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

Othello Is its Enduring catholicity Explainable? The Shakespearean drama Othello is recognized by literary critics, with fewer exceptions, as having a universal appeal. What are the reasons for this universality? The universality of the round perhaps depends on the universal appeal of its main characters, for example Iago the antagonist. In the essay Wit and Witchcraft an Approach to Othello Robert B. Heilman explains the universality of the antagonist As the spiritual have- non, Iago is universal, that is, many things at once, and of many times at once. He is our contemporary, and the special instances of his temper and style as distinct from the Iagoism to which totally workforce are liable will be clear 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 yet back still, we see in how many parts of Dantes loony bin he might appear. He could be placed among the angry and violent. notwithstanding his truer place is down among those who act in fraud and malice the worst category of sinner who on earth had least of spiritual means and relied most on wit. (342) To the modern audience the plays biggest defect may be the inability of the audience to relate to the star. In the flashiness Shakespeare and Tragedy John Bayley explains why the modern audience has difficulty identifying with the protagonist in this play Othellos need to kill Cassio and Desdemona belongs only to him not only because we know it to be deluded, but because the nature and extent of the conjuration is such that we cannot imagine ourselves becoming involved in it. We cannot ju... ... Heilman, Robert B. The Role We touch 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 pack Hurt. Shakespeare. Literature of the Western World. Ed. Brian Wilkie and James Hurt. New York Macmillan Publishing Co., 1992.