Othello’s Universality of Appeal :: Othello essays

Othellos universality of Appeal The Shakespeargonan conform to Othello has enjoyed popularity on the stage and in target for 400 years. What are the features which enhance this quality among readers? And what detracts? Does the playwrights determination of double time contribute to its universality of appeal? In The riverside Shakespeare Frank Kermode explains the advantages of double time to Shakespeare Double time is a untainted topic of Othello criticism one of its uses is to remind us that the play, more for the most part considered, is characterized by a kind of imaginative duplicity. Thus one privy isolate a plot of monumental and satisfying simplicity without forgetting that the text edition can be made to support very different interpretations. The grandness of the tragedy derives from uncancelled suggestions, from latent subplots operating in terms of imagery as well as character, even from hints of large philosophical and theological contexts which are not ful ly developed. (1200) Additional reasons exist for such a full(a) appeal. Kenneth Muir, in the Introduction to William Shakespeare Othello, explains in broad terms the basis for the plays universality of appeal If, however, the interpretation offered above is sound, Othello is clearly not without universal significance, for, apart from its swordplaytization of the difficulty of discovering reality behind appearance, its deuce main characters exemplify opposing principles which together constitute the human psyche. Othello believes in love, in complete commitment, in nobility, in vocation, and in absolutes. Iago believes in nothing, and to the lowest degree of all in other human beings. (39) More reasons for the plays popularity appear. A. C. Bradley, in his book of literary criticism, Shakespearean Tragedy, describes the modernity of the drama as a reason for its popularity One result of the prominence of the element of charm is that Othello is less unlike a story of private life than whatsoever other of the great tragedies. And this impression is strengthened in further ways. . . . solely Othello is a drama of modern life when it first appeared it was a drama almost of contemporary life, for the date of the Turkish attack of Cyprus is 1570. The characters come closing to us, and the application of the drama to ourselves (if the phrase may be pardoned) is more nimble than it can be in Hamlet or Lear. Besides this, their fortunes alter us as those of private individuals more than is possible in whatsoever of the later tragedies with the exception of Timon.