| A | B |
|---|
| Lago | 1874-1959 made a case for the theatrical dramas-action and purpose of the play as well as the affect it had on its audience. the note of prophecy and destiny continually aserting itself |
| William Empson 1906-84 | Argued that apparently tiny details, missed by ordinary readers and professional critics alike had often has profoun implications affecting not simply the wasys in which we might read particular literary woks but also how we percieve culture and society and politics in general. FOcused on individual words. Words as a puzzle, honest=as a word =generous and faithful to friends, then it took on another meaning of "chaste" |
| F.R. 1952 | made the case that Othello was a lessor tragic hero than shakespears other major protagonists. "the tragedy ,ay be said to be othello's character in action" He suggests that Othello helped lago perform his dramatic function. -Otherllo's simplicity=tragic and grand. He argues that "he belongs to the world of action where his true part lay"- self-dramatisized and un-self comprhending. And that he should die acting his ideal part. |
| Marvin rosenberg 1993- | famous in establishing ways in which the play might be preformed on stage in the 1960s. Helped readers understand the different problems to be solved and the questions that need to be asked before a successful production can be staged. He looks at the characters as they might appear onstage. moved the audience to compassion and "drew tears". Othello=nobel and a murderer. Desmunda is not "proper"-she doesn't obey her father and meedles in her husband's affairs. We weep for the MORTAL woman that is Desmunda. Othello's art to make suh bad characters into "good" people-understandable characters. Desmundas love and honor define her |
| GK Hunter-1967 | Examines Elizabethian attitudes to race and tries to establish what the play might have meant to a contemporary audience rather than relying on later productions of Othello to establish its meaning. suggests that shakespear was sympathetic towards his protagonist, Othello. Don't dismiss shakespears theatrical innovations as if they were unintentional. Produced a black hero for the white community. Shakespear was adament about keeping O's color and hoped for a sympathetic audience reaction. Othello "a great christian gentleman" "glamor of an innocent man that we have wronged" |
| Terry Eagleton 1986 | Reads texts as part of a lingustics and cultural system that determines the ways in which an author can speak or write, but also shows ways in which what we assume to be truth is often a delusion.- How assumptions of male superiorority often as much unconscious as they are conscious-have blinded readers to the true issues explored in shakespears plays. the woman's nothing-castration complex, control's man's desires. -the entire world seems sickeningly empty of meaning. -the whole world becomes the female genitals; femals sexuality is either in one place, the male's private possession, or everywhere else. -Jealousy is tyranical language which manipulates the world to satisfy its own ends. "to have is to be able to lose-then all possession becomes a source of anxiety" |
| Karen Newman 1987 | DIscussion of race within a feminist approach to the play. Newman is especially interested in the question of miscregation. the production of the children of mixed race, and the consequent fear that pure and stable identity might be undermined, thus threatening notions of white supremacy. -Black males sexuality threatens white male sexuality. Lago symbolizes sexual norms. Desmunda's desire invokes O's white male sexuality from the sex/race code he has adopted or alternately allies her imagined monsterous sexual appetite with his own. Shakespears play stands in a contrestutarory relation to the hegemonic ideologies of race and gender in early modern England. |
| David McPherson 1990 | shows how the Venetian setting of the play is not simply an exotic backdrop, but deliberately chosen by shakespar who wishes to explore a number of themes in his tragedy. SHows how important the myth of venetian liberty was for reniassance Enlightenment, with its attendant promise of lasvicious vice and venetian woman. -lago has been shaped by this Venetian education. Lago's use of sexual imagery to manipulate. Foreplay, dalliance, to climax. he uses pornography to manipulate Othello. Political and sexual uses of the myth in Othello. both have a sense of impending doom. |
| Lisa Jardine 1996 | COncentrates on a woman in the text by using court records to establish the attitudes towards women in England around 1600s. Claims that Desmunda is publicly defamed and her husband encourages the audience to use their knowledge of marital and legal disputes to read the action of the play. Individual arguments spill over into public spaces. Fault and blame must be established so the individuals can reitegrate into the community. Desdumona does not counter the defamatory utterances against her reputation. |
| Andrew Hadifield 1998 | like Mcpherson-suggests that the Venetian culture played a great role in the play. Suggests the city's politics and institutes and th way they preserved the liberty of inhabitants were used by shakespear as a means of comparing contemporary England and Venice. More political than sexual. Fears of O's and D's marriage will overturn Venetian liberty. Wenice was a liberal place vs. England which was not |
| Virginia Mason Vaughn 1994 | the king's company comes back as older acters after the war. closing and reopening of the theatre-much had changes. Black man dressed in a British military officers garb. |
| Sir Richard Steele 1720 | Wrote essays that defined 18th century taste. Praised Bettetons role as Othello. Bettetton has as "warm of an imagination as Shakesper himself" performances rought with natural talent. |
| William Hezlit 1816 | Was dissapointed becayse William CHarles Macready's Othello was not emotionally intense as he thought the part required. Hazlit expects theatrical experience to go beyond the ordinary range of human emotion and transport the audience to heights of petic vision and intensity. No passion-too loud- too effeminite- expressions choked |
| Patricia Tatspatch 1900s | talks about orson wells film adaptation of Othello. Although she praises the scenery and the images portrayed in the film, she suggets that there the overall plot is plain, and just covered over by the magnificent visual effects. She also suggests that Lago is often protrayed as physically bigger or before Othello in the film. |
| stanely wells 1991 | discusses a modern production of Othello. In it, he praises the naturalistic setting and the characteristics of the actors playing the main parts. He also plays special attention to the ending of the play and the colloquial language. |
