SHAKSPER 1999: Re: Iago's Name

From: Hardy M. Cook (editor@ws.bowiestate.edu)
Date: 12/22/99 

The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 10.2268  Wednesday, 22 December 1999.

[1]     From:   Clifford Stetner <cstetner@liu.edu>
        Date:   Tuesday, 21 Dec 1999 10:56:58 -0500
        Subj:   King Iago

[2]     From:   Martin Mueller <martinmueller@nwu.edu>
        Date:   Friday, 17 Dec 1999 10:04:02 -0600
        Subj:   Iago and other names


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Clifford Stetner <cstetner@liu.edu>
Date:           Tuesday, 21 Dec 1999 10:56:58 -0500
Subject:        King Iago

It doesn't seem to me likely that the king or his spies would be likely
to see any reference to him in the character of Iago, beyond the name
itself.  Unlike the use of Richard II during the reign of Elizabeth as a
symbol for deposition of a corrupt monarchy, there is little to tie the
character of Iago, symbolically or otherwise to contemporary criticism
of the reign of James.

Perhaps James is the Othello and Shakespeare the Iago who drops his name
like a handkerchief where it is sure to be discovered?

>On a different topic, I have a question regarding Othello.  I once read
>that the name Iago was Spanish for James (presumably of Islamic
>origin).  Since most scholars place the play's date of composition as
>1604, the first year of James I reign, why would Shakespeare risk the
>offense of his sovereign and patron by naming his most evil character
>synonymously with the king?
>
>Vince Locke
>Eastern Michigan University

Clifford Stetner

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Martin Mueller <martinmueller@nwu.edu>
Date:           Friday, 17 Dec 1999 10:04:02 -0600
Subject:        Iago and other names

I cannot make much of a connection between Iago and King James. For one
thing, the names Iago and James don't sound much like one another (even
though they are related), and secondly, the name James is so common that
the intertextual hurdle is raised. But I'd like to ask some questions
about other names in Othello and Hamlet.  Why do Ophelia and Othello
have the names they have and why are they so much like each other?

Elena Fernandez del Valle  points out that Shakespeare took Desdemona's
name from Cinthio and that Disdemona is the only named character in the
novella. Outside of his histories, Shakespeare almost never kept the
names of his source characters, so the fact that he kept this one is a
significant choice. It testifies to minimal Greek: he knew that it meant
what we might today call Bad Karma and that its constituent parts are
'dus' and 'daimon'.  He almost certainly didn't know Heraklitus'
wonderful aphorism "ethos anthropoi daimon"  (êthos anthrôpôi daimôn in
better transliteration) or "character is fate," but he certainly acted
on it in the portrayal of the character with its Antigonesqe dimension
of moral absolutism.

I think that Ophelia is the only other Shakespearean character with an
etymologically transparent Greek name. The name means Obligation.  A
strikingly unusual name that can be decoded with a schoolboy's command
of Greek, unhappy love, songs, and a willow tree. That's quite a bit,
but there is more when we look at 'Othello' and 'Ophelia'.  These are
almost like the names of brother and sister.  Othello is etymologically
opaque (unless one wants to pun on " O Hell O" in the manner of the
famous line "O Sofonisba, Sofonisba O") But it is extremely close to
Ophelia phonetically and morphologically. The bearers of both names
commit suicide. Sexual violence surrounds both of them. Ophelia
obviously suffers it. With Othello violence in action becomes a kind of
suffering.

I am reasonably confident that sound rather than etymology governs
associative links between names and that such links are significant
features of the plays. Take the Merchant of Venice and Othello. The
three suitors of Portia, Morocco, Bassanio, and Arragon, return as the
suitors of Desdemona: Othello, Cassio, and Roderigo: the distribution of
'r', 's' and 'o' marks the pattern of  exotic hero, hometown boy, and
fool.

I write this away from a library. I remember reading that the name
'Ophelia' occurs in a poem by Sannazarro and that Othello is not a name
that Shakespeare made up. But why pick those two names and create a
phonetic coupling of Othello and Ophelia?

In thinking of this as an odd cross-relationship, I'm probably
influenced by Goethe's novel Elective Affinities. The most mysterious
character in that odd novel is a woman who also ends in a quasi-suicidal
death. Her name is Ottilie.  Goethe in Wilhelm Meister did a lot to turn
Ophelia into a modern mythological character. Ottilie clearly is another
Ophelia.

Nomen est omen.


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