Shakspeare Diversions

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Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012 - 386 Seiten
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. t]'ello OTHELLO. JOHN KEMBLE took one exception and made one objection ? but then he deemed it a fatal one ? to Edmund Kean's Othello: If the justness of the conception, he said, had been but equal to the brilliancy of the execution, it would have been perfect; but the whole thing was a mistake; the fact being that Othello was a slow man. Kemble's own biographer, Mr. Boaden, describes him as grand, and awful, and pathetic in the part; adding, But he was a European: there seemed to be philosophy in his bearing; there was reason in his rage as though he took his cue from the hint, as one not easily jealous. Now the best critics are generally agreed that the barbarian element in Othello is radically strong, and that he is not a European, in John Kemble's and James Boaden's sense. Schlegel even contends that the Moor's jealousy is not the jealousy of the heart, which is compatible with the tenderest feeling and adoration of the beloved object; but of that sensual kind which, in burning climes, has led to the disgraceful confinement of women and many other unnatural usages. The Moor, as thus interpreted, seems noble, frank, confiding, grateful for the love shown him; and he is all this, and, moreover, a hero who spurns at danger, a worthy leader of an army, a faithful servant of the state; but the mere physical force of passion puts to flight in one moment all his acquired and mere habitual virtues, and gives the upper hand to the savage over the moral man. This tyranny of the blood over the will in Kemble's slow man, betrays itself even in the expression of his desire of revenge upon Cassio; while in his own repentance, in a genuine tenderness for his murdered wife, and in the presence of the damning evidence of his deed, the painfu...

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