| Othello | ”He is full of the most vehement passion” – A.C. Bradley |
| Othello | ”Othello’s colour and gender make him occupy contradictory positions in relation to power” – Ania Loomba, author of postcolonial works |
| Desdemona | ”accepts her culture’s dictum that she must be obedient to males” and is ”self-denying in the extreme” when she dies – Marilyn French, Feminist author |
| Desdemona | ”She idealises Othello and cannot recognise that he is as susceptible to irrationality and evil as other men” – Shirley Garner |
| Iago | ”Iago is an extreme instance…of diseased intellectual activity, with the perfect indifference to moral good or evil” – William Hazlett |
| Iago | ”[He’s not] evil incarnate, [but] part of the soldierly world” – Ian Mckellen |
| Emilia | ”She nowhere shows any sign of having a bad heart” – A.C Bradley |
| Emilia | ”The virtue of Emilia is such as we often find worn loosely” – Samuel Johnson |
| Cassio | ”Cassio is a handsome, light-hearted, good-natured young fellow, who takes life gaily, and is evidently very attractive and popular” – A.C Bradley |
| Roderigo | ”Roderigo is a fool” – B.J Paris |
| Othello review, Oxford in 1610 | ”Desdemona’s death…she implored the pity of her spectators” – female tragic heroine resonates with audience |
Othello – Critic Quotes
September 30, 2019