Othello (Vol. 35) | Robert Hapgood (essay date 1966)
Robert Hapgood (essay date 1966)
SOURCE: "The Trials of Othello," in Pacific Coast Studies in Shakespeare, edited by Waldo F. McNeir and Thelma N. Greenfield, 1966, pp. 134-47.
[In the essay below, Hapgood analyzes themes of judgment and justice in Othello, characterizing the play as a tragedy of self-righteousness that "warrants little confidence in human attempts at judiciousness. "]
Leonard F. Dean's collection of essays, A Casebook on Othello, has all too apt a title. For so much has been written about the play's justice theme and so many judgments have been passed upon its hero that recent criticism does read like a legal casebook, in which Othello is tried and judged—in this world and the next.1 In a way, Othello "asks for" such treatment by presuming to judge himself and others; and certainly a judgment of the hero is part of our response to his tragedy. Yet not, I submit, the dominant part. Overre-acting...
[The entire page is 5659 words long]
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