New York: W. W. Norton, 1992. Nietzsche, Fredrich. "Morals as Fossilized Violence." The Prince. Robert M. Adams.
Readers in the present may wonder that their ancestors ever felt twinges of suspense as the events wore on, for according to historians, the outcome of these clashes was, as King Henry would say, "as gross/ As black on white" (2.2.104). It is as predictable, the Elizabethans might have said, as a bad play. And yet there was suspense and anxiety in days gone by, as surely as political maneuvering in the present sows seeds of unrest. Shakespeare realized this and came to a startling conclusion - there is a gap between the events of the past and historical narrative. The proclivities of the historian become the very shape of history, cramming the past with mighty deeds and epic heroes.
Yahoo. Bloom, Harold. William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Chelsea House Publisher; Connecticut, New York, & Pennsylvania. 1988, Pg.
Ed. Kiernan Ryan. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992. Shakespeare, William. King Lear.
The Destruction of Innocence in Othello One way, albeit a partial way, of reading the tragedy of 'Othello' is too see it as the destruction of innocence, trust, and idealized love by a cynical and maliciously motivated worldliness, which regards the very existence of innocence and beauty as its motivation: 'the divinity of hell'. Iago's manipulative malignity is a crucial factor in the tragic catastrophe but it also serves to highlight through contrast the alternative values in the play, amongst which one can include innocence and naivety. In the argument below innocence is understood to be inexperience of the world but also that which is separated from evil. Naivety has the meaning of gullibility, even folly but more positively is the condition of the child, trusting, artless and unaffected by the cynical questioning and deceit which characterizes the worldly. Shakespeare portrays naivety and innocence principally, but not exclusively, through the characterization of Desdemona and Othello, and through a whole range of dramatic techniques: their language, behavior, their interaction with other characters, the imagery applied to them etc.
192-206. Vaughan, Alden T. & Virginia Mason. "Shakespeare's Caliban: A Cultural History." New York: University Press, 1991. Wilson, Daniel, LL.D.
Love and Othello Othello is, in one sense of the word, by far the most romantic figure among Shakespeare's heroes; and he is so partly from the strange life of war and adventure which he has lived from childhood. He does not belong to our world, and he seems to enter it we know not whence -- almost as if from wonderland. There is something mysterious in his descent from men of royal siege; in his wanderings in vast deserts and among marvellous peoples; in his tales of magic handkerchiefs and prophetic Sibyls; in the sudden vague glimpses we get of numberless battles and sieges in which he has played the hero and has borne a charmed life; even in chance references to his baptism, his being sold to slavery, his sojourn in Aleppo. And he is not a merely romantic figure; his own nature is romantic. He has not, indeed, the meditative or speculative imagination of Hamlet; but in the strictest sense of the word he is more poetic than Hamlet.
New York: Signet. 1987 Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. Ed Robert Langbaum. New York: Signet.
Utopia is thus a game played between the two poles of reality and fiction. ( George Orwell, A reader’s guide to essential criticism, edited by Daniel Lea,2001) The term “utopia” first appeared in the 1516 work Utopia by Sir Thomas More , literally meaning “ nowhere”, it represents the perfect society. Thus, the idea is inherently ironic in that can never be achieved. Utopian Literature of the 20th century stands out / marks out through the relinquishment of the perspective which governed the utopia of past centuries: a positive utopia, confident in institutions and progress- an internal law of utopian genre. In the first years of the 20th century, utopia ceases describing the advantages of progress in the service of community, eliminating individual.
Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. New York: Washington Square, 1992. Print. The New Folger Library Shakespeare.