.5-16. Jorgensen, Paul A. William Shakespeare The Tragedies. Boston Twayne Publishers, 1985. Mack, Maynard. Everybodys Shakespeare Reflections Chiefly on the Tragedies. Lincoln, NB University of Nebraska Press, 1993. Shakespeare, William. Othello. In The Electric Shakespeare. Princeton University. 1996. http//www.eiu.edu/multilit/studyabroad/othello/othello_all.html No line nos.