Chapter 7 - Senecan Othello and the Republic of Venice

Summary

The final chapter reads Othello as a study in the failure of Venetian republicanism to manage global and racial heterogeneity. And also as a play shot through with Seneca. Othello originally presents himself as an embodiment of Ciceronian decorum, reconciling in himself the various personae discussed in Cicero’s De Officiis. But in Cyprus, under the influence of Iago, he opts for a different, Senecan mode of constant self-performance, one that is more individualistic and less social in its orientation. Iago, who imagines himself to be in a revenge play, likewise has a Senecan psychological profile, derived from the virtuosity and weird projective psychology of Seneca’s Atreus. By persuading Othello to abandon belief in a republican public arena, he is able to steer Othello into becoming a Senecan monster like himself – one who then is seen by others as embodying the racial stereotypes discussed in the previous chapter. Othello imagines his suicide as being purgative, like the death of Hercules in the pseudo-Senecan Hercules Oetaeus.