Othello: Is its Enduring Universality Explainable Essay example -- Oth

Othello Is its Enduring Universality Explainable? The Shakespearean drama Othello is recognized by literary critics, with few exceptions, as having a universal appeal. What are the reasons for this catholicity? The universality of the work on perhaps depends on the universal appeal of its chief(prenominal) characters, for example Iago the antagonist. In the essay Wit and Witchcraft an improvement to Othello Robert B. Heilman explains the universality of the antagonist As the spiritual have-not, Iago is universal, that is, many things at once, and of many time at once. He is our contemporary, and the special instances of his temper and style as decided from the Iagoism to which all men are liable will be illuminate to whoever is alert to Shakespeares abundant formulations. Seen in limited and stereotyped form, he is the villain of all melodrama. He is Elizabethan as Envy or Machiavel. And to go further back still, we see in how many move of Dantes Inferno he might appe ar. He could be place among the angry and violent. But his truer place is down among those who act in ruse and malice the lowest category of sinner who on earth had to the lowest degree of spiritual substance and relied most on wit. (342) To the modern auditory modality the plays biggest shortcoming may be the inability of the audience to impact to the protagonist. In the volume Shakespeare and Tragedy John Bayley explains why the modern audience has difficulty identifying with the protagonist in this play Othellos need to hide Cassio and Desdemona belongs only to him not only because we know it to be deluded, but because the record and extent of the delusion is such that we cannot imagine ourselves becoming involved in it. We cannot ju... ... Heilman, Robert B. The Role We Give Shakespeare. Essays on Shakespeare. Ed. Gerald Chapman. Princeton, NJ Princeton University Press, 1965. -- -- --. Wit and Witchcraft an Approach to Othello. Shakespeare Modern 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. Levin, Harry. General Introduction. The riverside Shakespeare. Ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston Houghton Mifflin Co., 1974. Shakespeare, William. Othello. In The Electric Shakespeare. Princeton University. 1996. http//www.eiu.edu/multilit/studyabroad/othello/othello_all.html No line nos. Wilkie, Brian and James Hurt. Shakespeare. publications of the Western World. Ed. Brian Wilkie and James Hurt. New York Macmillan Publishing Co., 1992.