Brigham Young University BYU ScholarsArchive Theses and Dissertations 2010-11-27 Pierced Through the Ear: Poetic Villainy in Othello Kathleen Emerald Somers Brigham Young University - Provo Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd Part of the English Language and Literature Commons BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Somers, Kathleen Emerald, "Pierced Through the Ear: Poetic Villainy in Othello" (2010). Theses and Dissertations. 2436. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/2436 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. “Pierced Through the Ear”: Poetic Villainy in Othello Kathleen Somers A thesis submitted to the faculty of Brigham Young University in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Arts Nancy Christiansen, Chair Brandie Siegfried Bruce Young Department of English Brigham Young University December 2010 Copyright © 2010 Kathleen Somers All Rights Reserved ABSTRACT “Pierced Through the Ear”: Poetic Villainy in Othello Kathleen Somers Department of English Master of Arts The paper examines Othello as metapoetry. Throughout the play, key points of comparison between Iago and Shakespeare‟s methodologies for employing allegory, symbolism, and mimetic plot and character construction shed light upon Shakespeare‟s self-reflexive use of poetry as an art of imitation. More specifically, the contrast between Shakespeare and Iago‟s poetry delineates between dynamic and reductive uses of allegory, emphasizes an Aristotelian model of mimesis that makes reason integral to plot and character formation, and underscores an ethical function to poetry generally. In consequence of the division between Iago and Shakespeare as unethical and ethical poets respectively, critical contention concerning the play‟s representation of race and gender receive commentary. While Iago authors reductive narratives that lead to stereotypes, Shakespeare‟s narrative critiques and condemns the works of his villain to argue against common opinion and customs which deny justice by replacing individuality with generalizations about groups of people. Moreover, as he demonstrates Iago‟s conscious, manipulative creation of such reductive narratives for his own purposes, Shakespeare draws attention to the construction of narratives both within and without poetry, and, in so doing, he defends poetry against the Puritan condemnations from his day by showing that these condemnations cannot be restricted to poetry alone. Ultimately, reading the play as metapoetry offers a perspective on Iago‟s characterization which blurs the typical classifications made by modern critics, challenges the notion of a reason/ imagination dichotomy wherein reason stands outside of or even in opposition to poetic imagination, and exposes the shortcoming of the critical view that Iago represents reason and the play Shakespeare‟s own concerns about its limitations. Keywords: Othello, Shakespeare, Iago, allegory, mimesis, metapoetry, race, gender, reason ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS With sincere gratitude and appreciation I wish to acknowledge the many people who aided my research and stood beside me throughout this process. First, to my committee, I am thankful for Dr. Nancy Christiansen‟s high standards and expectations alongside her tireless commitment and willingness to work with me on even the smallest details, Dr. Bruce Young for his kind encouragement and help with technical issues, and Dr. Brandie Siegfried for her meaningful input on the argument of the paper. For his editing services and for a lifelong training in critical thinking, I thank my Dad. I thank my son, Liam, for his great patience and willingness to sacrifice his time with me while I worked on the project. I am especially indebted to the many people who offered the invaluable service of caring for little Liam. First, I offer my gratitude to my Mom, without whose continual and extensive help I could not have finished, and also, to my family and friends, Stephanie—for repeated help at several crucial moments—and to Doug, Melissa, Aurora, Darlene, Ralph, Brice, Morgan, and Andria for their service and support. I offer special thanks to my friend Shannon who was willing to talk through my ideas with me and to help refine my writing on some key phrases. Finally, with all my heart and love I acknowledge the great sacrifice my husband, William, has made to help me through this process and for his perpetual encouragement and support throughout my education. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 1 ALLEGORY ................................................................................................................................... 4 Allegory and the Critics ............................................................................................................ 26 MIMESIS ....................................................................................................................................... 31 Mimesis and the Critics ............................................................................................................. 45 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................. 50 Works Cited .................................................................................................................................. 51 Somers 1 Pierced Through the Ear”: Poetic Villainy in Othello That Shakespeare works beyond and below the surface level of his plays goes undisputed. Critics often turn to metatheatre to articulate this self-reflexive tendency. As James L. Calderwood summarizes, “dramatic art itself … is a dominant Shakespearean theme, perhaps his most abiding subject” (5). Louis Montrose draws the same conclusion when he argues that “the professional theatre” offers the only “stable ideological position in the corpus of Shakespeare‟s plays” (209). Costuming, disguise, and theatrical or ceremonial performance within the dramatic action of a play characterize Shakespearean metatheatre as they bring the conventions of theatre to the fore. According to Martin Puchen, metatheatrical plays “are „about‟ the theatre … their primary frame of reference is not the world but their own theatricality” (17). In consequence of metatheatre‟s re-presentation of the theatrical world, the barrier between the real and the illusory dissipates. Lionel Abel embellishes Jacques famous line, “All the world‟s a stage,” to explicate his idea of metatheatre. He writes that in a metaplay, “the world is a stage, life … a dream” (83). Metatheatre, or metadrama, realizes the illusory world of the play and consequentially de- realizes the “real” world. Othello is one play Shakespeare immerses in theatrical self-consciousness. Performance, disguise, spying, directing, and staging or scenery make theatre itself a thematic subject of study. Iago constantly performs before his audiences, cloaking his villainy with a guise of honesty on the one hand, and announcing his devilishness on the other. Also, Othello fulfills and adopts various roles. John Bernard argues for Othello‟s “theatricality” inasmuch as he “exchanges” his first role as “the exotic outsider” for “mysoginistic defender of the patriarchy” and “the universal justicer,” and finally for that of “unmanned coward” (942). Moreover, the spying scenes within the play recreate and dramatize the audience-to-performer relationship wherein an audience sees Somers 2 without (supposedly) being seen. Herein the audience members receive an invitation to reflect upon their own position as spectators. Identifying with Othello as the observer, the audience members may be unsettled by the notion that they too only imagine themselves on the outside of the dramatic action. An argument for seeing Iago as a director and dramatist orchestrating a play also supports metatheatrical analysis of the play. In a manner of speaking, a play-within-a-play takes place on a grand scale in Othello. In his book When the Theatre Turns to Itself: The Aesthetic Metaphor in Shakespeare, Sidney Homan argues that Iago produces a play of first “visual” and then “verbal artistry” wherein characters act consciously and unconsciously on a “makeshift stage” (105, 106). Iago‟s directorial control also extends over the scenery. He limits Othello‟s understanding by framing and containing the events and actions his victim will observe and overhear. Yet, though Shakespeare clearly reflects upon the conventions of theatre in Othello, in some ways, Othello is not metatheatre. Abel claims that Othello fails as true metatheatre because it does not de-realize the real world, because it lacks the essential metatheatrical component of fantasy: “In the metaplay … fantasy is essential, it is what one finds at the heart of reality” (79). Homan too notes this deviation from typical metatheatre: “Othello does not so much question the line separating reality” from illusion “as show the manner in which a wholesome reality can be supplanted by an obscene illusion” (104). Rather than blurring the lines between the real and the illusory in typical metatheatrical fashion, theatricality within Othello reinforces their separation. In fact, Othello works to the opposite