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Tavelorn's Journal - Othello

About Othello

Previous Entry Othello Jul. 13th, 2008 @ 12:24 am Next Entry
We just got back from seeing Othello. It was an excellent performance and even Becca seemed to enjoy it . . . especially the bloody bits.

This set of lines:
CASSIO
    266  reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost
    267  my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of
    268  myself, and what remains is bestial. My reputation,
    269  Iago, my reputation!

IAGO
    270  As I am an honest man, I thought you had received
    271  some bodily wound; there is more sense in that than
    272  in reputation. reputation is an idle and most false
    273  imposition: oft got without merit, and lost without
    274  deserving: you have lost no reputation at all,
    275  unless you repute yourself such a loser...

really stood out in my mind, especially having been reading and listening to a lot of Viking sagas and the Illiad. I want to say that Iago is speaking for the shifting tide. That the warrior ethos of the middle ages and before is, at this point (1602), on the decline. That and that the play takes a highly successful warrior and turns him into a lover, but at loving he fails.

Just a few late night thoughts at the theater. I'm off to bed.

--Tim
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From:[info]sabledrake
Date: July 13th, 2008 01:40 pm (UTC)
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So glad to hear you had a good time!

And yeah, those lines are pretty striking, aren't they? Iago. One of the all-time best villains ever in terms of sheer bastardry. Gotta love him!

-- C.
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