"Iago" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The statement may (with St. Peter keeping the gate) have been challenged in paradise, but in literature at all events the unhonored life of Jerome Coignard has clothed him with glory of tolerably longeval looking texture. It is true that this might also be said of Iago and Tartuffe, but then we have Balzac's word for it that merely to be celebrated is not enough. Rather is the highest human desideratum twofold,—D'etre celebre et d'etre aime. And that much Coignard promises to be for a ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... into eloquence by the fierce passions of fear of death and hatred of Pompilia, he lays bare as the night his very soul, mean, cruel, cowardly, hungry for revenge, crying for life, black with hate—a revelation such as in literature can best be paralleled by the soliloquies of Iago. Baseness is supreme in his speech, hate was never better given; the words are like the gnashing of teeth; prayers for life at any cost were never meaner, and the outburst of terror and despair at the end is their ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... errands of the gods. He let the passion or the sentiment do its own work without prop or bolstering. He would have scorned to mountebank it; and betrayed none of that cleverness which is the bane of serious acting. For this reason, his Iago was the only endurable one which I remember to have seen. No spectator from his action could divine more of his artifice than Othello was supposed to do. His confessions in soliloquy alone put you in possession of the mystery. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... Scott did not always admire, when they were displayed by "Lady Anne" and other girls of flesh and blood. Rashleigh is of a nature unusual in Scott. He is, perhaps, Sir Walter's nearest approach, for malignant egotism, to an Iago. Of Bailie Nicol Jarvie commendation were impertinent. All Scotland arose, called him hers, laughed at and applauded her civic child. Concerning Andrew Fairservice, the first edition tells us what the final edition leaves us to guess—that Tresham "may ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... of the guards—a guardsman is now become indispensable—who is also in love with the marquess's daughter, and being not at all scrupulous of the means of accomplishing his point—a very worthless person in short—he plays Iago, and pours into the lady's ear the tale of Hyde's gambling propensities, and his deep involvements; and moreover of a lady whose affection he had wantonly won, and wantonly cut, and who was now actually dying for him. This, however, was not all true; the lady alluded to was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 279, October 20, 1827 • Various
... Sewell, 'is a virtue; doubt is a sin.' Iago is nothing if not critical; and the sceptical spirit—der Geist der stets verneint—which is satisfied with nothing, which sees in everything good the seed of evil, and the weak spot in every great cause or nature, has been made the special characteristic—we ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... becoming too strong. We were disturbing the balance of power. We were demonstrating too plainly the inherent activity and irresistible energy of a purely democratic form of government. Therefore Carthago delenda est. "But yet the pity of it, Iago!" Mark how a Christian nation deals with a Christian ally. Our destruction is to be accomplished, not by open warfare, but by the delusive and dastardly pretence of neutrality. There is to be no diplomatic recognition of an independent Southern Confederacy, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... Old Cloak about thee," was published in 1719 by Allan Ramsay in his "Tea-Table Miscellany," and was probably a sixteenth century piece retouched by him. Iago sings the last stanza but one—"King Stephen was a worthy peer," etc.—in ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... steamers have been followed by the curious spectacle of a French actor teaching an English audience how Shakespeare should be acted. I would give a good deal to see M. Fechter in Hamlet, Othello, or Iago,—the only parts he has yet attempted; the rather, because the low condition of the stage in England, where Mr. Macready and Mr. Charles Kean are called great actors, makes the English newspaper-criticisms of little value. In default of this, I have ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... not Iago perfection? particularly the last look. I was close to him (in the orchestra), and never saw an English countenance half ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... Othello jealousy is treated with profound and searching truth, with terrible intensity of feeling, and with irresistible momentum of action. A spectator will honour and pity Othello, and hate and execrate Iago—with some infusion, perhaps of impatience toward the one and of admiration for the other—but he is likely to view both Leonatus and Iachimo with considerable indifference; he will casually recognise the infrequent ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... Poynton and Moll Stacey, who is very fine, and by her wedding-ring I suppose he hath married her at last,) did see "The Moor of Venice:" but ill acted in most parts, Moone (which did a little surprise me) not acting Iago's part by much so well as Clun used to do: nor another Hart's, which was Cassio's; nor indeed Burt doing the Moor's so well as I once thought he did. Thence home; and just at Holborne-conduit the bolt broke that holds the fore-wheels to the perch, and so the horses went ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... May, about 11 o'clock in the forenoon, we spoke two British patrol vessels named Iago and Filey. We were then about twenty-two miles west of the Bishop Lighthouse. The patrol vessels asked where we were bound. After informing them we were bound for Rouen, they ordered us to follow them to the Bishop. The Filey took up a position a half mile distant ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... by her own hand; old Montague is a Montague-Ugolino who has devoured his sons; Malcolm is believed to be a mountaineer's child; Lear is borne on the stage, sleeping on a bed of roses, that he may behold a sunrise; Hedelmone (Desdemona) is no longer Othello's wife; Iago disappears; Desdemona's handkerchief is not among the properties; and Juliet's lark is voiceless. Eighteenth-century tragedy is indeed a ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... incipient disease, he, who was doing so much more than he had sworn, failed in the letter of his priestly oath—he, who was so much a better man than either you or me, who did what we have never dreamed of daring—he too tasted of our common frailty. 'O, Iago, the pity of it!' The least tender should be moved to tears; the most incredulous to prayer. And all that you could do was to pen your letter to ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Admiralty law, as well as with the procedure of Westminster Hall. Describing the feat of the Moor in carrying off Desdemona against her father's consent, which might either make or mar his fortune, according as the act might be sanctioned or nullified, Iago observes,— ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... confidence with which he listens to his adviser, the agony with which he shrinks from the thought of shame, the tempest of passion with which he commits his crimes, and the haughty fearlessness with which he avows them, give an extraordinary interest to his character. Iago, on the contrary, is the object of universal loathing. Many are inclined to suspect that Shakspeare has been seduced into an exaggeration unusual with him, and has drawn a monster who has no archetype in human nature. Now we suspect ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... hands!" From rank to rank—from line to line—sped the santon; and, as the mystic banner gleamed before the soldiery, each closed his eyes and muttered an "amen" to his adjurations. And now, to the cry of "Spain and St. Iago," came trampling down the relentless charge of the Christian war. At the same instant, from the fortress lately taken by Ponce de Leon, the artillery opened upon the Moors, and did deadly havoc. The Moslems wavered a moment when before them ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to be found in musical annals such diversity of aptitudes as that displayed by this French baritone. Is there an actor on any stage to-day who can portray both the grossness of Falstaff and the subtlety of Iago? Making allowance for the different art medium that the singing actor must work in, and despite the larger curves of operatic pose and gesture, Maurel kept astonishingly near to the characters ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... Let the reader examine, with special reference to this subject, the general character of the language of Iago. ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... OTHELLO.—"IAGO tells me you've been flirting with Lieutenant CASSIO. Now that won't do. Remember that under the Fifteenth Amendment I have the right, being a colored man, of doing pretty much as I choose. If this flirtation isn't stopped promptly I'll go to Indiana, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 39., Saturday, December 24, 1870. • Various
... bold, downright, open bearing of the strong? . . . That there may be no mistake in the essayist's meaning, that he may drive the nail home into the English understanding, he takes an illustration which shall be familiar to all of us in the characters of Iago and Othello. To our northern thought, the free and noble nature of the Moor is wrecked through a single infirmity, by a fiend in the human form. To one of Machiavelli's Italians, Iago's keen-edged intellect would have appeared as admirable ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... and she has cut my acquaintance ever since. I always did say that there is nothing like amateur theatricals for bringing out all the worst vices of humanity. If a Shakespearian revival ever reaches the heavenly host, Gabriel and Michael will have to play Othello and Iago turn and turn about, to prevent ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... disguise any thing. The master-mind of Shakspeare—which seems to have divined the secrets of Nature, and illustrated scientific principles before they were discovered by philosophers—recognized this fact, in making Iago thus ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... said not only might have been said, but that nothing else could be substituted, so as to excite the same sense of its exquisite propriety. I have always thought the conduct and expressions of Othello and Iago in the last scene, when Iago is brought in prisoner, a wonderful instance ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... Joseph Simon Jude James John the Minor the the Major the Evangelist Apostle Just St. Iago ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... Killigrew and his troop had removed from Vere Street in April, 1663), it is certain, on the evidence of Downes's "Roscius Anglicanus," that a Mrs. Hughes played the part of Desdemona to the Othello of Burt, the Iago of Mohun, and the Cassio of Hart. Now, was this Mrs. Hughes, who had been a member of Killigrew's company from the first, the Desdemona on whose behalf, nine years before, Mr. Thomas Jordan wrote his apologetic prologue? It seems not unlikely. At the same time it must be stated ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... and beautiful in her character. Brave, uncomplaining Iris! Iris of the crystal soul! Iris, whose innocence and candor were mirrored in her blue eyes and breathed through her dear lips! Here was Othello acting as his own tempter, with not an Iago within a ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... example, let us say that Othello, Iago, Hamlet, Lear, Richard III, existed merely in the mind of Shakespeare, at the time of their conception or creation. And yet, Shakespeare also existed within each of these characters, giving them their vitality, spirit, and action. Whose is the "spirit" of the characters ...
— The Kybalion - A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece • Three Initiates
... his power entered into Northwales, and in fight slue Cadwalhon the sonne of Ieuaf, and Meyric his brother, and conquered the land to himselfe. Wherein a man maie [Sidenote: See the historie of Cambria pag. 62, 63.] see how God punished the wrong, which Iago and Ieuaf the sonnes of Edwall Voell did to their eldest brother Meyric, who was first disherited, and afterward his eies put out, and one of his sonnes slaine. For first Ieuaf was imprisoned by Iago; then Iago with his sonne Constantine, by Howell the son of Ieuaf: and afterward the said ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (7 of 8) - The Seventh Boke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed
... them—the man whom we had seen rise up in the boat—was strong enough to tell us his story. I will not repeat it in all its dreadful details of suffering; suffice it to say that their ship, homeward-bound from Saint Iago, had been attacked by a piratical schooner, the crew of which, after rifling and scuttling the ship, had turned the crew adrift in one of their own boats, without provisions or water, masts or sails; and there ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... a distant resemblance to "honest Iago" in Othello, though Molire has only faintly shadowed forth what Shakespeare has worked out in ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere
... attained by Gustave Dore, and sometimes by Elihu Vedder, yet there is a charm in his sobriety, there is something which compels our respect in the workmanlike method, in the evidences of thoroughness which appeared in all he wrought. Some of his Shakespeare figures linger in the memory like that of Iago as played by Edwin Booth, or that of Rosalind as played ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... fly-flappers, red ochre, and numerous other minor valuables. These we brought in triumph to the camp. It always distressed me to have to fire at these savages, and it was only when our lives were in most imminent danger that we did so, for, as Iago says, though in the trade of war I have slain men, yet do I hold it very stuff o' the conscience to do no contrived murder. I lack iniquity, sometimes, to do me service. We then went on with our work, though expecting our foes to return, but we were not again molested, as they now ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... Jeanie Deans from Edinburgh to London. Bunyan is almost the only writer that ever gave to the abstract the interest of the concrete. In the works of many celebrated authors, men are mere personifications. We have not an Othello, but jealousy; not an Iago but perfidy; not a Brutus, but patriotism. The mind of Bunyan, on the contrary, was so imaginative, that personifications, when he dealt with them, became men. A dialogue between two qualities, in his dream, has more dramatic ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 532. Saturday, February 4, 1832 • Various
... the blessed Saint Iago, He hath vowed immortal hatred To these circumcised intruders Who pollute ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... for Plan formed within the magic circle of his own inapproachable spirits is very fine; but still it is not tragic—nay scarce obvious enough to be altogether dramatic, if in this word we involve theatre-representation. Iago (so far only analogous to Wallenstein as in him an Impulse is the source of his conduct rather than the motive), always acting is not the object of Interest, [but] derives a constant interest from Othello, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... even there he receives his lessons, and is told, either in phrases of well-conceived irony, or by the exhibition of facts and reasonings which take him by surprise, that he is not altogether the person he deemed himself to be. But he does not mind it. Like Iago in the play, he "knows his price, and, by the faith of man, that he is worth no worse a place" than that which he occupies. He finds out the value of the check he receives, and lets it "pass by him like the idle wind"—a mastery, which the ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... so happened that Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk's purse became an exceedingly "Iago"-like, "something, nothing, trashy" sort of affair—in other words, that its owner, Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk, was regularly stumped; and as the Amateur Dramatic Theatrical Committee "always go upon the no pay no play system," Mr. Horatio Fitzharding ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... the Shakespearean influences is the jealousy theme in which Don Antonio is modelled on Othello, Caelia on Desdemona, and Jasper on Iago. My colleague, Professor E.L. Hubler, who has a vast deal of the Shakespearean text in his memory, finds twenty-two possible echoes or parallels. Of these we agree that at least fourteen are certain. The influences strike in most impressively ...
— The Fatal Jealousie (1673) • Henry Nevil Payne
... Like Iago, he saw the indistinct outline of a glorious and a most malicious plot; it lay crude in his head and heart at present; thus much he saw clearly, that, if he could time Mrs. Vane's arrival so that she should pounce upon the Woffington at her husband's table, he ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... subtilty of analysis, and sympathy with mental finesse, must also specially adapt this actor to the correct assumption of the character of Iago. Those who have never seen him in it may know by analogy that his merits are not exaggerated. We take it that Iago is a sharply intellectual personage, though his logic, warped by grovelling purpose, becomes sophistry, while lustful and envious intrigues occupy his skilful brain. We have described ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... imagination the creative faculty. Assuming it to be so, in the one case it acts by deliberate forethought, in the other by intense sympathy—a sympathy which enables it to realize an Iago as happily as a Cordelia, a Caliban as a Prospero. There is a passage in Chaucer's "House of Fame" which very prettily ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... calm confidence of a veteran; but women and their motives are to him an uncharted sea. Suddenly a beautiful young heiress falls in love with him, and leaves home and friends to marry him. He stands on the threshold of a new realm, happy but bewildered. Then comes Iago, his trusted subordinate, —who, as Othello knows, possesses that knowledge of women and of civilian life which he himself lacks,—and whispers in his ear that his bride is false to him; that under this fair veneer lurks the eternal ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... was a very useful lesson to me, so you may take warning by my experience, and, if ever she invites you to ride with her, as she did me, beware! beware! her flashing eyes, her floating hair!—do not accept, or, before accepting, take Iago's advice, and put money in your purse: PUT MONEY IN YOUR PURSE! ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... joins her misbelieving bands, Alla and Mahomet their battle-word, The choice they yield, the Koran or the Sword - See how the Christians rush to arms amain! - In yonder shout the voice of conflict roared, The shadowy hosts are closing on the plain - Now, God and Saint Iago strike, for ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... and out of place. In the scenes with Iago he equaled Salvini, yet did not in any one point surpass him. Nor did he in any way imitate him. The fury of the two Othellos is widely different. Salvini is the fiercer, for Rossi's rage has a background of intensest suffering. One is an enraged tiger, the other a wounded ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... may, with pure, unintellectual, brutal evil it is very different. We cannot look upon it undismayed: we take no interest in it, nor can we. In Richard there is scarce a glimmer of his better nature; yet we do not despise him, for his intellect and courage command our respect. But the fiend Iago,—who ever followed him through the weaving of his spider-like web, without perpetual recurrence to its venomous source,—his devilish heart? Even the intellect he shows seems actually animalized, and we shudder at its subtlety, as at the cunning of a reptile. Whatever interest ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... been translated into English before Shakespeare dramatised it. He followed its main drift with fidelity, but he introduced the new characters of Roderigo and Emilia, and he invested the catastrophe with new and fearful intensity by making Iago's cruel treachery known to Othello at the last, after Iago's perfidy has impelled the noble-hearted Moor in his groundless jealousy to murder his gentle and innocent wife Desdemona. Iago became in Shakespeare's ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... so long unchanged as the actors. I can see the same Othello to-day, if I choose, that when I was a boy I saw smothering Mrs. Duff-Desdemona with the pillow, under the instigations of Mr. Cooper-Iago. A few stone heavier than he was then, no doubt, but the same truculent blackamoor that took by the thr-r-r-oat the circumcised dog in Aleppo, and told us about it in the old Boston Theatre. In the course of a fortnight, if I care to cross the water, I can see Mademoiselle ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Charles Lamb, "la verite est que les caracteres de Shakespeare sont tellement des objets de meditation plutot que d'interet ou de curiosite relativement a leurs actes, que, tandis que nous lisons l'un de ses grands caracteres criminels,—Macbeth, Richard, Iago meme,—nous ne songeons pas tant aux crimes qu'ils commettent, qu'a l'ambition, a l'esprit d'aspiration, a l'activite intellectuelle qui les poussent a franchir ces barrieres morales. Les actions nous affectent si peu, que, tandis que les impulsions, l'esprit interieur en toute sa ...
— Pelleas and Melisande • Maurice Maeterlinck
... be seen that in no sense does Flamineo resemble Iago. He is not a traitor working by craft and calculating ability to well-considered ends. He is the desperado frantically clutching at an uncertain and impossible satisfaction. Webster conceives him as a self-abandoned atheist, who, maddened by ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... discretion, and if the Resolution should be lost, he was to prosecute his voyage in the Adventure. A copy of these orders was given to Captain Furneaux, and in case of separation the following rendezvous were named: Madeira, Port Praya in the island of St. Iago, the Cape of ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... despair because he had been rejected by Desdemona, and was ready to end his life, by the time Iago entered. ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... thinks all the world of his wife. She has a lazy time of it, the hired girl doin all the cookin and washin. Desdemony, in fact, don't have to git the water to wash her own hands with. But a low cuss named Iago, who I bleeve wants to git Otheller out of his snug government birth, now goes to work & upsets the Otheller family in the most outrajus stile. Iago falls in with a brainless youth named Roderigo & wins all his money ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... of Venice. Othello was one of the first plays to be revived at the Restoration, and was, perhaps, the most frequently seen of all Shakespeare. On 11 October, 1660, Burt acted Othello at the Cockpit. Downes gives Mohun as Iago; Hart, Cassio; Cartwright, Brabantio; Beeston, Roderigo; Mrs. Hughes, Desdemona; Mrs. Rutter, Emilia. But it is certain Clun had also acted Iago—(Pepys, 6 February, 1668). Hart soon gave up Cassio to Kynaston ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... the tragic poet cannot clear himself of his plot without introducing a wretch, and when he is reduced to derive the greatness of suffering from the greatness of wickedness, the supreme beauty of his work must always be seriously injured. Iago and Lady Macbeth in Shakspeare, Cleopatra in the tragedy of "Rodogune," or Franz Moor in "The Robbers," are so many proofs in support of this assertion. A poet who understands his real interest will not bring about the catastrophe through a malicious will ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... have ears," he murmured. "If I were sure . . . to pay madame a visit while she sleeps and dreams!" His hand grew tense around the hilt of his sword. "No; let us play Iago rather than Tarquinius; let ambition, rather than love, strike the key-note. Greed was not born to wait. As yet I have robbed no man save at cards; and as every noble cheats when he can, I can do no less. Neither have I struck a man in ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... Iago and I will too!—Carlos, this Antonio is one who rivals me (as I have heard) with Louisa—now, if I could hamper him with this girl, I should have the field to myself; hey, Carlos! ...
— The Duenna • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... Kelly's! Oh my stars! To think of him, all that time—Macbeth in disguise; Richard the Third grown straight; Hamlet as he appeared on his seavoyage to England. What an artful villain he must be, never to have made any sign of the melodrama that was in him! What a wicked-minded and remorseless Iago to have seen you doing Kitely night after night! raging to murder you and seize the part! Oh fancy Miss Kelly 'getting him up' in Macbeth. Good Heaven! what a mass of absurdity must be shut up sometimes ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... honors. The eldest, Don Francesco Borgia, born in 1510, became Duke of Gandia and a great lord in Spain and highly honored at the court of Charles V, who made him Vice-Regent of Catalonia and Commander of San Iago. He accompanied the emperor on his expedition against France and even to Africa. In 1529 he married one of the ladies in waiting to the empress, Eleonora de Castro, who bore him five sons and three daughters. When she died, in 1546, the Duke of Gandia yielded to his long-standing ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... and The Merchant of Venice have offended. I avow myself an impenitent Shakesperian in this respect also. The constant or almost constant presence of that humour which ranges from the sarcastic quintessence of Iago, and the genial quintessence of Falstaff, through the fantasies of Feste and Edgar, down to the sheer nonsense which not unfrequently occurs, seems to me not only delightful in itself, but, as ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... situation will be augmented if the difference between the characters is marked. This expedient is therefore of especial importance in the drama. Othello seems more poignantly emotional in the presence of the coldly intellectual Iago. In "The School for Scandal," Charles and Joseph Surface are much more effective together than either of them would be alone. The wholehearted and happy-go-lucky recklessness of the one sets off the smooth and smug ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... striking picture of the sudden change, in the direction we are considering, which comes over a tranquil mind from the commission of a great crime. Iago says to Othello, after he has wrought "the ...
— Shakespeare's Insomnia, And the Causes Thereof • Franklin H. Head
... dramatic art has been made in this play. One of the main sources of the pathos of human life is the operation of what seems to us to be mere blind chance. Just as the casual dropping of Desdemona's handkerchief gave Iago his opportunity, so the casual allotting of the seven gates brings the two brothers into conflict. But behind it was the working of an inherited curse; yet Aeschylus is careful to point out that the curse need ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... honour that thou shouldest die, and never hast thou neglected to do aught which thine honour demands." Whereupon, being arrived in the roadstead of Goa, Alfonzo Albuquerque set in order the affairs of his conscience with the Church, caused himself to be clad in the dress of the Order of St. Iago of which he was a commander, and then "on Sunday the 16th of December, an hour before daybreak, he rendered up his soul to God. Thus ended all his labours, without their having ever brought him ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... (reading them carefully the day beforehand,) quite all Shakspere's acting dramas, play'd wonderfully well. Even yet I cannot conceive anything finer than old Booth in "Richard Third," or "Lear," (I don't know which was best,) or Iago, (or Pescara, or Sir Giles Overreach, to go outside of Shakspere)—or Tom Hamblin in "Macbeth"—or old Clarke, either as the ghost in "Hamlet," or as Prospero in "the Tempest," with Mrs. Austin as Ariel, and Peter Richings as Caliban. ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... Massachusetts as the heroic tradesman who had parted with his money only when overpowered by superior force. It is impossible to say what motives may impel men who are half-crazed by vanity, or half-demonized by malice. Coleridge describes Iago's hatred of Othello as the hatred which a base nature instinctively feels for a noble one, and his assignment of motives for his acts as the mere "motive-hunting of ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... nor in his gayer scenes, is there aught which can corrupt. He invests profligacy with no attractive colours, nor lends a false and imposing greatness to atrocious villany. We admire the courage of Macbeth, the ability of Richard, the craft and dexterity of Iago, and the stubborn energy of Shylock,—but we never applaud, nor wish to emulate. We see them too truly as they are. The Author of Waverley, though he approaches nearer to the fault in question than Shakspeare, can never be fairly said to have committed it. Cleveland, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 550, June 2, 1832 • Various
... Pisan, good true fellow, this one), and Domizia the lady—loosen all these on dear foolish (ravishing must his folly be) golden-hearted Luria, all these with their worldly wisdom and Tuscan shrewd ways." Florence, in short, plays collectively somewhat the part of Iago to this second Othello, but of an Iago (need it be said) immeasurably less deeply rooted in malignity than Shakespeare's. It was a source of weakness as well as of strength in Browning as a dramatist that the evil ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... exhibited in daily, homespun dress, and stalking abroad through the centuries, the generous and brave nobility of King Lear, Caesar, Othello, and Hamlet, will be seen in marked contrast to Shylock, Brutus, Cassius, Iago, Gloster and Macbeth. His fools and wits were philosophers, while many of his kings, queens, dukes, lords and ladies were sneaks, ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... ethical sympathies at all. Virtue and wickedness are to him simply what the colours on his palette are to the painter. They are no more and they are no less. He sees that by their means a certain artistic effect can be produced and he produces it. Iago may be morally horrible and Imogen stainlessly pure. Shakespeare, as Keats said, had as much delight in creating the one as he had ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... thinking that there is more than a little exaggeration in more than one point of the story. The Abbe Birotteau is surely a little too much of a fool; the Abbe Troubert an Iago a little too much wanting in verisimilitude; and the central incident of the clause about the furniture too manifestly improbable. Taking the first and the last points together, is it likely that ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... the new code we offer—a code taught to us by the times and by the facts that assail us. When we see an 'honest' Judge 'Iago' rise from his bed at midnight to pander to the contemptible rascality of stock thieves we have but little hope for even what we dignify by the name of law. When we see our churches allowing a host of gamblers to gather for false worship at their shrines ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... Castillo, one of the companions of the celebrated Cortez in his Mexican conquest. After having given an account of a great victory over extreme odds, he mentions the report inserted in the contemporary Chronicle of Gomara, that Saint Iago had appeared on a white horse in van of the combat, and led on his beloved Spaniards to victory. It is very curious to observe the Castilian cavalier's internal conviction that the rumour arose out of a ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... opera opens in Cyprus, amidst the fury of a tempest. Othello arrives fresh from a victory over the Turks, and is greeted enthusiastically by the people, who light a bonfire in his honour. Then follows the drinking scene. Cassio, plied by Iago, becomes intoxicated and fights with Montano. The duel is interrupted by the entrance of Othello, who degrades Cassio from his captaincy, and dismisses the people to their homes. The act ends with a duet of flawless ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... fleet was all last summer hovering in the Channel for that purpose: that the lords Powis and Peters were to form an army in Radnorshire, to be joined by another army, consisting of twenty or thirty thousand religious men and pilgrims, who were to land at Milford Haven from St. Iago in Spain: that there were forty thousand men ready in London; besides those who would, on the alarm, be posted at every alehouse door, in order to kill the soldiers as they came out of their quarters: that Lord Stafford, Coleman, and Father Ireland had money sufficient to defray the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... to find the words of God and the deeds He holds up to our admiration and imitation; though I do not see that such a use is a necessity, even on this theory. Fancy a man quoting Shylock when he pleads for his bond, or Iago's devilish innuendos against Desdemona's purity, as showing what Shakespeare liked or what he would have us imitate! "These are the words of Shakespeare!" Yes, but of Shakespeare's Shylock, ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... man of Iago Whom they kept upon nothing but sago; Oh! how he did jump when the doctor said plump: 'To a roast leg ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... food, shelter and fine raiment for the woman he has won; who treats her as if she were a slave who should feel honored in serving him; who vents upon her hapless head the ill-nature he would like to pour into the faces of his fellow-men, but dares not, were wise to heed the advice which Iago gave to ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... and crown him during the dance with wreaths of victory. Finally appears king George the third, who declares his horror for the tyrant, his affection to the virtuous and native monarch; and who is entertained by St. Iago and the virgin Mary, or by figures representing the genius of Spain, and that of Christianity, with a performance in full chorus of ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... finest of properties, and is sure, which the actor is not always, of a certain amount of applause. No living creature believes seriously in him, far less he himself, except, perhaps, in some impassioned moment or other like that in which I once knew Othello so far carried away that he flung Iago into ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... hangings were looped up at the beginning of the act, and were supposed to fall to the floor, completely concealing the bed and its occupant after the murder. The actor had long before become again Shakespeare's Othello. We had seen him tortured, racked, and played upon by the malignant Iago; seen him, while perplexed in the extreme, irascible, choleric, sullen, morose; but now, as with tense nerves we waited for the catastrophe, he was truly formidable. The great tragedy moved on. Desdemona's piteous entreaties had been choked in her slim throat, the ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... knowledge of stage-craft. "I know as little about the division of a drama as the spinster about the division of a battle, to use Iago's simile,"[114] he once wrote to a friend. Yet as a critic he had of course some general ideas about the making of plays, without having worked out any subtle theories on the subject. In criticising a play by Allan Cunningham, who had asked for his judgment on it, he remarked first that the ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... weak character and evil ambition; Gonzalo, of average sense and honesty; Adrian and Francisco, of the walking gentlemen who serve to fill up a world. They are not characters in the same sense with Iago, Falstaff, Shallow, or Leontius; and it is curious how every one of them loses his way in this enchanted island of life, all the victims of one illusion after another, except Prospero, whose ministers are purely ideal. The whole play, indeed, is a succession ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... silver to see a strange fish, though no one will give a doit to relieve a lame beggar. The English are quarrelsome, Master Slender testifies, at the game of bear-baiting. They are great drinkers, says Iago, 'most potent in potting; your Dane, your German, and your swag-bellied Hollander are nothing to your English'. They are epicures, says Macbeth. They will eat like wolves and fight like devils, says the Constable of France. An English nobleman, according to the Lady ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... of the human heart has expatiated upon this great source of worry—jealousy. Shakspere refers to it again and again. The whole play of Othello rests upon the Moor's jealousy of his fair, sweet, and loyally faithful Desdemona. How the fiendish Iago plays upon Othello's jealous heart ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... disinterested, this passive evil, because nothing but the conscious is literary. Shakespeare, in his Othello, a drama which has always appeared false and absurd to me, emphasizes the disinterested malice of Iago, imparting to him a character and mode of action which are beyond those of normal men; but then, in order to accredit him to the spectators, he adds also a motive, and represents him as being ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... Giddings, with an air of candor, "but look at it from a practical standpoint. If Othello hadn't been such a fool, Iago would have made his point all right. He had a right to be sore at Othello for promoting Cassio over his head, and his scheme was a good one, if Othello hadn't gone crazy. Iago is dominated by reason and the principle of the survival of the fittest. ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... heard it said that, in some parts of Spain and Portugal, an actor who should represent a depraved character finely, instead of calling down the applauses of the audience, is hissed and pelted without mercy. It would be the same in England, if we, for one moment, thought that Shylock or Iago was standing before us. While the dramatic art was in its infancy at Athens, it produced similar effects on the ardent and imaginative spectators. It is said that they blamed Aeschylus for frightening them into fits with his Furies. Herodotus tells us that, when ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... It is not thus that the great masters of human nature have portrayed human beings. Homer never tells us that Nestor loved to relate long stories about his youth. Shakspeare never tells us that in the mind of Iago everything that is beautiful and endearing was associated with some ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... very useful moral, not to make an unequal match; in the second place, we learn not to yield too readily to suspicion. The handkerchief is merely a trick, though a very pretty trick; but there are no other circumstances of reasonable suspicion, except what is related by Iago of Cassio's warm expressions concerning Desdemona in his sleep; and that depended entirely upon the assertion of one man.[121] No, Sir, I think Othello has more moral than ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... Iago! thou art some juggling knave—some impish charlatan, who seeks to conceal his imposture in the garb of mystery and terror. Little knowest thou the mettle of a ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... depravity and baseness was welcome, inasmuch as it afforded him me occasion to wreak his own scorn and pride. His ambition was to be the English Juvenal; and it must be conceded that he had the true Iago-like disposition "to spy out abuses." Accordingly, in 1598, he published a series of venomous satires called "The Scourge of Villanie," rough in versification, condensed in thought, tainted in matter, evincing a cankered more than a caustic spirit, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... academic glory, which is not unlike theatrical glory. Ducis had succeeded in doing something with Shakespeare; he had made him possible; he had extracted some "tragedies" from him; Ducis impressed one as being a man who could chisel an Apollo out of Moloch. It was the time when Iago was called Pezare; Horatio, Norceste; and Desdemona, Hedelmone. A charming and very witty woman, the Duchess de Duras, used to say: "Desdemona, what an ugly name! Fie!" Talma, Prince of Denmark, in a tunic of lilac satin trimmed with ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... sublime; which is a thing per se, and stands alone), it is not itself—it has no self—it is everything and nothing—it has no character—it enjoys light and shade—it lives in gusto, be it foul or fair, high or low, rich or poor, mean or elevated—it has as much delight in conceiving an Iago as an Imogen. What shocks the virtuous philosopher delights the chameleon poet. It does no harm from its relish of the dark side of things, any more than from its taste for the bright one, because they both end in speculation. A poet is the most unpoetical of anything ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... the voyage Altitude of the peak of Teneriffe Pass the isles of Sal, Bonavista, May, and St. Iago Cross the equator Progress Arrive at the Brazils Transactions at Rio de Janeiro Some particulars of that town Sail thence Passage to the Cape of Good Hope Transactions there Some particulars respecting the Cape Depart for ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... Dickens booth had several large groupings and tableaux that created a storm of hilarity and amusement. Mrs. Jarley and her famous waxworks, Mrs. Jarley, Mrs. Hodgkins herself, was a sight that would move the latent risibilities of the most morose Iago. It would be impossible for me to give the harangue of that queer old lady, the unction, the comical postures would be lost on paper. She was "sui generis" and must be seen to be appreciated. Her wax figures were original and pertinent hits on ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... art St. James is variously represented as a pilgrim with staff; with staff and shell; as a child with staff and wallet with shell upon it; on a white charger conquering the Saracens; this last with reference to his being regarded as the Patron Saint of Spain, Santiago, "St. Iago of ...
— The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia • William James Miller
... cares and occupations were redoubled. My Iago I had fears for—'tis true he was an admirable Lord Grizzle in Tom Thumb —but then—then I had to paint the whole company, and bear all their abuse besides, for not making some of the most ill-looking wretches, perfect Apollos; but, last of all, I was sent for, at a quarter to seven, ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... Even from a poor play with poor actors, he could draw pleasure. 'Giacometti's ELISABETTA,' I find him writing, 'fetched the house vastly. Poor Queen Elizabeth! And yet it was a little good.' And again, after a night of Salvini: 'I do not suppose any one with feelings could sit out OTHELLO, if Iago and Desdemona were acted.' Salvini was, in his view, the greatest actor he had seen. We were all indeed moved and bettered by the visit of that wonderful man. - 'I declare I feel as if I could pray!' cried one of us, on the return ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Writing to Claudius had brought him vividly into her life again, and she had caught herself more than once during the evening wondering how her fair Northern lover would have acted in Othello's place. Whether, when the furious general takes Iago by the throat in his wrath, the Swede's grip would have relaxed so easily on one who should dare to whisper a breath against the Countess Margaret. She so lived in the thought for a moment that her whole face glowed in the shade of the box, and her dark eyes ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... Valhalla of his soul To love, nor ever finds 'Love's Labor Lost.' No two-faced Falstaff proffers double suit; No Desdemona mourns Iago's art; And every Romeo ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... THOUGH Iago was not exactly the kind of person one would select as a superintendent for a Sunday-school, his advice to young Roderigo was wisdom itself—"Put money in thy purse." Whoever disparages money disparages ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... who had probably never seen a score of negroes in his life, with the divination of genius, felt the repugnance which a refined woman would feel to accepting one as her husband. The plot of one of his plays turns on it. He makes Iago say of Desdemona: ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... it was hard to confess this. It soon became apparent to her that he desired her to understand that he deeply loved her, and was deterred only by his poverty from seeking her hand. Then came letters that were constructed with a skill that would have excited the envy of an Iago, hinting at other correspondences on part of Mr. Abbot and of neglects and infidelities that made her proud heart sore. Still there were no direct accusations; but, taken in connection with the long periods of apparent silence on his part and the unloverlike tone of his letters when ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... of Shakespeare are so much the objects of meditation rather than of interest or curiosity as to their actions, that while we are reading any of his great criminal characters,—Macbeth, Richard, even Iago,—we think not so much of the crimes which they commit, as of the ambition, the aspiring spirit, the intellectual activity, which prompts them to overleap those moral fences. Barnwell is a wretched murderer; there is a certain fitness between his neck ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... actions is not nearly so strong as his curiosity in their reasons. The character of a scoundrel, logical and complete, has a fascination for his creator which is an outrage to law and order. I expect that Shakespeare devised Iago with a gusto which he never knew when, weaving moonbeams with his fancy, he imagined Desdemona. It may be that in his rogues the writer gratifies instincts deep-rooted in him, which the manners and customs of a civilised world have forced back to the mysterious recesses ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... growling when the policemen administered to him some sly kick; but as I looked at the squalid and lethargic figure with its sallow, unhealthy, repulsive face, I was overcome by a feeling of almost physical nausea. I realised fully how loathsome this gutter Iago had become to me during the past few months, during which I had had ample opportunity to note his pettifogging envy and jealousy, his almost simian inquisitiveness and prying curiosity. I felt I could not work with him; his presence had become intolerable to me. I realised that this ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... to the desire to be overjust, so to say, emerges; and exactly in the measure it does so the source of true dramatic directness and variety is lost. It is just as though Shakespeare were to invent a chorus to cry out at intervals about Iago—"a villain, bad lot, you see, still there's a great deal to be said for him—victim of inheritance, this, that and the other; and considering everything how could you really expect anything else now." Thackeray was often weak ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... 1794 to 1800 was the hero of the Dublin stage, with the exception of an interval, during which he served in the army. On October 31, 1800, he appeared at Covent Garden as "Richard III.," and afterwards played such parts in tragedy as "Iago" and "Shylock" with great success. In comedy he was also a favourite, especially as "Kitely" in 'Every Man in his Humour', and "Sir Pertinax MacSycophant" in 'The Man of the World'. His last appearance on the London stage was as "Falstaff," June 5, 1810. In that year he sailed for ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... preparation for the summer term I gladly helped stamp and mail Brown's circulars. The lecture "Edwin Booth as Iago" I carefully re-wrote—for Brown had placed it on his printed programme and had also announced me as "Instructor in Literature." I took care to send this circular to all my friends ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... the delight of the Washington playgoers in the Jackson Administration. His wonderful impersonations of Richard III., Iago, King Lear, Othello, Shylock, and Sir Giles Overreach were as grand as his private life was intemperate and eccentric. He was a short, dumpy man, with features resembling those of the Roman Emperors, before ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... doing it, I'm not sure that I could have resisted him. But the finest of all Shakespeare's men is Othello. That's a real man. Desdemona was a fool. It's not wonderful that Othello didn't see through Iago; but Desdemona ought to have seen through him. The stupidest woman can see through a clever man like him; but, of course, Othello was ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... Moliere's Tartuffe, and what audience would bear its mere stage-business? Imagine the scene in which Iago poisons Othello's mind against Desdemona, conveyed in dumb show. What becomes of the difference between Shakespeare and Sheridan Knowles in the film? Or between Shakespeare's Lear and any one else's Lear? No, it seems to me that all the ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... thought that his subtle blend of Roman refinement and intellectuality, and barbarian, self-satisfied sensuality, was not "hit off." Synorix is, in fact, half-Greek, half-Celt, with a Roman education, and the "blend" is rather too remote for successful representation. The traditional villain, from Iago downwards, is not apt to ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... footlights. The importance of this is illustrated by an amusing story of Edmund Kean, who one night played Othello with more than his usual intensity. An admirer who met him in the street next day was loud in his congratulations: "I really thought you would have choked Iago, Mr. Kean—you seemed so tremendously in earnest." "In earnest!" said the tragedian, "I should think so! Hang the fellow, he was trying to keep me ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... above, You elements that clip us round about, Witness, that here Iago doth give up The execution of his wit, hands, heart, To ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... than this blow dealt with consummate skill. Having thus driven the iron into Mrs. Todd's soul, Pel entertained his mother with an account of the interview while she chopped the kindling-wood. He had no special end in view when, Iago-like, he dropped his first poisoned seed in Mrs. Todd's fertile mind, or, at most, nothing worse than the hope that matters might reach an unendurable point, and Jerry might strike for his altars and his fires. Jerry was a man and a brother, and petticoat government ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Shakespeare had written a book on the motives of human actions, it is by no means certain that it would have been a good one. It is extremely improbable that it would have contained half so much able reasoning on the subject as is to be found in the Fable of the Bees. But could Mandeville have created an Iago? Well as he knew how to resolve characters into their elements, would he have been able to combine those elements in such a manner as to make up a man—a real, living, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... been carved on the model of Iago, as by the hand of an enterprising urchin. He apostrophizes his 'invention' repeatedly. 'Thanks, my invention.' He hits on an invention, to say: 'Was it my brain or Providence? no matter which.' It is no matter which, but it was ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... hours, 'the reason,' as he said with a sigh, 'best known to God.' The chance of prize-money was lost, but the political purpose of the expedition could still be completed. The Cape de Verde Islands could not sail away, and a beginning could be made with Sant Iago. Sant Iago was a thriving, well-populated town, and down in Drake's book as specially needing notice, some Plymouth sailors having been recently murdered there. Christopher Carlile, always handy and trustworthy, was put on ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude |
