Othello (Vol. 35) | Fred West (essay date 1978)
Fred West (essay date 1978)
SOURCE: "Iago the Psychopath," in South Atlantic Bulletin, Vol. 43, No. 2, March, 1978, pp. 27-35.
[In the following essay, West argues that in Iago Shakespeare created a profound and accurate portrait of a psychopath.]
It is not sufficient to simply drape Iago in allegorical trappings and proclaim him Mister Evil or a Machiavel or a Vice. Such a limited view of Iago is an injustice to the complexity of his character, since Shakespeare's studies in personality are acclaimed by psychologists for their accuracy and profundity. Although the influence of the miracle plays and the later morality plays with their type-characters still lingered in some Elizabethan drama, the English Renaissance is widely recognized as a period of great interest in that branch of science which has become known in modern times as psychology. Dramatists were particularly intrigued by the more bizarre working of the human mind, often...
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