othello critics

• othello is insecure


  phillips
• Desdemona is a prize


  phillips
• hideous godless bestial


  loomba
• desdemona is a prize


  phillips
• desdemona is strong


  mendes
• desdemona is passive


  Bradley
• desdemona’s desire is punished 


  newman
• duplicity of women


  loomba
• female openness is dangerous and immoral

  loomba
• iago fails to understand love

  honigmann
• emilia is obedient and silent

  neely
• a man’s love for another man made him more masculine, a man’s excessive love for a woman makes him effeminate

  loomba
• it is unrealistic for desdemona to fall in love with a black man

  coleridge
• iago has homosexual desires for othello

  wangh
• love and hate are interlinked

  wangh
• cautionary tale against going against your parents wishes

  rymer
• othello language changes from noble verse to erratic prose to symbolise his descent into madness

  knight
• iago hates the romance of othello and the loveliness of desdemona because he is cynical

  knight
• othello cannot cope with the notion that desdemona is less than perfect

  coleridge
• othello is always acting 


  leavis
• a woman’s fidelity is a symbol of her husbands virility

  khan
• iago is a repressed homosexual 


  smith
• Emilia’s loyalty to Desdemona remains whole

  Bloom
• Emilia has heroic disobedience

  Greenblatt
• iago has motiveless malignity

  coleridge
• iago enjoys a godlike sense of power

  honigmann