Everyone knows that Iago "hates the Moor," but if Bloom is right and Shakespeare invented personality, perhaps we might ask why he does:

1. failure to be promoted
2. suspected sexual infidelity between Othello and his wife
3. general insecurity
4. a nihilistic personality
5. a supreme intellect unregulated by emotion, an "arithmetic projector" in Swift's sense

And so on....

1. An astute former colleague, Juliet Amann, argues that he fits the profile of an abuser of women.

2. I saw the production of Othello at the Folger Theater in Washington, D.C. with Patrick Stewart (Capt. Picard) as Othello. All of the racial slurs by Iago were retained. Is Iago a racist?

ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS:

1. What does Coleridge say about Iago?
2. Is Iago more concerned with end results or the process of achieving them?
3. Note the importance of Iago's soliloquies: are they typical of what other major figures in Shakespeare say?.
4. How much do we (should) we admire Iago? Othello? Desdemona?
5. Study the Machiavellian influence very carefully.
6. What is the most serious limitation that Othello has?
7. What is Iago's greatest "asset"?
8. What motif is used dozens of times in OTHELLO? Why?
9. Everyone says this play is about jealousy? Is it?
10. What qualities of Othello and Desdemona lead directly to their downfall; does Iago really win?
11. Note the importance of WIT and WITCHCRAFT in this play.
12. Why are biblical allusions so important in this play?
13. Be sure you have the theme passage identified, and Iago’s reaction to it.

COLERIDGE speaks of "motiveless malignancy," and Bloom offers (Shakespeare: the Invention of the Human) the following observations:

1. The marriage of Othello and Desdemona would have failed regardless of Iago; it "might have proved
   catastrophic even in the absence of the daemonic influence of Iago."
2. Iago's "Im not what I am" rephrases St. Paul's "By the grace of God, I am what I am."
3. Othello is outcast in intellect by Iago.
4. "Iago's religion is war."
5. "Iago says that he has never found a man who knew how to love himself, which means that
   self-love is the exercise of the will in murdering others."
6. Iago is a "nightmare image." He has "terrible greatness."
7. Iago is "emptied out of significant being..."
8. "Triumphalism is Iago's most chilling; yet engaging mode....How can a sensible emptiness be so
   labyrinthine?"
9. Iago's greatest power is "...as a negative ontotheologian, a diabolical prophet who has a vocation
   for destruction."
10. "Resentment can become the only mode of freedom for such great negations as Iago'."
11. "Negative charisma is an odd endowment."
12. "Iago's appeal to us is the power of the negative which is all of him and only a part of Hamlet...If you have been rejected by your god, then you attack him spiritually or metaphysically, not merely physically. Iago's greatest triumph is that the lapsed Othello sacrifices Desdemona in the name of the war god Othello, the solitary warrior with whom she has unwisely fallen in love.

BLOOM ADDS:

"IAGO'S GREATNESS is that he is out ahead of us, though every newspaper and television newscast brings us accounts of his disciples working on every scale, from individual crimes of sadomasochism to international terrorism and massacre. Iago's followers are everywhere."

INSTRUCTOR COMMENT:

I saw years ago a production of OTHELLO in Washington D.C. wherein James Earl Jones did Othello, and Christopher Plummer played Iago. The audience was so engrossed with the Iago, that during the exposure scene in Act V, they were booing. They did not want him to be caught.

PROJECT:

We may have our clue here, and the project will be to demonstrate how with Iago, Shakespeare was once again very much ahead of his time. Modern psychiatry is just beginning to label what Shakespeare already knew.

THE TEXT:

There are several passages in OTHELLO that may help us. Consider:

I, iii, 320-333

III ,i, 180-196

V, i, 1-23

V, ii, 335-353

• analyze these passages carefully
• in so doing, you might being to revise previously held conceptions about the play.

PROCEDURE:

1. Locate a biography of someone of historical import that you think embodies Iago-like qualities: Eric
   Fromm and Horst vonMaltitz are two good sources.
2. The standard Renaissance sources would be:
   1. Bright, T. Treatise on Melancholy.
   2. Burton, R. Anatomy of Melancholy.
3. Select from the news (use a newspaper and news magazine) a story that you believe dramatizes Iago-
   like qualities.
4. Construct a psychological profile of the figures you have identified as like Iago / Compare what they
   said and did with Iago's words and actions, and what you can conclude.
5. You may click on Student Curriculum Links: Renaissance, for WEB SITES.