lso with the famous Hamlet. The same with
Antony, Brutus, Cleopatra, Shylock, Richard, and all Shakespeare's
characters, all taken from some antecedent work. Shakespeare, while
profiting by characters already given in preceding dramas, or romances,
chronicles, or, Plutarch's "Lives," not only fails to render them more
truthful and vivid, as his eulogists affirm, but, on the contrary,
always weakens them and often completely destroys them, as with Lear,
compelling his characters to commit actions unnatural to them, and,
above all, to utter speeches natural neither to them nor to any one
whatever. Thus, in "Othello," altho that is, perhaps, I will not say the
best, but the least bad and the least encumbered by pompous volubility,
the characters of Othello, Iago, Cassio, Emilia, according to
Shakespeare, are much less natural and lifelike than in the Italian
romance. Shakespeare's Othello suffers from epilepsy, of which he has an
attack on the stage; moreover, in Shakespeare's version, Desdemona's
murder is preceded by the strange vow of the kneeling Othello. Othello,
according to Shakespeare, is a negro and not a Moor. All this is
erratic, inflated, unnatural, and violates the unity of the character.
All this is absent in the romance. In that romance the reasons for
Othello's jealousy are represented more naturally than in Shakespeare.
In the romance, Cassio, knowing whose the handkerchief is, goes to
Desdemona to return it, but, approaching the back-door of Desdemona's
house, sees Othello and flies from him. Othello perceives the escaping
Cassio, and this, more than anything, confirms his suspicions.
Shakespeare has not got this, and yet this casual incident explains
Othello's jealousy more than anything else. With Shakespeare, this
jealousy is founded entirely on Iago's persistent, successful
machinations and treacherous words, which Othello blindly believes.
Othello's monolog over the sleeping Desdemona, about his desiring her
when killed to look as she is alive, about his going to love her even
dead, and now wishing to smell her "balmy breath," etc., is utterly
impossible. A man who is preparing for the murder of a beloved being,
does not utter such phrases, still less after committing the murder
would he speak about the necessity of an eclipse of sun and moon, and of
the globe yawning; nor can he, negro tho he may be, address devils,
inviting them to burn him in hot sulphur and so forth. Lastly, however
effective may