"To compensate a little for the treachery and weakness of my memory, so extreme that it has happened to me more than once to pick up again, as recent and unknown to me, books which I had read carefully a few years before . . . I have adopted the habit for some time now of adding at the end of each book . . . the time I finished reading it and the judgment I have derived of it as a whole, so that this may represent to me at least the sense and general idea I had conceived of the author in reading it." (Montaigne, Book II, Essay 10 (publ. 1580))

Friday, June 30, 2023

Othello (William Shakespeare, ~1603)

Read this on Kindle without notes; then read Harold Bloom's helpful musings in Shakespeare - The Invention of the Human.  

Othello - warrior type, perhaps not flexible to handle other challenges.

Iago as driving the action.  More soliloquies, for example.  See Bloom.

Iago is one of Shakespeare's most compelling characters?  I think I'd agree based on limited knowledge.

Undone by his wife - she had a virtue he didn't anticipate.

Desdemona as ideal lover in all of Shakespeare (see Bloom).

Almost no humor in this one.

Much enjoyed.

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