Shakespeare and the Early Modern Self 149
in the erotic inferno that Iago creates. They are positively detri-
mental to him. Othello’s major fear is not death, as it is for most
men. Othello the hero seems ever ready to die. What frightens him
is the chaos of not knowing. When he thinks about what it would
mean for the worst possi ble to happen— for him to stop loving
Desdemona—he says it would be “Chaos... come again” (III.iii.92).
One might say that Othello takes an epic mind into the provinces of
the erotic and is doomed for it. A. C. Bradley has said that if you
put Hamlet into Othello’s play, the prince would quickly make Iago
for what he is and laugh him to scorn. In Hamlet’s place, Othello
would draw his sword and slice Claudius nave to chops in the fi rst
act. In either case: no play. But in the world that Iago creates, Othello
is helpless as a child.
For Othello does not know the fundamental fact that most of
Shakespeare’s characters assume. Few characters in the plays use
language as a transparent medium to represent the world as it is, or
as they deeply believe it to be. (Those who do often pay a high price:
think of Cordelia, Desdemona, Kent, and Hermione.) Characters
in Shakespeare use language as an instrument to help them get what
they want. They are pragmatists, as the critic and scholar Lars Engle
suggests in his fi ne study of the playwright, and they talk for victory.
They try to bring themselves closer to fulfi lling their desires by what
they say. Iago is the extreme example of this phenomenon, but it is
pervasive. Othello uses language to disclose the Truth as he sees it,
and also to continue to add layers to his self- portrait as a heroic in-
dividualist. Othello woos Desdemona with his tales, yes; but one
has no doubt that he believes what he says to her word for word and
in the most literal sense. Part of what wins her is his sincerity: he
makes her weep by telling his story. Others in the plays use words
the way chess players use their pawns and rooks, knights and
bishops—to get them closer to victory. Schopenhauer observes that
in Shakespeare’s work “we see how the characters, with one or two