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Love's Reason in Othello Author(S): E Rice University Love's Reason in Othello Author(s): E. K. Weedin, Jr. Source: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 15, No. 2, Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama (Spring, 1975), pp. 293-308 Published by: Rice University Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/449673 . Accessed: 22/03/2013 13:31 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Rice University is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 140.233.2.215 on Fri, 22 Mar 2013 13:31:28 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Love's Reason in Othello E. K. WEEDIN,JR. Among Shakespeare'stragedies, none- not even King Lear-matches Othello in the persistenceand thoroughnesswith which it anatomizesthe operationof reason in man. No otherof the tragediesis so occupied with "judgment" in both public court and privaterumination. There are two distinct sortsof reasoningexercised in thedrama, one displayedby lago, and anotherby the Duke, Desdemona,and, earlyin theplay, Othello. The tragedyoccurs in Othello's relinquishing of the one sort while remainingpersuaded, under lago's tutelage,that he is still using it when he judges, sentences,and executes Desdemona. A close ex- aminationof both kindsof reasoningwill clarifythe place of reason withinthe play and make some commentsupon theplay's otherma- jor concern,love. It will offera differentstatement of thenature of the tragedyfrom that suggested by critics who argue thatOthello's error is to reasonwhere he ought to love, it will tryto show moreexactly than has been so fardone the sortof reasoningthat lago displays throughoutthe drama, and itwill arguethat the distinct nature of the tragedyand thesubtle differences between the two kinds of reasoning wereevident to a largenumber in Shakespeare'saudiences. More than the opposition betweentwo ways to reason is involvedin theircon- flict,for each mannerof reasoningis based upon an assumptioncon- cerninghuman natureand the universethat man inhabits.In the strugglebetween lago and Desdemona and the struggle within Othello, the view of man in such a world as that of this play is revealed. It is not Othello's errorto reason wherehe should love;' it is his error,as he realizes,to love "notwisely." Love in thisplay, unlike that in Romeo and Julietand Antonyand Cleopatra,not only is suscepti- ble to reason'sguidance, it ought to be so governed.Were it to be,lago would be powerlessin his attackupon Othello's love forDesdemona. It is nota purerlove (one unmitigatedby such rational actions as "im- I "The momentOthello asks forproof of lago, he has steppeddown fromthe 'higher' world into the worldof that'lower' reasoningwhich will destroyhim; it is a fallof an archetypaldesign." TerenceHawkes, "lago's Use ofReason," Studiesin Philology,58 (1961), 167. This content downloaded from 140.233.2.215 on Fri, 22 Mar 2013 13:31:28 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 294 OTHELLO putation," "indict[ment]," "arraign[ment],"and "judgment"- some of the very many legal terms noticeable in this play's vocabulary)that Othello needs; he needs a pureruse of reason,one unmitigatedby such irrationalactions as doubtingbefore one sees, and provingbefore one informsthe accused of the chargesor even calls fortestimony from the accused or otherpertinent witnesses. Lamentable and terrifying,however, as are Othello's errorsin reasoning,they are clearlydistinct from lago's exerciseof it. lago's mostexplicit and closelyargued remarkson theoperation of reason and thenature of man occur when he converseswith Roderigo near the end of I.iii: 'Tis in ourselvesthat we are thusor thus.Our bodies are our gardens,to the which our wills are gardeners;so thatif we will plant nettlesor sow lettuce,set hyssop and weed up thyme,supply it withone genderof herbsor distractit with many-either to have it sterilewith idleness or manuredwith industry-why,the power and corrigibleauthority of this lies in our wills. If thebalance ofour liveshad notone scale of reason to poise anotherof sensuality,the blood and baseness of our natureswould conductus to mostpreposterous con- clusions. But we have reasonto cool our ragingmotions, our carnal stings,our unbittedlusts; whereof I takethis that you call love to be a sect or scion. (319-331)2 These lines are takenby scholarsas sayingquite different,even op- posite things.It is importantto come to as exactand accuratean un- derstandingof lago's remarksas we can because theydisclose the sort of reasoningthat he is going to use throughoutthe play, thesort of reasoningupon which the success of his machinationswill largely depend. In his discussionof thespeech, J. V. Cunninghamsays that lago "picks up Roderigo'sassertion that it is not in his powernot to be a sinningfool, to go kill himselffor love, and maintainsthat we do have thepower to makeourselves one thingor theother, good orevil, to controlor not to controlour bodies, our lowernatures, and that this power is our will. This, so faras I can see, is a notoriouscom- monplaceof theChristian tradition, as well as ofthe Aristotelian. It is plain and hoaryorthodoxy."3 In Magic in the WebRobert Heilman refersto thisparagraph by Cunningham to notehis agreementwith 2A11quotations fromShakespeare are takenfrom William Shakespeare:The Com- plete Works,gen. ed. AlfredHarbage (Baltimore,1969). 3James Vincent Cunningham, Woe or Wonder: The Emotional Effect of Shakespearean Tragedy(Denver, 1951),p. 25. This content downloaded from 140.233.2.215 on Fri, 22 Mar 2013 13:31:28 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions E. K. WEEDIN, JR. 295 it,calling lago's remarks"a traditionalexhortation on theutility of will and reason."4 Hardin Craig, however,studies lago's argumentand concludes that"Iago ... offersa grandperversion of thetheory that good is the end and purposeof reason."5 The theoryto which Craig refersis one expounded by many of the Christianhumanist philosophers and divineswriting before and duringthe time of Othello. It is theone of which Cunninghamoffers a paraphrase,but his paraphrasediffers subtly and significantlyfrom the theory shared by so many Renaissancewriters, as does lago's account. Far frompresenting to Roderigo "plain and hoary orthodoxy,"Iago, by a deftrearrange- mentof theterms used to framethe orthodoxy, rehearses not "a grand perversion"but a distinctlyand subtlydifferent scheme of man's soul. I say "rehearses"because Iago's profferednotions are new only in thesense that they were newer and less widelyknown to Shakespeare and his audience than those of the Christian humanists. Iago's thoughtshere are not original, but theyare current.The commen- tarieson man's naturerecently written by such personsas Machiavelli and Montaignepossessed as antique a heritageas did thoseby other sixteenth-centurywriters, such as Charron and Hooker, but the theoriesorganized by the lattertwo had been receivedfrom a large numberof medievalscholars who had sharedand refinedthe ideas over a long period of time. Far fewerwriters during the medieval period had dealt with the theoriesproposed by Montaigne and Machiavelli,who werequestioning the firmlyestablished medieval and now Renaissance assumptions,but these "newer" arguments werescarcely unknown to a reasonablylarge portion of learnedpeo- ple in Shakespeare'saudience. "Elizabethan playwrightsand play- goers ... undoubtedlywere familiar," as Lawrence Babb states, "with the ratherbroad psychological principles upon which one findsgeneral agreement in learnedworks."6 At the timeof Othello thesereasonably learned would surelyhave been familiarwith the two major opposing schools of psychology and moral philosophy,and the uneducated,also, would have been familiarwith at least the notion of man's soul setdown by Hooker (even if theycould not read him) because theseassumptions about 4RobertB. Heilman, Magic in the Web: Action and Language in Othello (Lex- ington, 1956),p. 195. 5Hardin Craig, The Enchanted Glass: The Elizabethan Mind in Literature(New York, 1936),p. 27. 6Lawrence Babb, "On the Nature of Elizabethan Psychological Literature,"in JosephQuincy Adams MemorialStudies, ed. JamesG. McManaway,Giles E. Dawson, and Edwin E. Willoughby(Washington, 1948), p. 520. This content downloaded from 140.233.2.215 on Fri, 22 Mar 2013 13:31:28 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 296 OTHELLO man, his reason,and his laws had been so long and so widelyknown bythe world in whichall theElizabethans lived. One could notmake his requiredattendance to the weeklysermons without receiving a detailed account of the divine's arguments and the opposing argumentsagainst which he inveighed.It is partof lago's skill that his views of thesoul appear innocentby virtueof theirbeing hoary doctrine.They slide past Roderigo withoutarousing any expressed uneasinessor dispute.But Roderigois a gull and he is wroughtupon by his passion for Desdemona. On the otherhand, it is likelythat lago's smoothsententiae alerted many of the playgoers to muchof the play's matter.The uneducated would have realized that lago was depictingman and reason's place in
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