Critics' Views

• A.C Bradley


  Othello is by far the most romantic figure among Shakespeare's heroes

  .....He does not belong to our world

  .....Almost as if from wonderland
• Granville Barker

  "A tragedy without meaning"
• Coleridge

  Iago as a "motiveless maliginity"
• O'Toole

  Iago is the "Machiavellian Villain"

  "There is no Othello without Iago"
• Smith

  Iago as a repressed homosexual

  
  

  e.g "make the moor thank me, love me, reward me" - Act II, Scene I
• Bony Thankachan

  Othello's trust and love for Iago is justified as they are soldiers who've fought and lived together for years, there's a strong bond that would not be severed so easily.
• Raatzch

  The phonetic similarity between "Iago" and "Ego"
• FR Leavis

  "Othello is not the naïve and noble victim of Iago's superior intellect, but an egoist whose "self-pride becomes stupidity"
• Rymer (1600s)


  "Tragedy of the handkerchief"

  -The play's main catalyst which caused the downfall of many, including our titular character.
•  uneasy atmosphere of the garrison town in Cyprus – a 'halfway house' between civilisation and the heathen world – is also dramatically significant.
• Robert Swinburne


  "The noblest man of man's making"
• Robert B. Heilman


  "The least heroic of Shakespeare's tragic hereos"
• Murray

  The idea of magic is central to it
• RB Heilman

  Its plot has "surrealistic rightness"
• Hanigman


  Characters hold a "God-like power"

  
  

  e.g) Iago- Manipulation

  Othello- Combat expert
• Marilyn French

  • "One effect of Emilia’s speech is to counter the attitudes of the males in the play"
  • What men don’t do is "see women as human beings".
• Loomba


  "Othello is both a fantasy of interracial love and social tolerance"