The movement of the passion in OTHELLO is exceedingly different from that of MACBETH. The difference of their thoughts and sentiments is, however, laid as open, their minds are separated from each other by signs as plain and as little to be mistaken as the complexions of their husbands. Both are, to outward appearance, characters of common life, not more distinguished than women usually are, by difference of rank and situation. On the other hand, Desdemona and Aemilia are not meant to be opposed with anything like strong contrast to each other. Shakespeare has laboured the finer shades of difference in both with as much care and skill as if he had had to depend on the execution alone for the success of his design. The making one black and the other white, the one unprincipled, the other unfortunate in the extreme, would have answered the common purposes of effect, and satisfied the ambition of an ordinary painter of character. What a contrast the character of Othello forms to that of Iago: at the same time, the force of conception with which these two figures are opposed to each other is rendered still more intense by the complete consistency with which the traits of each character are brought out in a state of the highest finishing. These characters and the images they stamp upon the mind are the farthest asunder possible, the distance between them is immense: yet the compass of knowledge and invention which the poet has shown in embodying these extreme creations of his genius is only greater than the truth and felicity with which he has identified each character with itself, or blended their different qualities together in the same story. Their distinguishing qualities stand out to the mind's eye, so that even when we are not thinking of their actions or sentiments, the idea of their persons is still as present to us as ever. The Moor Othello, the gentle Desdemona, the villain Iago, the good-natured Cassio, the fool Roderigo, present a range and variety of character as striking and palpable as that produced by the opposition of costume in a picture. The picturesque contrasts of character in this play are almost as remarkable as the depth of the passion. That of OTHELLO is at once equally profound and affecting. The interest in HAMLET is more remote and reflex. We have not the same degree of sympathy with the passions described in MACBETH. 'It comes directly home to the bosoms and business of men.' The pathos in LEAR is indeed more dreadful and overpowering: but it is less natural, and less of every day's occurrence. The moral it conveys has a closer application to the concerns of human life than that of any other of Shakespeare's plays. It excites our sympathy in an extraordinary degree.
It exercises the understanding upon things out of ourselves, while it leaves the affections unemployed, or engrossed with our own immediate, narrow interests.- OTHELLO furnishes an illustration of these remarks. A taste for liberal art is necessary to complete the character of a gentleman, Science alone is hard and mechanical. The habitual study of poetry and works of imagination is one chief part of a well-grounded education. It is the refiner of the species a discipline of humanity. It makes us thoughtful spectators in the lists of life. Tragedy creates a balance of the affections. It excites our sensibility by exhibiting the passions wound up to the utmost pitch by the power of imagination or the temptation of circumstances and corrects their fatal excesses in ourselves by pointing to the greater extent of sufferings and of crimes to which they have led others. It leaves nothing indifferent to us that can affect our common nature. It opens the chambers of the human heart. It teaches him that there are and have been others like himself, by showing him as in a glass what they have felt, thought, and done. It subdues and softens the stubbornness of his will. It raises the great, the remote, and the possible to an equality with the real, the little and the near. It gives us a high and permanent interest, beyond ourselves, in humanity as such. That is, it substitutes imaginary sympathy for mere selfishness. It has been said that tragedy purifies the affections by terror and pity. The following essay on Shakespeare's Othello was originally published in Characters of Shakespeare's Plays.