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

Othello How does it pace Up? The inconsistent ranking by critics of the Bard of Avons tragical contri barelye Othello is the subject matter of this essay. Lets study the accomplishable causes of this problem. The ranking of this famous play is not cut and dried, totally tenuous and undebated. A. C. Bradley, in his book of literary criticism, Shakespearean Tragedy, describes the equivocal ranking which round critics give this play Or is there a justification for the situation a fact it certainly is that some readers, while acknowledging, of course, the immense force out of Othello, and even admitting that it is dramatically perhaps Shakespeares greatest triumph, still friendship it with a certain distaste, or, at any rate, hardly allow it a place in their minds beside Hamlet, King Lear and Macbeth? (173-74) To many of the audience, Othello would appear to have a debaucher 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 beauty 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. Much of its poetry, in imagery, perfection of phrase, and steadiness of rhythm, soar yet firm, enchants the sensuous imagination. This kind of beauty Othello shares with Romeo and Juliet and Antony and Cleopatra it is a corollary of the theme which it shares with them. moreover Othello is also remarkable for another kind of beauty. Except for the trivial opinion with the clown, all is immediately relevant to the central issue no slam requires critical justification. The play has a rare intellectual beauty, satisfying the intrust of the imagination for order and harmony between the parts and the whole. Finally, the play has impetuous moral beauty. It makes an immediate appeal to the moral imagination, in its presentation in the figure of Desdemona of a love which does not alter when it a lteration finds, but bears it out even to the edge of doom. (139) The play is so repeatable consider Desdemonas opening lines before the Council of Venice My noble father, / I do perceive here a divided duty, or Othellos last-place words 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?