8/3/07 - English Literature - Shakespeare's Othello: Language and Power

What makes Othello tragic, and is the relation of language in the play to power?

The lecture framework runs as follows:

1. the ‘first principle’ of rhetoric
2. rhetorical and republican ideals in Othello
3. language and power
4. ethos and self-persuasion
5. hate speech: Iago
6. Othello.

1. The 'first principle' of rhetoric

Renaissance ideals of language were followed by their violation and disintegration. The Fall is manifested by language.

Language is understood through rhetoric. Othello is an expression of rhetoric, it is about the art of speech and reflections upon it.

Cicero talks about the purpose of language.

"The first principle is that which is found in the connection subsisting between all the members of the human race; and that bond of connection is reason and speech, which by the processes of teaching and learning, of communicating, discussing, and reasoning associate men together and unite them in a sort of natural fraternity. In no other particular are we farther removed from the nature of beasts . . . we do not admit that they have justice, equity, and goodness; for they are not endowed with reason and speech."
[Cicero, De Officiis. Trans. Walter Miller. London and Cambridge, Mass.: Heinemann, 1913), I.xvi]

The principle on which language is founded is the same principle of the world. This capacity is not determined by race. Cicero talks about the power of eloquence. Communities and societies are born through rhetoric, through bonds of communication. But we also know that Cicero was referring to men, not to women, and he knew that slaves were not fluent in the language of their masters.

2. Rhetorical and republican ideals

This principle comes to being in Act 1 of Othello. The fulfilment of rhetorical (and republican) ideals occurs.

Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field,
Of hair-breadth scapes i' th’ imminent deadly breach,
Of being taken by the insolent foe
And sold to slavery; of my redemption thence
And portance in my travailous history;
Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,
Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven
It was my hint to speak,--
[Shakespeare, William, Othello. Ed. E.A.J. Honigmann. Walton-on Thames: Thomas Nelson, 1996 1.3.136-43]

This is Othello's response to Brabantio's accusations. There is an emphasis on, or self-consciousness of, speech. Othello uses eloquent, poetic language. Othello discloses the contents of his mind through the medium of language. He is poetic in his conception of himself. He has created wonderment in Desdemona, and he recreates this for us. Language overcomes difference:

That I did love the Moor to live with him,
My downright violence and storm of fortunes
May trumpet to the world. My heart's subdued
Even to the very quality of my lord;
I saw Othello's visage in his mind,
And to his honour and his valiant parts
Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate.
So that, dear lords, if I be left behind,
A moth of peace, and he go to the war,
The rites for which I love him are bereft me,
And I a heavy interim shall support
By his dear absence. Let me go with him.
[1.3. 250-60]

3. Language and power

Here is the act of coming into speech. New bonds of connection are formed between Othello and Desdemona. She articulates her wants and desires. The senate surprisingly agrees to her wishes. Her obstructive father is overcome by rhetoric. There is rhetoric, but there are also republican ideals; rhetoric only works in a republican state. In Othello, rhetoric is plunged into a tragic world.

Three great ones of the city,
In personal suit to make me his lieutenant,
Off-capp'd to him and by the faith of man,
I know my price, I am worth no worse a place.
But he, as loving his own pride and purposes,
Evades them, with a bombast circumstance
Horribly stuffed with epithets of war;
And, in conclusion,
Nonsuits my mediators. For 'Certes,' says he,
'I have already chose my officer.’
[1.1.8-16]

This is Iago's speech. The language is different, to serve a different purpose - it is a speech of derision, an assault on the 'other'. This language is used to intimidate and abuse. Ironically, it creates bonds of connection between Iago and Roderigo, but this inverts the purpose of rhetoric. Shakespeare illustrates the different ways that words can be used. Othello says that we are not all equals, and Venice is not a community.

. . . a great arithmetician,
One Michael Cassio, a Florentine,
A fellow almost damned in a fair wife
That never set a squadron in the field,
Nor the division of a battle knows
More than a spinster - unless the bookish theoric,
Wherein the toged consuls can propose
As masterly as he. Mere prattle, without practice,
Is all his soldiership - but he, sir, had the election
[1.1.19-26]

Iago despises Othello because he is a Florentine. We see Iago's misogyny - "spinster," "fair wife", "prattle." Iago is modern in his disdain for rhetoric. It became perceived that people used rhetoric to deceive. Iago understands it well, but he sees bad speakers being rewarded all around him. He exploits the gap between rhetorical articulations and reality. He sees how rhetoric can be used to corrupt. Selfish and unfair social bonds are formed.

4. Ethos and self-persuasion

"Ethos in all its forms requires the speaker to be a man of good character and courtesy. For it is most important that he should himself possess or be thought to possess those virtues for the possession of which it is his duty, if possible, to commend his client as well, while the excellence of his own character will make his pleading all the more convincing and will be of the utmost service to the cases which he undertakes."
[Quintillian, Institutio Oratoria. Trans. H. E. Butler, vol. II. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard U P, 1921). VI.ii.18 (emphasis added)]

Quintillian says that ethos is to pertain to be selfless. Self-persuasion is needed. Why does Iago do this? His soliloquies can be taken as acts of self-persuasion. If he believes it, so will others. "To plume up my will" - his motivation.

5. Hate speech: Iago

There is a communal aspect of rhetoric, as outlined in the Cicero speech above. If there were no prejudices in society, Iago would have no right to speak. He is not outrageous and unbelievable to everyone in the play. He demonstrates the way in which words create antagonism, how they can appeal to the cruel and corrupt as well as the generous and ennobling.

The language that the characters use is related to the relationship between language and power. At times Cassio uses perfect rhetoric with Desdemona, yet he does not with those he disdains or believes to be below him.

6. Othello

Iago knows that Othello's identity was formed through aspiration. Aspiration is to ennoble and illuminate oneself through language, yet it is also modified by language. Iago undermines this affirmation. There is a difference between the person and community, and those outside of it. In Act 3, Iago exploits his status with the words: "Dost thou say so?" Othello's pain is due to becoming an outsider after being an insider. The warning is that such a thing could happen to anyone.