Othello As Tragedy: Some Problems of Judgement and Feeling

Critical views of Othello have polarized during the last forty years. The dispute is between those who follow Coleridge and Bradley and see Othello as noble but diabolically misled, and those who follow Eliot and Leavis and see him as a criminal egotist. Jane Adamson argues that both views are too simple and that both deprive the play of tragic point. She is concerned to reinstate the play as a great tragedy, and Othello as a complex tragic figure. She considers in detail how the drama unfo...