Iago and the Arts of Satan: a Homiletic Reading1

• Published in: Cithara 2012-11, Vol.52 (1), p.22
• Main Author: Klein, Joan Larsen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: British & Irish literature; Christianity; Drama; English language; English literature; Literary criticism; Persuasion; Religion; Shakespeare, William (1564-1616); Soul; Witchcraft; Women
• ISSN: 0009-7527

Stuart playgoers saw no ghosts, witches, or apparitions in Othello even though they heard Brabantio accuse Othello of using "witchcraft" and "practices of cunning hell" to win Desdemona's love and Othello speak of a "sibyl" who worked strawberries into an enchanted handkerchief (3.4.71-72)/ As Othello told the Senate, however, those "practices" were no more than stories of "disastrous chances" or "moving accidents" he had himself undergone (1.3.135-37) and his handkerchief only a "pledge of love" his father gave his mother (5.2.212). If we read the words and actions of Iago in light of scripture as well as important liturgical and homiletic texts authorized by the English Church, it becomes clear, I think, that Stuart playgoers could have understood Iago to be either demonic himself or an instrument of Satan, for all such texts portray Satan and his host of wicked spirits as the original source of evil in the world.5 As a consequence, when Iago urges Roderigo to put money in his purse, when he persuades Cassio to drink himself into sodden belligerence, when he drives Othello to murder Desdemona, English playgoers in Shakespeare's early audiences could also have understood the play in terms of the traditional Satanic temptations to the world, the flesh, and the Devil.