Article Title：Domestic disturbance and the disordered state in Shakespeare's 'Othello'
Abstract：
This article examines Othello as exemplary of early modern tensions between the microcosmic domestic and macrocosmic governmental orders created by the emergent model of modern statecraft. This model, which privileged pragmatic over ethical choices, and supported imperialist and mercantile national interests over state interests at the level of the internal and domestic, appears in opposition to a set of idealized feudal values which are themselves called into question. The play explicates these tensions through Iago's dissatisfaction with the new model of statecraft and state interests, and its effects on his individual condition and life-chances. His character, reliant on racist and patriarchal assumptions about privilege that conflict with the interests of the state, shifts Machiavellian pragmatism from the apex of the political order to the invisible periphery occupied by the general populace, raising questions not only about the viability of self-interested actions on the part of the citizen/subject, but also about the viability of the emergent rational state, whose actions and interests create disaffection. Further, read through the contemporary concept of 'white privilege', the play offers a fruitful locus for considering how racist and sexist attitudes are shaped and reinforced systemically, and suggests that, while Iago's self-interested response constitutes a negative model, resistance to pragmatic state actions has a long history and strong transformative potential. We can thus understand Othello as an exploration of the systemic structuring of social relations, and of the potential for resistance and disruption produced by such institutional structures.
Keywords: Shakespeare; politics/political institutions; political history; early modern; subject; citizen; rationalism; pragmatism; Machiavelli/Machiavellianism; race; gender; domestic; nation; English literature; early modern/Renaissance
DOI: 10.1080/09502360410001732908
Source：TEXTUAL PRACTICE
Welcome to correct the error, please contact email: humanisticspider@gmail.com
