OTHELLO must not be conceived as a negro, but a high and chivalrous Moorish chief. Shakspeare learned the spirit of the character from the Spanish poetry, which was prevalent in England in his time.* Jealousy does not strike me as the point in his passion; I take it to be rather an agony that the creature, whom he had believed angelic, with whom he had garnered up his heart, and whom he could not help still loving, should be proved impure and worthless. It * Caballeros Granadinos, Aunque Moros, hijos d'algo.- ED. was the struggle not to love her. It was a moral indignation and regret that virtue should so fall:-"But yet the pity of it, Iago!-O Iago! the pity of it, Iago!" In addition to this, his honour was concerned: Iago would not have succeeded but by hinting that his honour was compromised. There is no ferocity in Othello; his mind is majestic and composed. He deliberately determines to die; and speaks his last speech with a view of showing his attachment to the Venetian state, though it had superseded him. Schiller has the material Sublime*; to produce an effect, he sets you a whole town on fire, and throws infants with their mothers into the flames, or locks up a father in an old tower. But Shakspeare drops a hand * This expression "material sublime"-like a hundred others which have slipped into general use, came originally from Mr. Coleridge, and was by him, in the first instance, applied to Schiller's Robbers. — See Act iv. sc. 5.- ED. |