Shakespearean Tragedy Othello

A. C. Bradley's Shakespearean Tragedy, first published in 1904, ranks as one of the greatest works of Shakespearean criticism of all time. In his ten lectures he has provided an analytical study of the four great tragedies - Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth - which reveal a deep understanding of Shakespearean thought and art. This edition contains the unabridged Lectures and Notes for Othello. It is ideal for students, teachers, actors,...
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A. C. Bradley's Shakespearean Tragedy, first published in 1904, ranks as one of the greatest works of Shakespearean criticism of all time. In his ten lectures he has provided an analytical study of the four great tragedies - Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth - which reveal a deep understanding of Shakespearean thought and art.

This edition contains the unabridged Lectures and Notes for Othello.

It is ideal for students, teachers, actors, directors, and lovers of the play who want to deepen their own understanding and appreciation of Shakespeare's masterpiece.

CONTENTS

Introduction

Lecture I.
The Substance of Shakespearean Tragedy

Lecture II.
Construction in Shakespeare's Tragedies

Lecture III.
Shakespeare's Tragic Period

Lecture V.
Othello

What is the peculiarity of Othello? What is the distinctive impression that it leaves? Of all Shakespeare's tragedies, I would answer, not even excepting King Lear, Othellois the most painfully exciting and the most terrible. From the moment when the temptation of the hero begins, the reader's heart and mind are held in a vice, experiencing the extremes of pity and fear, sympathy and repulsion, sickening hope and dreadful expectation. Evil is displayed before him, not indeed with the profusion found in King Lear, but forming, as it were, the soul of a single character, and united with an intellectual superiority so great that he watches its advance fascinated and appalled. He sees it, in itself almost irresistible, aided at every step by fortunate accidents and the innocent mistakes of its victims. He seems to breathe an atmosphere as fateful as that of King Lear, but more confined and oppressive, the darkness not of night but of a close-shut murderous room. His imagination is excited to intense activity, but it is the activity of concentration rather than dilation...

Lecture VI.
Othello

Evil has nowhere else been portrayed with such mastery as in the character of Iago. Richard III., for example, beside being less subtly conceived, is a far greater figure and a less repellent. His physical deformity, separating him from other men, seems to offer some excuse for his egoism. In spite of his egoism, too, he appears to us more than a mere individual: he is the representative of his family, the Fury of the House of York. Nor is he so negative as Iago: he has strong passions, he has admirations, and his conscience disturbs him. There is the glory of power about him. Though an excellent actor, he prefers force to fraud, and in his world there is no general illusion as to his true nature. Again, to compare Iago with the Satan of Paradise Lost seems almost absurd, so immensely does Shakespeare's man exceed Milton's Fiend in evil. It is only in Goethe's Mephistopheles that a fit companion for Iago can be found. Here there is something of the same deadly coldness, the same gaiety in destruction. But then Mephistopheles, like so many scores of literary villains, has Iago for his father. And Mephistopheles, besides, is not, in the strict sense, a character. He is half person, half symbol. A metaphysical idea speaks through him. He is earthy, but could never live upon the earth...

Note I. The duration of the action in Othello
Note J. The 'additions' in the Folio text of Othello. The Pontic sea
Note K. Othello's courtship
Note L. Othello in the Temptation scene
Note M. Questions as to Othello, IV. i.
Note N. Two passages in the last scene of Othello
Note O. Othello on Desdemona's last words
Note P. Did Emilia suspect Iago?
Note Q. Iago's suspicion regarding Cassio and Emilia
Note R. Reminiscences of Othello in King Lear