Book contents
- Shakespeare and Senecan Tragedy
- Shakespeare and Senecan Tragedy
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Note on Texts
- Chapter 1 Shakespeare and the Resources of Senecan Tragedy
- Chapter 2 Richard III as Senecan History
- Chapter 3 Seneca and the Modernity of Hamlet
- Chapter 4 Seneca and the Antisocial in King Lear
- Chapter 5 Republican Coriolanus and Imperial Seneca
- Chapter 6 Seneca, Titus, and Imperial Globalization
- Chapter 7 Senecan Othello and the Republic of Venice
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 7 - Senecan Othello and the Republic of Venice
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 October 2020
- Shakespeare and Senecan Tragedy
- Shakespeare and Senecan Tragedy
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Note on Texts
- Chapter 1 Shakespeare and the Resources of Senecan Tragedy
- Chapter 2 Richard III as Senecan History
- Chapter 3 Seneca and the Modernity of Hamlet
- Chapter 4 Seneca and the Antisocial in King Lear
- Chapter 5 Republican Coriolanus and Imperial Seneca
- Chapter 6 Seneca, Titus, and Imperial Globalization
- Chapter 7 Senecan Othello and the Republic of Venice
- Bibliography
- Index
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.
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- Shakespeare and Senecan Tragedy , pp. 231 - 265Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020