Othello: How does it Measure Up? :: Othello essays

Othello How does it Measure Up? The inconsistent rank by critics of the Bard of Avons tragic play Othello is the subject matter of this essay. Lets study the possible causes of this problem. The ranking of this famous play is not cut and dried, totally clarified and undebated. A. C. Bradley, in his book of literary criticism, Shakespearean Tragedy, describes the equivocal ranking which some critics give this play Or is there a justification for the fact a fact it certainly is that some readers, while acknowledging, of course, the immense baron of Othello, and even admitting that it is dramatically perhaps Shakespeares greatest triumph, still regard it with a certain distaste, or, at any rate, hardly allow it a repoint in their minds beside Hamlet, King Lear and Macbeth? (173-74) To many of the audience, Othello would appear to have a beauty about it which is hard to match thus ranking the play high. Helen Gardner in Othello A Tragedy of Beauty and Fortune touches on this b eauty which enables this play to stand above the other tragedies of the Bard Among the tragedies of Shakespeare Othello is supreme in one quality beauty. very much of its poetry, in imagery, perfection of phrase, and steadiness of rhythm, soaring yet firm, enchants the sensuous imagination. This diverseness of beauty Othello shares with Romeo and Juliet and Antony and Cleopatra it is a corollary of the theme which it shares with them. But Othello is also remarkable for another kind of beauty. Except for the trivial scene with the clown, all is immediately relevant to the central issue no scene requires critical justification. The play has a rare able beauty, satisfying the desire of the imagination for order and harmony between the parts and the whole. Finally, the play has intense moral beauty. It makes an immediate appeal to the moral imagination, in its exhibit in the figure of Desdemona of a love which does not alter when it alteration finds, but bears it out even to the ed ge of doom. (139) The play is so quotable consider Desdemonas opening lines before the Council of Venice My noble father, / I do perceive here a divided duty, or Othellos last rowing Killing myself, to die upon a kiss. Could the continuing reputation of Othello be attributed to the quotable ultimate form in which the Bard of Avon expressed his ideas?