The Fall of Othello

Abstract

then more than ever we understand how subordination of is directed towards concentrating our attention upon thought and sight of a man alone in his own mind-It is cause, my soul.... It is such a direction of our attention that defines final effects of play, so that we shall be less moved by conflicts of war and politics than by conflict of love and honor in most noble and royal of men. It is this direction of our attention, I think, that justifies Granville-Barker's criticism of Othello when he says that the play's essential lies in processes of thought and feeling by which characters are moved and story is forwarded. And deeper springs of these less do time, place and circumstance affect them. The contrivances of plot are also of such a nature as to make this internal matter the essential action of play, and this one can also estimate rather well through a comparison with Macbeth, where change in mind of leading figure is also central to tragedy.