Iago Quotes

What makes Iago evil? Some people ask. I never ask.

How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees? Iago

You are a villain!" Iago: "You are a senator!

Were I the Moor I would not be Iago. In following him I follow but myself; Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty, But seeming so for my peculiar end. For when my outward action doth demonstrate The native act and figure of my heart In compliment extern, ’tis not long after But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve For daws to peck at. I am not what I am

And what’s he then that says I play the villain?

Virtue? A fig! 'Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus.

WHAT WAS JANE AUSTEN'S LAST FINISHED NOVEL?" "Vaginas and Virginity." "WHO IS THE LAST PERSON IAGO KILLS IN OTHELLO?" "His manservant Retardio, for forgetting to change the Brita filter!" "WHAT HAPPENS TO THE LITTLE MERMAID AT THE END OF CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN'S THE LITTLE MERMAID?" "She turns into a fish and marries Nemo!" "Fuck you!

When devils will the blackest sins put on They do suggest at first with heavenly shows

Macbeth's self-justifications were feeble – and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a little lamb, too. The imagination and spiritual strength of Shakespeare's evildoers stopped short at a dozen corpses. Ideology—that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others' eyes, so that he won't hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors. That was how the agents of the Inquisition fortified their wills: by invoking Christianity; the conquerors of foreign lands, by extolling the grandeur of their Motherland; the colonizers, by civilization; the Nazis, by race; and the Jacobins (early and late), by equality, brotherhood, and the happiness of future generations.... Without evildoers there would have been no Archipelago.

Consciousness is the materia poetica that Shakespeare sculpts as Michelangelo sculpts marble. We feel the consciousness of Hamlet or Iago, and our own consciousness strangely expands.

Cats don’t have dark sides. That’s all a shadow is—and though you might be prejudiced against the dark, you ought to remember that that’s where stars live, and the moon and raccoons and owls and fireflies and mushrooms and cats and enchantments and a rather lot of good, necessary things. Thieving, too, and conspiracies, sneaking, secrets, and desire so strong you might faint dead away with the punch of it. But your light side isn’t a perfectly pretty picture, either, I promise you. You couldn’t dream without the dark. You couldn’t rest. You couldn’t even meet a lover on a balcony by moonlight. And what would the world be worth without that? You need your dark side, because without it, you’re half gone. Cats, on the other hand, have a more sensible setup. We just have the one side, and it’s mostly the sneaking and sleeping side anyway. So the other Iago and I feel very companionable toward each other. Whereas I expect my drowsy mistress Above would loathe this version of herself, who is kind and quiet and lonely and rather dear, all the things the original is not. My love stands for both. This one pets me more; that one let me pounce on anything I wanted.

Her stare fixed me. Without rancour and without regret; without triumph and without evil; as Desdemona once looked back on Venice. On the incomprehension, the baffled rage of Venice. I had taken myself to be in some way the traitor Iago punished, in an unwritten sixth act. Chained in hell. But I was also Venice; the state left behind; the thing journeyed from.

For when I speak of the banality of evil, I do so only on the strictly factual level, pointing to a phenomenon which stared one in the face at the trial. Eichmann was not Iago and not Macbeth, and nothing would have been farther from his mind than to determine with Richard III 'to prove a villain.' Except for an extraordinary diligence in looking out for his personal advancement, he had no motives at all… He merely, to put the matter colloquially, never realized what he was doing… It was sheer thoughtlessness—something by no means identical with stupidity—that predisposed him to become one of the greatest criminals of that period. And if this is 'banal' and even funny, if with the best will in the world one cannot extract any diabolical or demonic profundity from Eichmann, this is still far from calling it commonplace… That such remoteness from reality and such thoughtlessness can wreak more havoc than all the evil instincts taken together which, perhaps, are inherent in man—that was, in fact, the lesson one could learn in Jerusalem.

This is who we are as a species: We contain within ourselves both the possibility of murdering an old stranger for almost no reason—the capacity in Shakespeare’s Iago which Coleridge called “motiveless Malignity”—and we also contain the antidote to that disease—courage, selflessness, the willingness to risk oneself to help that old stranger lying on the ground.

Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream, it takes over as the number one hormone; it bosses the enzymes; directs the pineal gland; plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to film is more film.

Shakespeare's Iago could be played as a soul in hell, driven, dark and desperate, willing to do anything, willing to use anyone, in order to escape from that hell.

Elliot was left to trail behind. As he did, he thought about Luke talking about literary tropes—the fearless hero, the valiant heroine, and where did it all leave him? Sidekick: a horrible indignity, Elliot refused to accept it. And the other idea was some sort of lurking, jealous figure: an Iago, a pathetic pseudo-villain waiting in the wings to plot and bring the hero down. He wasn’t going to plot against Luke, who had dumb daffodil hair and said “tropez,” for God’s sake.

Put money in thy purse.

In scenes like these, any man could be Iago.

According to the myth, Prometheus steal fire to free us; Iago steals us as fresh fodder for the fire.

Never let life’s Iagos—flatterers, dissemblers—onto your train.

She that was ever fair and never proud, Had tongue at will and yet was never loud, Never lack'd gold and yet went never gay, Fled from her wish and yet said 'Now I may,' She that being anger'd, her revenge being nigh, Bade her wrong stay and her displeasure fly, She that in wisdom never was so frail To change the cod's head for the salmon's tail; She that could think and ne'er disclose her mind, See suitors following and not look behind, She was a wight, if ever such wight were,-- DESDEMONA: To do what? IAGO: To suckle fools and chronicle small beer.

if I were the Moor I wouldn't want to be Iago.

Methinks the lady doth protest too much," said Iago. "Methinks the lady protests just the right amount," said Emilia. "Methinks the lady is just getting fucking started protesting.

I am glad I have found this napkin. This was her first remembrance from the Moor, My wayward husband hath a hundred times Wooed me to steal it, but she so loves the token— For he conjured her she should ever keep it— That she reserves it evermore about her To kiss and talk to. I’ll ha’ the work ta’en out, And give’t Iago. What he will do with it, Heaven knows, not I. I nothing, but to please his fantasy.

Maybe at the very bottom of it... I really don't like God. You know, it's silly to say I don't like God because I don't believe in God, but in the same sense that I don't like Iago, or the Reverend Slope or any of the other villains of literature, the god of traditional Judaism and Christianity and Islam seems to me a terrible character. He's a god who will... who obsessed the degree to which people worship him and anxious to punish with the most awful torments those who don't worship him in the right way. Now I realise that many people don't believe in that any more who call themselves Muslims or Jews or Christians, but that is the traditional God and he's a terrible character. I don't like him.

If you are wronged and do nothing but sulk about it, you wrong yourself even further.

My muse is a restless genie, a conniving devil, a wanton mistress and a fairy godmother. At times he’s Othello’s Iago, at others he’s Clarence from 'It’s a Wonderful Life'.

I am apt to think she was too artful to rail at me, but rather pretended to have a kindness for me, and like Iago gave, as she saw occasion, wounds in the dark.

For when my outward action doth demonstrate The native act and figure of my heart In complement extern 'tis not long after But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve For daws to peck at I am not what I am.

It is very seldom that one encounters what would appear to be sheer unadulterated evil in a human face; an evil, I mean, active, deliberate, deadly, dangerous. Folly, heedlessness, vanity, pride, craft, meanness, stupidity - yes. But even Iagos in this world are few, and devilry is as rare as witchcraft. ("Bad Company")

How shall I murder him, Iago?

Ma era solo un’ossessione? No. Certo che no. Non era solo una misera ossessione o un accecante desiderio. Iago era la vita. La mia vita.

«Voglio sentirti, voglio sentirti davvero. Voglio conoscere Iago, l’uomo che hai sempre temuto di farmi incontrare. Usami, odiami, amami».

The people we invite on the train are those with whom we are prepared to be vulnerable and real, with whom there is no room for masks and games. They strengthen us when we falter and remind us of the journey’s purpose when we become distracted by the scenery. And we do the same for them. Never let life’s Iagos—flatterers, dissemblers—onto your train. We always get warnings from our heart and our intuition when they appear, but we are often too busy to notice. When you realize they’ve made it on board, make sure you usher them off the train; and as soon as you can, forgive them and forget them. There is nothing more draining than holding grudges.

Who are you? Or should I first present myself to you? I’m Damerel, you know.’ ‘Yes, so I supposed, at the outset of our delightful acquaintance. Later, of course, I was sure of it.’ ‘Oh, oh – ! My reputation, Iago, my reputation!’ he exclaimed, laughing again.

Why, why is this? Think'st thou I'ld make a lie of jealousy, To follow still the changes of the moon With fresh suspicions? No; to be once in doubt Is once to be resolved: exchange me for a goat, When I shall turn the business of my soul To such exsufflicate and blown surmises, Matching thy inference. 'Tis not to make me jealous To say my wife is fair, feeds well, loves company, Is free of speech, sings, plays and dances well; Where virtue is, these are more virtuous: Nor from mine own weak merits will I draw The smallest fear or doubt of her revolt; For she had eyes, and chose me. No, Iago; I'll see before I doubt; when I doubt, prove; And on the proof, there is no more but this,-- Away at once with love or jealousy!

Shakespeare will not allow Falstaff to die upon stage. We see and hear the deaths of Hamlet, Cleopatra, Antony, Othello, and Lear. Iago is led away to die silently under torture. Macbeth dies offstage but he goes down fighting. Falstaff dies singing the Twenty-third Psalm, smiling upon his fingertips, playing with flowers, and crying aloud to God three or four times. That sounds more like pain than prayer. We do not want Sir John Falstaff to die. And of course he does not. He is life itself.

say'st thou, noble heart? RODERIGO What will I do, thinkest thou? IAGO Why, go to bed and sleep. RODERIGO

With her? IAGO With her, on her, what you will. OTHELLO Lie with her! lie on her!—We say lie on her when they belie her.—Lie with her! that’s fulsome.—Handkerchief—confessions—handkerchief!—

It’s cruelty that gets to me. Still, it’s important to read about cruelty. “Why is it important?” Because when you read about it, it’s easier to recognize. That was always the hardest thing in the refugee camps—to hear the stories of the people who had been raped or mutilated or forced to watch a parent or a sister or a child be raped or killed. It’s very hard to come face-to-face with such cruelty. But people can be cruel in lots of ways, some very subtle. I think that’s why we all need to read about it. I think that’s one of the amazing things about Tennessee Williams’s plays. He was so attuned to cruelty—the way Stanley treats Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire. It starts with asides and looks and put-downs. There are so many great examples from Shakespeare—when Goneril torments King Lear or the way Iago speaks to Othello. And what I love about Dickens is the way he presents all types of cruelty. You need to learn to recognize these things right from the start. Evil almost always starts with small cruelties.

She's not sensual. She doesn't want affairs. It's just cold-blooded experiment on her part and the fun of stirring people up and setting them against each other. She dabbled in that too. She's the sort of woman who's never had a row with anyone in her life--but rows always happen where she is! She makes them happen. She's kind of female Iago. She must have drama. But she doesn't want to be involved herself. She's always outside pulling strings--looking on--enjoying it!

As his wife, Emilia must know Iago better than anybody else. She does not know, any more than the others, that he is malevolent, but she does know that her husband is addicted to practical jokes. What Shakespeare gives us in Iago is a portrait of a practical joker of a peculiarly appalling kind, and perhaps the best way of approaching the play is by a general consideration of the Practical Joker.

The Marquess shrugged. “I’m a shadow. I do know I am a shadow, Iago. I know most of the time. It’s only when I cannot bear how everyone looks at me down here that I make myself forget it. Shadows are the other side of yourself. I had longings to be good, even then. I was just stronger than my wanting. I’m stronger than anything, really, when I want to be.” The Marquess’s hair turned white as the snow. “Do you know, we’re right underneath Springtime Parish? This place is the opposite of springtime. Everything past prime, boarded up for the season. Just above us, the light shines golden on daffodils full of rainwine and heartgrass and a terrible, wicked, sad girl I can’t get back to. I don’t even know if I want to. Do I want to be her again? Or do I want to be free? I come here to think about that. To be near her and consider it. I think I shall never be free. I think I traded my freedom for a better story. It was a better story, even if the ending needed work.

O, she was foul!— I scarce did know you, uncle; there lies your niece, Whose breath, indeed, these hands have newly stopp'd: I know this act shows horrible and grim. GRATIANO Poor Desdemona! I am glad thy father's dead: Thy match was mortal to him, and pure grief Shore his old thread in twain: did he live now, This sight would make him do a desperate turn, Yea, curse his better angel from his side, And fall to reprobance. OTHELLO 'Tis pitiful; but yet Iago knows That she with Cassio hath

Macbeth's self-justifications were feeble – and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a little lamb, too. The imagination and spiritual strength of Shakespeare's evildoers stopped short at a dozen corpses. Ideology—that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination.

underlying cause of all the murders isn’t jealousy but a humiliated man’s envy and ambition. In other words, Iago. Othello is just a puppet.

Iago, on the other hand, seems to be malice personified, a manifestation of manifold vice with no discernible vestiges of grace.

Iago shrugged his furry shoulders. “As you like. Saves me the work of picking the lock with my incisor.

Love he hates, hatred he loves! Iago, the Mephistopheles!

Othello, Ophelia and Timon have not committed suicide. Iago, Hamlet, Polonius, Laertes and the society respectively drive them mad and ultimately murder them by using ‘words’ only!

What was he that you followed with your sword? What had he done to you? CASSIO I know not. IAGO Is't possible?

Thou dost conspire against thy friend, Iago, If thou but think'st him wrong'd and makest his ear A stranger to thy thoughts.

This is who we are as a species: We contain within ourselves both the possibility of murdering an old stranger for almost no reason - the capacity in Shakespeare's Iago which Coleridge called "motiveless Malignity" - and we also contain the antidote to that disease - courage, selflessness, the willingness to risk oneself to help that old stranger lying on the ground.

A halter pardon him! and hell gnaw his bones! Why should he call her whore? who keeps her company? What place? what time? what form? what likelihood? The Moor’s abused by some most villainous knave, Some base notorious knave, some scurvy fellow:— O heaven, that such companions thou’dst unfold, And put in every honest hand a whip To lash the rascals naked through the world Even from the east to the west! IAGO Speak within door. EMILIA O, fie upon them! some such squire he was That turn’d your wit the seamy side without, And made you to suspect me with the Moor.

Othello, we are told by Iago, is not a Muslim, but a Christian, but, you know, he might be a secret Muslim. I mean, he’s so African looking, and he has that funny name . . . Yeah, I went there.

What we mean to say, but what Ms Spider is not equipped to understand, is that Iago is gay in the way that all the best fictional murderers are gay. Norman Bates, Tom Ripely, The titular Third Man, and he was the original. Iago is gay like a black leather whip. Like Paris in the 1920s. Like calling non-food things “delicious.” Iago is gay like cold eyes and bony hips. Like a pearl-handled pistol tucked in one’s suit pocket. Like delicate fingers that could play a Chopin prelude or crush a throat with equal grace. Iago is gay in the way that we, the F&M unit, aspired to be gay. But it’s harder for girls.

Come, how wouldst thou praise me? IAGO I am about it; but indeed my invention Comes from my pate as birdlime does from frieze; It plucks out brains and all: but my Muse labours, And thus she is deliver'd. If she be fair and wise, fairness and wit, The one's for use, the other useth it. DESDEMONA Well praised! How if she be black and witty? IAGO If she be black, and thereto have a wit, She'll find a white that shall her blackness fit. DESDEMONA Worse and worse. EMILIA How if fair and foolish? IAGO She never yet was foolish that was fair; For even her folly help'd her to an heir. DESDEMONA These are old fond paradoxes to make fools laugh i' the alehouse. What miserable praise hast thou for her that's foul and foolish? IAGO There's none so foul and foolish thereunto, But does foul pranks which fair and wise ones do.

Coleridge’s description of Iago’s actions as "motiveless malignancy" applies in some degree to all the Shakespearian villains. The adjective motiveless means, firstly, that the tangible gains, if any, are clearly not the principal motive, and, secondly, that the motive is not the desire for personal revenge upon another for a personal injury. Iago himself proffers two reasons for wishing to injure Othello and Cassio. He tells Roderigo that, in appointing Cassio to be his lieutenant, Othello has treated him unjustly, in which conversation he talks like the conventional Elizabethan malcontent. In his soliloquies with himself, he refers to his suspicion that both Othello and Cassio have made him a cuckold, and here he talks like the conventional jealous husband who desires revenge. But there are, I believe, insuperable objections to taking these reasons, as some critics have done, at their face value.

As for Iago’s jealousy, one cannot believe that a seriously jealous man could behave towards his wife as Iago behaves towards Emilia, for the wife of a jealous husband is the first person to suffer. Not only is the relation of Iago and Emilia, as we see it on stage, without emotional tension, but also Emilia openly refers to a rumor of her infidelity as something already disposed of. Some such squire it was That turned your wit, the seamy side without And made you to suspect me with the Moor. At one point Iago states that, in order to revenge himself on Othello, he will not rest till he is even with him, wife for wife, but, in the play, no attempt at Desdemona’s seduction is made. Iago does not encourage Cassio to make one, and he even prevents Roderigo from getting anywhere near her. Finally, one who seriously desires personal revenge desires to reveal himself. The revenger’s greatest satisfaction is to be able to tell his victim to his face – "You thought you were all-powerful and untouchable and could injure me with impunity. Now you see that you were wrong. Perhaps you have forgotten what you did; let me have the pleasure of reminding you." When at the end of the play, Othello asks Iago in bewilderment why he has thus ensnared his soul and body, if his real motive were revenge for having been cuckolded or unjustly denied promotion, he could have said so, instead of refusing to explain.

Macbeth's self-justifications were feeble - and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a little lamb too. The imagination and the spiritual strength of Shakespeare's evildoers stopped short at a dozen corpses. Because they had no ideology.

The practical joker despises his victims, but at the same time he envies them because their desires, however childish and mistaken, are real to them, whereas he has no desire which he can call his own. His goal, to make game of others, makes his existence absolutely dependent upon theirs; when he is alone, he is a nullity. Iago’s self-description, I am not what I am, is correct and the negation of the Divine I am that I am. If the word motive is given its normal meaning of a positive purpose of the self like sex, money, glory, etc., then the practical joker is without motive. Yet the professional practical joker is certainly driven, like a gambler, to his activity, but the drive is negative, a fear of lacking concrete self, of being nobody.

Iago’s treatment of Othello conforms to Bacon’s definition of scientific enquiry as putting Nature to the Question. If a member of the audience were to interrupt the play and ask him: "What are you doing? could not Iago answer with a boyish giggle, "Nothing. I’m only trying to find out what Othello is really like"? And we must admit that his experiment is highly successful. By the end of the play he does know the scientific truth about the object to which he has reduced Othello. That is what makes his parting shot, What you know, you know, so terrifying for, by then, Othello has become a thing, incapable of knowing anything. And why shouldn’t Iago do this? After all, he has certainly acquired knowledge. What makes it impossible for us to condemn him self-righteously is that, in our culture, we have all accepted the notion that the right to know is absolute and unlimited. […] We are quite prepared to admit that, while food and sex are good in themselves, an uncontrolled pursuit of either is not, but it is difficult for us to believe that intellectual curiosity is a desire like any other, and to realize that correct knowledge and truth are not identical. To apply a categorical imperative to knowing, so that, instead of asking, "What can I know?" we ask, "What, at this moment, am I meant to know?" – to entertain the possibility that the only knowledge which can be true for us is the knowledge we can live up to – that seems to all of us crazy and almost immoral. But, in that case, who are we to say to Iago – "No, you mustn’t.

Everybody must pity Desdemona, but I cannot bring myself to like her. Her determination to marry Othello – it was she who virtually did the proposing – seems the romantic crush of a silly schoolgirl rather than a mature affection; it is Othello’s adventures, so unlike the civilian life she knows, which captivate her rather than Othello as a person. He may not have practiced witchcraft, but, in fact, she is spellbound. Then, she seems more aware than is agreeable of the honor she has done Othello by becoming his wife. […] Before Cassio speaks to her, she has already discussed him with her husband and learned that he is to be reinstated as soon as it is opportune. A sensible wife would have told Cassio this and left matters alone. In continuing to badger Othello, she betrays a desire to prove to herself and to Cassio that she can make her husband do as she pleases. […] Though her relationship with Cassio is perfectly innocent, one cannot but share Iago’s doubts as to the durability of the marriage. It is worth noting that, in the willow-song scene with Emilia, she speaks with admiration of Ludovico and then turns to the topic of adultery. Of course, she discusses this in general terms and is shocked by Emilia’s attitude, but she does discuss the subject and she does listen to what Emilia has to say about husbands and wives. It is as if she had suddenly realized that she had made a mésalliance and that the sort of man she ought to have married was someone of her own class and color like Ludovico. Given a few more years of Othello and of Emilia’s influence and she might well, one feels, have taken a lover.

To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good, or else that it’s a well-considered act in conformity with natural law. Fortunately, it is in the nature of the human being to seek a justification for his actions. Macbeth’s self-justifications were feeble—and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a little lamb too. The imagination and the spiritual strength of Shakespeare’s evildoers stopped short at a dozen corpses. Because they had no ideology. Ideology—that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others’ eyes, so that he won’t hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors.

And at once, they were upon them: four decidedly perturbed vampires wearing various shades of red. They were terribly fond of the color, it seemed. Iago thought it a tad obvious, but these gentlemen did not look as though they would take criticism well, even if it were only sartorial in nature.

I don't like using the word evil because it sounds as if that's all there is to be said about the person. I don't think Richard III is evil, I don't think it's helpful to say that...Iago he's not evil. Iago didn't get the job, he thinks his wife's been unfaithful to him, he doesn't like black people, he's extremely talented and very unfulfilled and he's a wonderful liar, and he's a mischeif maker and he does some dreadful, dreadful things. But that's already interesting, isn't it? Ooh, who is this guy? But if you just say "ah oh he's evil" how can you play that? I don't know how you play an evil person.

Unlike most of us, who tend to be transparent, people rarely see through a psychopath,” she continued. “He’s masterful. People trust and believe him. Even like him. It’s his great skill. Convincing people that his point of view is legitimate and right, often when all the evidence points in the other direction. Like Iago. It’s a kind of magic.

Nay it is true, or else I am a Turk: / You rise to play, and go to bed to work.

She never yet was foolish that was fair, / For even her folly helped her to an heir.

The wine she drinks is made of / grapes

O wretched fool / That lov’st to make thine honesty a vice! / O monstrous world! Take note, take note, O world: / To be direct and honest is not safe.

I know my price, I am worth no worse a place.

Arise black vengeance, from thy hollow hell!

if she be fair and wise, fairness and wit, / The one’s for use, the other users it.

This is the night / That either makes me or fordoes me quite

Humans think everything demands ritualistic sacrifice, the morbid creatures,” Dante sighed. “It’s not always that difficult.

Mythology, however, has a tendency to make the unpleasant something wondrous. Life is unpleasant. It is up to Man to soften the blow through creation stories, myths, and legends.

Iago is gay like a black leather whip, like Paris in the 1920s, like calling non-food things delicious. Iago is gay like cold eyes and bony hips, like a pearl-handled pistol tucked in one’s suit pocket, like delicate fingers that could play a Chopin prelude or crush a throat with equal grace. Iago is gay in the way that we the F&N unit aspire to be gay, but it’s harder for girls.

When I’m given a role, the first thing I do is read the play over and over again. I scour the script and write down everything the character says about himself and everything that everyone else says about him. I immerse myself in my character and imagine what it might be like to be that person. When I played Cassio in Othello I imagined what it would be like to be a lieutenant in the Venetian navy in 1604. I sat down with Ewan McGregor and Chiwetel Ejiofor and together we decided that Othello, Iago and Cassio had soldiery in their bones. I took from the script that Cassio was talented and ambitious, with no emotional or physical guard - and that’s how I played the part. For me, acting is about recreating the circumstances that would make me feel how my character is feeling. In the dressing room, I practise recreating those circumstances in my head and I try to not get in the way of myself. For example, in act two of Othello, when Cassio is manipulated to fight Roderigo and loses his rank, some nights I would burst into tears; other nights I wouldn’t but I would still feel the same emotion, night after night. Just as in life, the way we respond to catastrophe or death will be different every time because the process is unconscious. By comparison, in Chekhov’s Ivanov I played the young doctor, Lvov. Lvov was described as “a prig and a bigot … uprightness in boots … tiresome … completely sincere”. His emotions were locked away. I worked around the key phrase: “Forgive me, I’m going to tell you plainly.” I practised speaking gravely and sincerely without emotion and I actually noticed how that carried over into my personal life: when I played the open-hearted Cassio, I felt really free; when I played the pent-up Lvov, I felt a real need to release myself from the shackles of that character. It’s exhilarating to act out the emotions of a character - it’s a bit like being a child again. You flex the same muscles that you did when you pretended to be a cowboy or a policeman: acting is a grown-up version of that with more subtlety and detail. You’re responding with real emotions to imaginary situations. When I’m in a production I never have a day when I haven’t laughed, cried or screamed. There are times when I wake up stiff from emotional exhaustion. Film is a much more intimate and thoughtful medium than theatre because of the proximity of the camera. The camera can read your thoughts. On stage, if you have a moment of vulnerability you can hide it from the other actors; on film, the camera will see you feel that emotion and try to suppress it. Similarly, if you’re pretending to feel something that isn’t there, it won’t be believable.

Just as human nature is the same everywhere, so it is recognizably the same as it was in the past. A Shakespeare play is about motives and predicaments and feelings and personalities that are instantly familiar. Falstaff’s bombast, Iago’s cunning, Leontes’s jealousy, Rosalind’s strength, and Malvolio’s embarrassment have not changed in four hundred years. Shakespeare was writing about the same human nature that we know today. Only

Very well.” The Red Wind shrugged, turning the pistol handles toward her. It didn’t matter a whit to the Wind who did the deed, as long as it was done. She seemed to look at September fully for the first time. “You know, I do believe that’s my coat,” she mused. “And that is most certainly my cat.” Iago roared—a roar of love and remembering and recognition and regret. He did not leave the Marquess’s side, but the roar said that he was sorry about it.

It was a secret society, and so it was a vastly unpleasant affair, as most secret societies tend to be. They acted out of intolerance and hatred, and let it be said that nothing good was ever born from hatred—save for perhaps insecticide.

We enter upon a stage which we did not design and we find ourselves part of an action that was not of our making. Each of us being a main character in his own drama plays subordinate parts in the dramas of others, and each drama constrains the others. In my drama, perhaps, I am Hamlet or Iago or at least the swineherd who may yet become a prince, but to you I am only A Gentleman or at best Second Murderer, while you are my Polonius or my Gravedigger, but your own hero. Each of our dramas exerts constraints on each other’s, making the whole different from the parts, but still dramatic.

At the beginning of modernity, it may have been easier to acknowledge that there exists an innate tropism toward the gruesome. Edmund Burke observed that people like to look at images of suffering. “I am convinced we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pains of others,” he wrote in A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757). “There is no spectacle we so eagerly pursue, as that of some uncommon and grievous calamity.” William Hazlitt, in his essay on Shakespeare’s Iago and the attraction of villainy on the stage, asks, “Why do we always read the accounts in the newspapers of dreadful fires and shocking murders?” Because, he answers, “love of mischief,” love of cruelty, is as natural to human beings as is sympathy.

The uniqueness of Iago, like the uniqueness of modern war, does not lie in the spirit of destruction. That has always been common enough. It lies in the genius he dedicates to destructive ends. Modern war would not recognize itself in the portraits of Shakespeare’s classical and feudal fighters, in Hector and Hotspur, in Faulconbridge and Coriolanus, or in Othello himself. But let it look in the glass and it will behold Iago. In him Shakespeare reveals , with clarity of nightmare, the unrestrained intellect, instead of being opposite of force, and an antidote for it, as much of the modern world thinks, is force functioning on a nother plane. It is the immoral equivalent of war, and as certain to clead to it in due seasons as Iago’s machinations were to lead to death. “All other knowledge is hurtful,” says Montaigne, “to him who has not the science of honesty and goodness.

[Talking about Othello] His dying words are about the service he has done to the state -not what he has done to Desdemona. (...) He acknowledges not love but the power structure (...). Othello believes his fellow officer [Iago] rather than his wife, believes death is suitable punishment for infidelity (...). It makes me uneasy that we so easily state that Othello is a play about race. Race is one of its ingredients, but the most pervasive subject that Shakespeare is tackling is sexism. The two women [Desdemona and Emilia, Iago's wife] end up dead. Bianca, the third woman in the play, Cassio's mistress, ends up in jail for something she never did, and nobody bothers to get her out. Iago, the symbol of evil, remains alive. Brabantio, Desdemona's father, dies of a broken heart because of his daughter's disobedience. And everyone is very regretful about what has happened. But no one, other than Emilia, has pointed out that there is a terrible double standard, something rotten in the system itself.

Non tutti possono essere padroni, né tutti i padroni avere fedeli servitori. Ne conoscerete parecchi di devoti e deferenti, rimbambiti a forza di servire, che passano la propria vita come l'asino del padrone, per un po' di biada, e da vecchi vengono messi da parte. Onesti furfanti, da prendersi a frustate! Altri, con la meschina apparenza del dovere badano solo al proprio interesse, e facendo gran mostra di fedeltà verso i padroni, ne traggono gran frutto, e una volta riempitesi le tasche non rendono omaggio che a se stessi. Queste sono persone di talento, ed io mi professo uno di loro... Signore, quant'è vero che siete Roderigo, se io fossi il Moro, non vorrei esser Iago. Stando al suo servizio, servo me stesso. Lo sa il cielo, non è né per amore né per dovere, ma solo in apparenza per i miei fini particolari. E quando le mie azioni esteriori riveleranno l'intima natura e intento del mio animo, allora sì mi mostrerò col cuore in mano per darlo in pasto alle tortorelle. Io non sono quel che sono.

What is a novel, anyway? Only a very foolish person would attempt to give a definitive answer to that, beyond stating the more or less obvious facts that it is a literary narrative of some length which purports, on the reverse of the title page, not to be true, but seeks nevertheless to convince its readers that it is. It's typical of the cynicism of our age that, if you write a novel, everyone assumes it's about real people, thinly disguised; but if you write an autobiography everyone assumes you're lying your head off. Part of this is right, because every artist is, among other things, a con-artist. We con-artists do tell the truth, in a way; but, as Emily Dickenson said, we tell it slant. By indirection we find direction out -- so here, for easy reference, is an elimination-dance list of what novels are not. -- Novels are not sociological textbooks, although they may contain social comment and criticism. -- Novels are not political tracts, although "politics" -- in the sense of human power structures -- is inevitably one of their subjects. But if the author's main design on us is to convert us to something -- - whether that something be Christianity, capitalism, a belief in marriage as the only answer to a maiden's prayer, or feminism, we are likely to sniff it out, and to rebel. As Andre Gide once remarked, "It is with noble sentiments that bad literature gets written." -- Novels are not how-to books; they will not show you how to conduct a successful life, although some of them may be read this way. Is Pride and Prejudice about how a sensible middle-class nineteenth-century woman can snare an appropriate man with a good income, which is the best she can hope for out of life, given the limitations of her situation? Partly. But not completely. -- Novels are not, primarily, moral tracts. Their characters are not all models of good behaviour -- or, if they are, we probably won't read them. But they are linked with notions of morality, because they are about human beings and human beings divide behaviour into good and bad. The characters judge each other, and the reader judges the characters. However, the success of a novel does not depend on a Not Guilty verdict from the reader. As Keats said, Shakespeare took as much delight in creating Iago -- that arch-villain -- as he did in creating the virtuous Imogen. I would say probably more, and the proof of it is that I'd bet you're more likely to know which play Iago is in. -- But although a novel is not a political tract, a how-to-book, a sociology textbook or a pattern of correct morality, it is also not merely a piece of Art for Art's Sake, divorced from real life. It cannot do without a conception of form and a structure, true, but its roots are in the mud; its flowers, if any, come out of the rawness of its raw materials. -- In short, novels are ambiguous and multi-faceted, not because they're perverse, but because they attempt to grapple with what was once referred to as the human condition, and they do so using a medium which is notoriously slippery -- namely, language itself.

The emphasis on shifting essences, uncertainty, and fiercely contrasting opposite states was, of course, neither new nor unique to Byron. He and the other Romantic poets, however, took the ideas and emotions to a particularly intense extreme. Shelley's belief that poetry "marries exultation and horror, grief and pleasure, eternity and change," and that it "subdues to union, under its light yoke, all irreconcilable things," was in sympathy not only with the views of Byron but those of Keats as well. "Negative capability," wrote Keats, exists "when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching out after fact & reason." The "poetical Character," he said: has no self-it is every thing 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 camelion 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.

She is innocent! Why is it so easy to believe she would betray him?” I was truly appalled. Samuel looked up at me calmly and replied, “Because it’s always easier to believe the worst.” I looked at him in disbelief. “It is not!” I sputtered. “I can’t believe you would say that! Wouldn’t you give the benefit of the doubt to someone you claimed to love?” The ease in which Othello accepted her betrayal was completely foreign to me. “And why would Othello believe Iago over Desdemona? I don’t care how honest they think Iago is! Emilia even told Othello she thought he was being manipulated and tricked!” Samuel sighed and tried to read to the end of the scene. I jumped in again. I couldn’t help it. My sense of outrage was on overdrive. “But he said, ‘I loved not wisely, but too well!’” I was dismayed. “He had it totally backwards! He did love wisely-she was worthy of his love…she was a wise choice! But he didn’t love well enough! If he had loved Desdemona more, trusted her more, Iago wouldn’t have been able to divide them.” I longed once again for Jane Eyre, where righteousness and principle won out in the end. Jane got her man, and she did it with style. Desdemona got her man, and he smothered her.

In Shakespearean tragedy the main source of the convulsion which produces suffering and death is never good: good contributes to this convulsion only from its tragic implication with its opposite in one and the same character. The main source, on the contrary, is in every case evil; and, what is more (though this seems to have been little noticed), it is in almost every case evil in the fullest sense, not mere imperfection but plain moral evil. The love of Romeo and Juliet conducts them to death only because of the senseless hatred of their houses. Guilty ambition, seconded by diabolic malice and issuing in murder, opens the action in Macbeth. Iago is the main source of the convulsion in Othello; Goneril, Regan and Edmund in King Lear. Even when this plain moral evil is not the obviously prime source within the play, it lies behind it: the situation with which Hamlet has to deal has been formed by adultery and murder. Julius Caesar is the only tragedy in which one is even tempted to find an exception to this rule. And the inference is obvious. If it is chiefly evil that violently disturbs the order of the world, this order cannot be friendly to evil or indifferent between evil and good, any more than a body which is convulsed by poison is friendly to it or indifferent to the distinction between poison and food.

Tragedy springs from its own peculiar sorcery, with treachery, born of envy or ambition, a usual instigator. Treachery is apparent only after the events staged are well over, as we know, its victims dead, or living and smarting under its tricks, realizing too late how they have been misused: if indeed they are ever cognizant of its role, if still players, to this wonder and rue. Most unacceptable is its subtlety, the double-face which double-deals, the Iago perpetrators hidden for decades, smiling the smiles of polite and not so polite society. They nod and wave, heroes to many; sly politicians these Claudiuses. Time favours the Macbeths and forgets the maligned. The former enjoy live, some even oblivious to their lies as being lies, for they prefer to bask in blessings, aping the certainties of creed, cheating death and duty while in pavilions of ease. They succeed on their success, trite or vast; wealth for some, and enviably, fame for the few. The unaware, their victims, float off to obscurity on ruptured vessels of injustice to theater lands unknown, never really knowing why, if the job's done property. Normality is, truthfully, life's whore, readily embraced and conveniently embracing; secretly, it has the clap. Thinking of plot should then give pause. The treacherous cheat fate and re-write, their 'intended history'. Call it fate. They become authors of an illicit story, penmen of their own gods, living their own fresh creation through a new, egregious, utilitarian drama that is untouched by either truth or beauty.

To take a modern 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 that we know as Micawber, Oliver Twist, Uriah Heep — is it Dickens, or have each of these characters a personal spirit, independent of their creator? Have the Venus of Medici, the Sistine Madonna, the Appollo Belvidere, spirits and reality of their own, or do they represent the spiritual and mental power of their creators? The Law of Paradox explains that both propositions are true, viewed from the proper viewpoints. Micawber is both Micawber, and yet Dickens. And, again, while Micawber may be said to be Dickens, yet Dickens is not identical with Micawber. Man, like Micawber, may exclaim: "The Spirit of my Creator is inherent within me — and yet I am not HE!" How different this from the shocking half-truth so vociferously announced by certain of the half-wise, who fill the air with their raucous cries of: "I Am God!" Imagine poor Micawber, or the sneaky Uriah Heep, crying: "I Am Dickens"; or some of the lowly clods in one of Shakespeare’s plays, grandiloquently announcing that: "I Am Shakespeare!" THE ALL is in the earth-worm, and yet the earth-worm is far from being THE ALL And still the wonder remains, that though the earth-worm exists merely as a lowly thing, created and having its being solely within the Mind of THE ALL — yet THE ALL is immanent in the earth-worm, and in the particles that go to make up the earth-worm. Can there be any greater mystery than this of "All in THE ALL; and THE ALL in All?

Everything and Nothing* There was no one inside him; behind his face (which even in the bad paintings of the time resembles no other) and his words (which were multitudinous, and of a fantastical and agitated turn) there was no more than a slight chill, a dream someone had failed to dream. At first he thought that everyone was like him, but the surprise and bewilderment of an acquaintance to whom he began to describe that hollowness showed him his error, and also let him know, forever after, that an individual ought not to differ from its species. He thought at one point that books might hold some remedy for his condition, and so he learned the "little Latin and less Greek" that a contemporary would later mention. Then he reflected that what he was looking for might be found in the performance of an elemental ritual of humanity, and so he allowed himself to be initiated by Anne Hathaway one long evening in June. At twenty-something he went off to London. Instinctively, he had already trained himself to the habit of feigning that he was somebody, so that his "nobodiness" might not be discovered. In London he found the calling he had been predestined to; he became an actor, that person who stands upon a stage and plays at being another person, for an audience of people who play at taking him for that person. The work of a thespian held out a remarkable happiness to him—the first, perhaps, he had ever known; but when the last line was delivered and the last dead man applauded off the stage, the hated taste of unreality would assail him. He would cease being Ferrex or Tamerlane and return to being nobody. Haunted, hounded, he began imagining other heroes, other tragic fables. Thus while his body, in whorehouses and taverns around London, lived its life as body, the soul that lived inside it would be Cassar, who ignores the admonition of the sibyl, and Juliet, who hates the lark, and Macbeth, who speaks on the moor with the witches who are also the Fates, the Three Weird Sisters. No one was as many men as that man—that man whose repertoire, like that of the Egyptian Proteus, was all the appearances of being. From time to time he would leave a confession in one corner or another of the work, certain that it would not be deciphered; Richard says that inside himself, he plays the part of many, and Iago says, with curious words, I am not what I am. The fundamental identity of living, dreaming, and performing inspired him to famous passages. For twenty years he inhabited that guided and directed hallucination, but one morning he was overwhelmed with the surfeit and horror of being so many kings that die by the sword and so many unrequited lovers who come together, separate, and melodiously expire. That very day, he decided to sell his theater. Within a week he had returned to his birthplace, where he recovered the trees and the river of his childhood and did not associate them with those others, fabled with mythological allusion and Latin words, that his muse had celebrated. He had to be somebody; he became a retired businessman who'd made a fortune and had an interest in loans, lawsuits, and petty usury. It was in that role that he dictated the arid last will and testament that we know today, from which he deliberately banished every trace of sentiment or literature. Friends from London would visit his re-treat, and he would once again play the role of poet for them. History adds that before or after he died, he discovered himself standing before God, and said to Him: I , who have been so many men in vain, wish to be one, to be myself. God's voice answered him out of a whirlwind: I, too, am not I; I dreamed the world as you, Shakespeare, dreamed your own work, and among the forms of my dream are you, who like me, are many, yet no one.

True understanding is to see the events of life in this way: “You are here for my benefit, though rumor paints you otherwise.” And everything is turned to one’s advantage when he greets a situation like this: You are the very thing I was looking for. Truly whatever arises in life is the right material to bring about your growth and the growth of those around you. This, in a word, is art—and this art called “life” is a practice suitable to both men and gods. Everything contains some special purpose and a hidden blessing; what then could be strange or arduous when all of life is here to greet you like an old and faithful friend? I had a dream many years ago that sums up this thought in a different way, one that has become a sustaining metaphor for me. I am on a train going home to God. (Bear with me!) It’s a long journey, and everything that happens in my life is scenery along the way. Some of it is beautiful; I want to linger over it awhile, perhaps hold on to it or even try to take it with me. Other parts of the journey are spent grinding through a barren, ugly countryside. Either way the train moves on. And pain comes whenever I cling to the scenery, beautiful or ugly, rather than accept that all the scenery is grist for the mill, containing, as Marcus Aurelius counseled us, some hidden purpose and a hidden blessing. My family, of course, is on board with me. Beyond our families, we choose who is on the train with us, who we share our journey with. The people we invite on the train are those with whom we are prepared to be vulnerable and real, with whom there is no room for masks and games. They strengthen us when we falter and remind us of the journey’s purpose when we become distracted by the scenery. And we do the same for them. Never let life’s Iagos—flatterers, dissemblers—onto your train. We always get warnings from our heart and our intuition when they appear, but we are often too busy to notice. When you realize they’ve made it on board, make sure you usher them off the train; and as soon as you can, forgive them and forget them. There is nothing more draining than holding grudges.

We would prefer to say that such people cannot exist, that there aren't any. It is permissible to portray evildoers in a story for children, so as to keep the picture simple. But when the great world literature of the past -- Shakespeare, Schiller, Dickens -- inflates and inflates images of evildoers of the blackest shades, it seems somewhat farcical and lumsy to our contemporary percetption. The trouble lies in the way these classical evildoers are pictured. They recognize themselves as evildoers and they know their souls are black. And they reason: "I cannot live unless I do evil. So I'll set my father against my brother! I'll drink the victim's sufferings until I'm drunk with them!" Iago very precisely identifies his purposes and his motives as being black and born of hate. But no; that's not the way it is! To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he's doing is good, or else that it's a well-considered act in conformity with natural law. Fortunately, it is in the nature of the human beingto seek a justifaction for his actions. Macbeth's self-justifications were feeble -- and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a little lamb too. The imagination and the spiritual strength of Shakespeare's evildoers stopped short at a dozen corpses. Because they have no ideology. Ideology-- that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad and in his own and other's eyes, so that he won't hear reproaches and curses but will received praise and honors. That was how the agents of the Inquisition fortified their weills: by invoking Christianity; the conquerors of foreign lands, by extolling the grandeur of their Mother-land; the conolizers, by civilization; the Nazis, by race; and the Jacobins (early and late), by equality, brotherhood, and the happiness of future generations. Thanks to ideology, the twentieth century was fated to experience evildoing on a scale calculated in the millions. This cannot be denied, nor passed over, nor suppressed. How, then, do we dare insist that evildoers do not exist? And who was it that destroyed these millions? Without evildoers there would have been no Archipelago.

We would prefer to say that such people cannot exist, that there aren’t any. It is permissible to portray evildoers in a story for children, so as to keep the picture simple. But when the great world literature of the past — Shakespeare, Schiller, Dickens — inflates and inflates images of evildoers of the blackest shades, it seems somewhat farcical and clumsy to our contemporary perception. The trouble lies in the way these classic evildoers are pictured. They recognize themselves as evildoers, and they know their souls are black. And they reason: “I cannot live unless I do evil. So I’ll set my father against my brother! I’ll drink the victim’s sufferings until I’m drunk with them!” Iago very precisely identifies his purposes and his motives as being black and born of hate. But no; that’s not the way it is! To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good, or else that it’s a well-considered act in conformity with natural law. Fortunately, it is in the nature of the human being to seek a justification for his actions. Macbeth’s self-justifications were feeble — and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a little lamb too. The imagination and the spiritual strength of Shakespeare’s evildoers stopped short at a dozen corpses. Because they had no ideology. Ideology — that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others’ eyes, so that he won’t hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors. That was how the agents of the Inquisition fortified their wills: by invoking Christianity; the conquerors of foreign lands, by extolling the grandeur of their Motherland; the colonizers, by civilization; the Nazis, by race; and the Jacobins (early and late), by equality, brotherhood, and the happiness of future generations. Thanks to ideology, the twentieth century was fated to experience evildoing on a scale calculated in the millions. This cannot be denied, nor passed over, nor suppressed. How, then, do we dare insist that evildoers do not exist? And who was it that destroyed these millions? Without evildoers there would have been no Archipelago. There was a rumor going the rounds between 1918 and 1920 that the Petrograd Cheka, headed by Uritsky, and the Odessa Cheka, headed by Deich, did not shoot all those condemned to death but fed some of them alive to the animals in the city zoos. I do not know whether this is truth or calumny, or, if there were any such cases, how many there were. But I wouldn’t set out to look for proof, either. Following the practice of the bluecaps, I would propose that they prove to us that this was impossible. How else could they get food for the zoos in those famine years? Take it away from the working class? Those enemies were going to die anyway, so why couldn’t their deaths support the zoo economy of the Republic and thereby assist our march into the future? Wasn’t it expedient? That is the precise line the Shakespearean evildoer could not cross. But the evildoer with ideology does cross it, and his eyes remain dry and clear.

Though Owen was twenty-four years old, he felt like an old man. His cares and responsibilities were an unshakable burden. He was sick at heart, sick in his soul, and the only force that kept him going was the slender hope of escaping the daily misery his life had become. The thought of seeing Evie again—no, seeing Elysabeth again—both worried him and rekindled sparks of warmth inside his cold iron heart. He had not spoken to her once since the day they had said good-bye at the cistern in the king’s palace seven years ago. He occasionally received letters from her, flowery prose talking about the wonders of Atabyrion and the antics of her two children. He never answered—he could not bring himself to—but he had finally written to tell her of her grandfather’s failing health. He owed her that much, a chance to see her grandfather before he passed. Besides, Owen felt a debt of duty and gratitude to Duke Horwath, enough for him to summon the courage to face the girl he had loved and lost. That she was happy in her marriage to Iago made it worse somehow.

The best portrait of this psychology comes from that very dead, very white European male: William Shakespeare, in his Othello. Iago just hated Othello, but he could not hope to defeat him in open confrontation. How then could he destroy him?  Iago’s strategy was to attack him where it would hurt most—through Othello’s passion for Desdemona. Iago hinted indirectly that she had been sleeping around, he spread subtle lies and innuendo about her faithfulness, he succeeded in raising a doubt in Othello’s mind about the most beautiful thing in his life, and he let that doubt work like a slow poison. Like the postmodernists, Iago’s only weapons were words. The only difference is that the postmodernists are not so subtle about their intended targets.