Shakespeare`s Othello And Milton`s Paradise Lost

Extended Essay

This is an essay about Paradise Lost and Othello, Milton and Shakespeare, and Satan and Iago. Investigating first the relationships between the two texts and the two authors, I will then, employing a psychoanalytic lens, consider the question of why Satan and Iago act as they do. The latter of these concerns being such a thorny issue, I have chosen to take a holistic psychoanalytical view, drawing on an eclectic mix of thinkers including Freud, Lacan, Barnaby, Sharpe and Caruth. Obvious on first-time reading of the texts is that both characters are seduced by their own power. However, I will argue that this is a symptom of their behaviour rather than a cause. The two characters do share some psychical phenomena, for example both are grappling with the idea of creation versus being created, but there are also differences. Reworking Ella Freeman Sharpe’s argument from her article ‘The Impatience of Hamlet’, I will assert that Satan and Iago both show symptoms of, in Freudian terms, melancholia caused by a failed mourning.[1] Satan is tortured both by the reality of his being a created individual, as well as the loss of favour from God, while Iago is tussling with the fact that Othello is romantically unattainable. It is my argument that the characters’ inability to reconcile themselves with these facts paralyses them in a state of melancholia, and drives them to wreak the havoc one sees.

In 2019 a Shakespeare first folio was discovered that is now generally agreed to be Milton’s personal edition.[2] I will be working on the premise that this edition is indeed Milton’s, and therefore investigating whether there are any possible links between the two texts, and thus the influence Shakespeare may have had on Milton. The crucial deceptions that Satan and Iago carry out are, respectively, enticing Eve to eat from the forbidden tree of knowledge, and convincing Othello that his wife, Desdemona, is cheating on him. A first tactic common to both characters is the use of flattery to disarm their targets. Praising Eve’s beauty Satan addresses her ‘Fairest resemblance of thy maker fair, / Thee all things living gaze on’.[3] Likewise, Iago attempts to soften his prey, Othello, by repeatedly professing his fondness for him with the declarations ‘My lord, you know I love you’ and later ‘what is spoke / Comes from my love’.[4] It is abundantly clear however that these declarations of affection are ‘but sign’, for as Iago states, ‘I do hate him as I do hell pains / Yet for necessity of present life / I must show out a flag and sign of love’.[5] In exactly the same vein Satan professes ‘under show of love well feigned, / The way which to her ruin now I tend’.[6] These are all attempts to make their victims’ minds more amenable to deception and lies, which is precisely what the characters then unveil.

The characters proceed to sow doubt in the minds of their targets, Satan by undermining Eve’s belief in the righteousness of God. She argues to Satan that God has forbidden the act of eating the fruit, but Satan cunningly retorts by slandering God, denying that the act will bring death, and instead claiming that God has forbidden it ‘to keep ye low and ignorant’.[7] A direct similarity can be seen with Iago’s behaviour here. Just as Satan discredits God and paints him as a tyrant, Iago defames and discredits Desdemona, suggesting to Othello ‘Look to your wife observe her well with Cassio’.[8]

However, Eve and Othello’s reactions to the slander differ here: on the one hand Satan’s ‘words replete with guile / Into her [Eve’s] heart too easy entrance won’, while on the other Othello rebukes Iago, albeit a little later, with ‘Villain be sure thou prove / my love a whore!’.[9] An intriguing argument for Othello having influenced Paradise Lost can be made here by examining the shared diction and imagery. Milton describes how ‘in her [Eve’s] ears the sound / Yet rung of his persuasive words’, while Othello explains how Desdemona would ‘with a greedy ear / Devour up my discourse’.[10] The metonymy of ‘ear’ in both cases represents the two characters’ happy acceptance of the words, and in Eve’s case, the successful duping of her by Satan. Moreover, the case for influence of Othello on Paradise Lost is strengthened by another instance of the same technique when Iago plans to ‘pour this pestilence into his [Othello’s] ear’, which he does to great effect.[11]

Satan and Iago are both given to boasting about these plans and triumphs: Iago gloats that he will ‘Make the Moor thank me, love me and reward me / For making him egregiously an ass’ or similarly that ‘With as little a web as this will I ensnare as great / a fly as Cassio’.[12] Meanwhile Satan brags of how ‘him [man] by fraud I have seduced / From his creator, and the more to increase / Your wonder, with an apple’.[13] They both show narcissism here in their eagerness to boast not only of their deception, but also of the ease of it, through an object as innocuous as an apple or a gesture as trivial as a kiss on the hand.

As we have seen, there are certainly similarities between Satan and Iago’s conduct and characteristics, but I now would like to turn to an aspect of Milton’s Shakespeare that I argue could very reasonably have been influential upon Paradise Lost: the sections of Othello that Milton has underlined. It is my assertion that we can infer from any highlighted section that these passages were at the very least of interest to Milton, and further, quite possibly impactful in his shaping of his character, Satan. The first underlined Othello section of interest for my discussion of Satan and Iago can be found in Act III Scene 3, where Iago speaks ‘Look where he comes! Not poppy nor mandragora / Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world / Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep / Which thou owedst yesterday’.[14] This is of remarkable similarity to Book IX where Milton pities Eve with ‘hapless Eve [...] Thou never from that hour in Paradise / Foundst either sweet repast, or sound repose / Such ambush hid among sweet flowers and shades’.[15] There are two crucial points of note here: first, the references to unsound rest that both Othello and Eve will experience now they have been manipulated. While Othello will never again enjoy ‘sweet sleep’, Eve’s wrongdoing will now deny her ‘sweet repast, or ‘sound repose’. The concepts are the same, and there is the obvious shared diction of ‘sweet’ to complement the image. Furthermore, there is the common reference to flowers, being ‘poppy’ and ‘mandragora’ and more simply ‘sweet flowers’, describing the impotence of the flowers for Othello, and their corrupted nature to Eve from Satan’s ambush.

Finally, an additional section Milton has underlined appears in Act III Scene 4, where Othello and his nemesis kneel and Iago declares

Do not rise yet /

Witness, you ever-burning lights above,

You elements that clip us round about,

Witness that here Iago doth give up

The execution of his wit, hands, heart,

To wronged Othello’s service. Let him command,

And to obey shall be in me remorse,

What bloody business ever.[16]

This is an insincere vow on the part of Iago. He is using faith as a means to convince Othello of his truthfulness and integrity. This is blasphemy, a pastime Satan noticeably also indulges in. In the very opening of Book II Milton describes how ‘High on a throne of royal state […] Satan exalted sat’.[17] This is subtly the same technique as Iago, as he is using a regal, religious trope to give him a sense of credibility and authority.

All these similar characteristics between the two characters as well as the shared diction and strategies employed do suggest an influence of Othello on Paradise Lost. The complex relationship between writers in general, and particularly between writers from different times was investigated by Harold Bloom in his 1973 work The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry.[18] Bloom discusses how writers must undertake a journey in their career of six progressive steps, being the ‘Clinamen’, ‘Tessera’, ‘Kenosis’, ‘Daemonization’, ‘Askesis’ and ‘Apophrades’. These six steps chart the writer’s journey from a mere imitator of previous writers to a true creator. Andrew Barnaby in his ‘Debt Immense: The Freudian Satan, Yet Once More’ draws attention to Bloom’s comment in The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry where he describes Paradise Lost as ‘an allegory of the dilemma of the modern poet’.[19] Furthermore, as Barnaby explains ‘Bloom is sensitive to the notion that what Satan and the Miltonic poet share is a concept of self-divinity that is never far from the refusal to accept one`s status as a created being.’[20] Thus I will now consider how the notion of ‘creation’ that all writers must confront can be seen within the authors’ characters themselves.

Both Satan and Iago tussle with the idea of ‘creation’ versus ‘being created’. Satan switches between the easier, to him more palatable, notion that he has no creator, to on the other hand acknowledging owing his existence to God. In the first of these modes Satan declares ‘We [the angels] know no time when we were not as now’ for he argues they are ‘self-begot, self-raised / By our own quickening power’.[21] Yet this is in conflict with his admission in book IV when he acknowledges ‘He deserved no such return / From me, whom he created’. Barnaby in his article considers why being created by God is such immense anathema to Satan. His central premise is that Satan’s behaviour, or in Freudian terms traumatic neurosis, ‘derives precisely from Satan`s refusal to abandon the fantasy of being his own child or, more precisely, of fathering himself.’[22] Barnaby elaborates that ‘what Freud is always interested in is the psychical struggle between father and son—or, more accurately, the son`s struggle to originate himself beyond the paternal authority that is inseparable from the father`s temporal priority’.[23] This is exactly what Satan can be seen doing here, as he attempts to wield a wholly flawed argument for him not having been created by God, that being he cannot remember not being alive. This is self-evidently flawed, because even if one cannot remember a time when one was not alive, then one has no way of knowing whether there was time before. In other words, one would not remember being created so there is no proof either way. To build a little on Barnaby’s comment, further evidence for his theory can be found just a few lines later, as Satan claims ‘Our puissance is our own, our own right hand / Shall teach us highest deeds,’.[24] Satan is proffering something similar but subtly different here. By classing his ‘puissance’ as his ‘own’, the implication is once again that he himself is the originator of his existence, but further that his power is also self-created. Also of note is the phrase ‘our own right hand’. This may be deliberately evoking the biblical depiction of Christ as ‘on the right hand of God angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him’.[25] If it is so, Satan is directly subverting the hierarchy laid out by God, exalting himself from his rightful place to be on a par with him. This is a direct example of Satan denying his existential origins, but also of repudiating the origins of his power: God.

Instrumental in developing his theories around children struggling to reconcile themselves with their provenance and origins were Freud’s interactions with the patient he referred to as ‘Dora’. Dora’s parents enjoyed an unusually intimate relationship with another couple, Freud’s name for them being Herr and Frau K. Dora’s father took his daughter to Freud after her accusation that Herr K had sexually assaulted her. On meeting Freud, Dora claimed to him that her father and Frau K were having an affair, and that she suspected that the former was volunteering her to Herr K as way of compensation. The key relevance of this case in considering Paradise Lost, is Dora’s complex relationship with her father. Discussing this in The Cambridge Introduction to literature and psychoanalysis Jean-Michel Rabaté, argues that ‘Dora remained exclusively attached to a father whose virile gift she could never possess, accept or even refuse’.[26] Applying this to Satan, it is this lack of autonomy over his own destiny and existence that is one of the factors that inspires such hatred in him towards God.

However, Satan’s predicament is not entirely hopeless: Barnaby points to Regina Schwartz’s proposal in Remembering and Repeating: On Milton`s Theology of Creation, where Schwartz argues that Satan is caught in a state of paralysis between ‘repetition’ and ‘remembering’.[27] She then equates these to the Freudian concepts of ‘mourning’ and ‘melancholia’ as outlined in his 1917 publication ‘Mourning and Melancholia’. While ‘mourning’ is regarded as a psychologically beneficial process of facing and accepting the distress of a traumatic experience, ‘melancholia’ is the contrast: it is the deep-rooted and psychologically harmful denial of a traumatic experience. Schwartz further asserts that ‘we either remember our old injuries or are condemned to repeat them in a compulsive effort’.[28] This again can be seen with Satan: it is his absolute refusal to accept his status as created by God, for him a traumatic experience, that sentences him to repeat actions already proven to be damaging. For Satan, this comes in the form of leading a second rebellion against his creator, despite having already suffered the severe punishment of being banished from heaven for his first rebellion. The solution, Schwartz proposes, would be to acknowledge his creation by God and express gratitude. Indeed, Satan appears to be aware of this, as he muses in Book V that ‘a grateful mind / By owing owes not’.[29] In essence, that by humble admission of the debt to God, paradoxically the debt is repaid. Schwartz does elaborate on how Satan might approach this mourning or acceptance of his plight, introducing a more theological bent. Barnaby further points to Schwartz’s drawing on Augustinian doctrine which, as outlined in On Free Choice of The Will and City of God, offers the ‘notion of sin as a defect of will rather than as a pathology both resulting from and expressing (if in the masked form of defense) a neurotic condition’.[30] Placing less emphasis on Satan’s pathology, Schwartz is keen to emphasise his theological misguidedness. She discusses the concept of ‘therapeutic memory’, an idea summarised in Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle, which, similarly to the process of mourning, involves confronting traumatic experience, in this case through ritual remembrance, in order to reconcile oneself with the past.[31] For Schwartz, this is exactly where Satan fails: whereas the cathartic, healing action would be to accept and worship God, Satan instead refuses to pray, and thus alienates himself from God. This, in Schwartz’s view, hinges on Satan’s inability to remember, and therefore to activate the therapeutic memory.

However, as Barnaby points out, there is a flaw in Schwartz’s hypothesis. Namely, that Satan does, as previously noted, acknowledge owing his existence to God. This suggests that there must be a different reason for Satan’s inability to accept his origins. Influential on Barnaby’s thoughts is the work of Cathy Caruth, particularly her work Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History.[32] Barnaby, paraphrasing Caruth, writes ‘where an original event is experienced before the mind is ready to assimilate it, it may become psychically available, Caruth remarks, only after-the-fact and in the form of "belated address"’.[33] Applying this to Satan, Barnaby argues that the reason for Satan’s traumatic neurosis is two-fold: first, the trauma itself, which for Satan is so severe, but secondly this is compounded by the fact that the angel Abdiel states that Satan is not self-begot, which amounts to something of an imposition on Satan. By first not accepting the facts himself he has lost the opportunity to claim the experience, but this is then aggravated when he is reminded by someone other than himself, this being the angel Abdiel, of his origins. In a Caruthian sense then, it is this ‘unclaimed experience’ that is causing the trauma for Satan, and thereby the traumatic neurosis, that leads him to act as he does.[34]

While Satan appears to desire nothing more than to have been the originator of his existence, it is my argument that Iago is the exact opposite: that is, that he wishes to be created by Othello. I will use this idea of creation more metaphorically than with regards to Satan, as I believe creation for Iago would to have been promoted instead of Cassio. In the very first scene of Othello Iago makes this clear in a particularly vitriolic monologue to Roderigo. Disparaging his competitor, Cassio, he describes his ‘soldiership’ as ‘Mere prattle without practice’ and asserts that he himself is ‘worth no worse a place’ than lieutenant.[35] The first possible reason then for why Iago proceeds as he does is because he feels a great sense of justice that a peer who he sees as an inferior candidate has been promoted ahead of him. In reconsidering the aforementioned concepts of melancholia and mourning, it is helpful at this point to turn to Ella Freeman Sharpe’s ‘The Impatience of Hamlet’, as referred to by Rabaté.[36] To paraphrase Sharpe, her central hypothesis is that what leads to the bloodshed and tragedy in Hamlet is the recurrence again of this phenomenon of the failed mourning and resultant paralysis in melancholia.[37] Sharpe rejects any suggestion that the play is defined by a slow-pace, particularly with regards to Hamlet’s indecision, instead arguing that it is the fast-paced nature of the events that take place that leads to such destruction.[38] For example, from the very beginning we learn that the characters have recently dealt with the death of their king, and that also the late king’s wife has immediately remarried to Claudius. These are seismic revelations in the characters’ lives, and need time to be processed. This time is not provided. I would argue that for a successful mourning here two problems must be solved, the first being to grieve the king’s death. However, it is the second problem that is more relevant in applying to Othello, that of the symbolic. In observing his mother’s eagerness to remarry quickly, Hamlet has, rightfully or not, lost respect for her. It is the symbolic loss of his mother’s innocence that Hamlet is mourning here, rather than the literal mourning of his father.

Building on this premise, it is my assertion that Iago is mourning a symbolic death: that of his relationship with Othello. For Iago, Othello by not promoting him has ended any possible friendly relations and snubbed him irreversibly. Thus, much like Hamlet must mourn what he sees as the symbolic death of his mother’s innocence through remarriage, Iago must now mourn the symbolic death of his relationship with Othello as represented by the promotion. Furthermore, just as Hamlet’s mourning is made far more difficult by way of the fact he can see Claudius in his father’s place, Iago likewise can see Cassio in the place he believes he himself should be. Finally, this failed mourning leads to the same end result as in Hamlet, that of extensive bloodshed.

To return to Paradise Lost, the critics mentioned so far have discussed the issue of Satan’s struggle around creation versus being created, but it is my view that they have neglected an equally important aspect of investigating the root of Satan’s traumatic neurosis. Namely, that Satan is mourning his lost relationship with God. The first evidence I would like to present for this can be found in Book IV in Satan’s interaction with Gabriel. While Satan accuses God of being dictatorial and oppressive, Gabriel replies ‘who more than thou / Once fawned, and cringed, and servilely adored / Heaven’s awful monarch? Wherefore but in hope to dispossess him, and thyself to reign?’.[39] ‘Fawned’ ‘cringed’ and ‘servilely adored’ all suggest that Satan had no true love for God, but instead was attempting to curry favour, and if we are to believe Gabriel this was an attempt to accrue more power. However, I would like to propose a different reading: that being that Satan’s behaviour does actually exhibit genuine previous affection towards God. First, Schwartz argues that without proper mourning and reconciliation we are sentenced to ‘repeating the same old failures’.[40] My qualm with this statement is that Satan does not specifically repeat ‘the same old failures’. His initial action was to lead a rebellion against God, but he does not repeat this action and so it cannot be classed as true Freudian repetition. Instead he chooses to corrupt God’s prized creation, that of mankind. This behaviour is far more in keeping with the phenomenon of sibling rivalry. Freud regarded sibling rivalry as an extension of the Oedipus complex, that is, an extension of the unconscious resentment in a child towards their parent of the same-sex for being able to enjoy their other parent sexually. While there is no sexual subtext to Satan’s resentment towards the Father, it is my argument that he displays much of the behaviour of a child immersed in some of the aspects of the Oedipus complex. For example, Satan shows great jealousy towards both Christ and Adam and Eve. All four of these individuals are the children of God, and thus the mechanism of sibling rivalry may be at work. The best example of this is indeed in Satan’s desire to corrupt his siblings of Adam and Eve. In book II Satan, through Beelzebub, puts forward the idea that the fallen angels ‘Seduce them to our party, that their God / May prove their foe, and with repenting hand / Abolish his own works’.[41] This is not just the intention of corrupting mankind, and thus potentially reducing them in God’s eyes, but further it is aiming to entirely eliminate mankind, a sibling rival, by forcing God to ‘abolish his own works’.

Moreover, Satan also demonstrates a jealousy of Christ. As already seen, Satan refers to ‘the right hand’, likely a direct reference to his desire to take his place at the side of God. But Satan is even more explicit about this in his actions in Book I. The opening of book II describes how ‘High on a throne of royal state […] Satan exalted sat’.[42] I would argue, given the later reference to the right hand, that this is a direct parody of the ascension of Christ into heaven to be seated beside God. Satan craves the position of he who is closest to God, to have the strongest relationship with God. It is again Satan’s fear of siblings overtaking him in God’s affections, which here manifests in the form of a fantasy where he is exalted to be nearest to the Father.

While we have seen that Satan’s desired relationship with God has no sexual element, this is not the case in regards to Iago’s interactions with Othello. Influenced by Stanley Edgar Hyman’s article ‘Iago Psychoanalytically Motivated’, I will present the argument that the most crucial element in understanding why Iago acts as he does is to notice Iago’s romantic desire towards Othello.[43] Building on Hyman’s article, I will then investigate some of the linguistic signifiers and puns in the text, as well as introducing some Lacanian thought to explain the more intricate psychological workings behind Iago’s love for Othello. What is important to note here is that Iago’s love for Othello is unequivocally unconscious. It is not my suggestion that Iago is at all aware of his love for Othello, and for, as will be briefly mentioned, Cassio. It is instead unconscious and very deeply-rooted. I will be arguing that Iago is immersed in the Freudian phenomenon of sublimation, and that his love for Othello has been subconsciously transformed into something more societally acceptable at the time of the play: being a soldier.

One of Hyman’s key pieces of evidence for Iago having homosexual tendencies is his apparent hatred towards women. I would dispute the value of this argument however. It is my assertion that to infer from someone’s hatred of women that they are homosexual is a pretty unnuanced approach. Hyman appears uninterested in the proposal that someone with such views may simply be a bigot rather than harbouring homosexual feelings. Hyman cites Iago’s humorous rant to Emilia about women and how ‘You are pictures out of door, / Bells in your parlors, wildcats in your kitchens, / Saints in your injuries, devils being offended’.[44] As damning an indictment as it is, it is no indicator that Iago is homosexual. Iago is not alone in expressing misogynistic views, indeed Othello does the same when he labels Desdemona a ‘public commoner’ - a whore - and accuses her ‘Are not you a strumpet?’.[45] Despite this one has no suspicion that Othello has homosexual inclinations, and so the assertion that because Iago uses similarly derogatory language towards women that he is homosexual is logically flawed, and thus should be dismissed.

Where Hyman’s argument is of more use however is when he investigates Iago’s apparent disdain for heterosexual sex. Hyman draws particular attention to the bestial imagery Iago employs in relation to straight sex, as he informs Brabantio ‘an old black ram / Is tupping your white ewe’ and further that ‘your daughter / and the Moor are making the beast with two backs’.[46] Such bestial imagery appears throughout the text such as later in Act III when Iago declares ‘Were they as prime as goats, as hot as monkeys, / As salt as wolves in pride’.[47] These dehumanising comments suggest Iago is uncomfortable around the subject of heterosexual sex, and this is augmented by his macho machinations that he immediately reneges on in Act II Scene 1. Commenting on the possibility of Othello having slept with Emilia, he claims

nothing can or shall content my soul /

Till I am evened with him, wife for wife /

Or failing so, yet that I put the Moor /

At least into a jealousy so strong /

That judgement cannot cure.[48]

The haste in which Iago goes back on his bravado is remarkable. One of three options is possible: first, that does not believe he can seduce Desdemona, secondly, that he would find it morally bankrupt, or thirdly, as will now be proven, he has no interest in heterosexual sex. I will now argue that it is the last of these propositions, first reconsidering the effect of the Oedipus complex in work here.

While there is not a traditional Oedipus complex here, as Iago’s mother is not mentioned and Othello is not his father, I subscribe to Hyman’s view that Emilia and Desdemona in their own moments signify a mother surrogate to Iago, and that Othello as a father figure is emasculating him, much to Iago’s delight. The best example in demonstrating this is Iago’s descri ption of the invented dream with which he tortures Othello. Hyman guides the reader to Iago’s words to Othello that ‘In sleep I heard him [Cassio] say, “Sweet Desdemona, / Let us be wary, let us hide our loves!”’.[49] Here, Iago is simply relaying a fake experience to Othello of encountering Cassio dreaming about Desdemona, which would be cause enough to worry Othello, but the crucial aspect is that Iago does not stop at this. He then proceeds to add further details, unnecessary for the deception, in a manner that he suggests he is fantasising about it. Continuing Iago describes how Cassio would ‘gripe and wring my hand, / As if he plucked up kisses by the roots / That grew upon my lips, laid his leg o’er my thigh, / And sigh, and kiss’.[50] Hyman emphasises how Iago’s story steadily intensifies, as though he is increasingly excited at the image.[51] Crucially, as Hyman points out, Iago has placed himself in the position of Desdemona and thus is enjoying Cassio sexually by proxy. As a Desdemona figure, he thereby also gets to enjoy Othello sexually.

To revisit the Oedipus complex, this is now an example, as Hyman argues, of the negative Oedipus complex.[52] Just as a heterosexual child will identify with their parent of the same-sex to enjoy their other parent sexually, in the negative Oedipus complex a homosexual child will align themselves with their parent of the opposite sex in order to fantasise about enjoying their same-sex parent. This is exactly what Iago does. In picturing Othello cuckhold him, he has both transformed himself into Emilia, his mother-surrogate, but also cast Othello as a father-figure who he has intercourse with. In addition, there are extensive declarations of love from Iago to Othello throughout the text which strengthen this hypothesis.

First, there is the explicit ‘My lord, you know I love you’.[53] Perhaps this would not be enough to make a definitive statement that it is romantic love, however Iago does state this again and again, with Hyman pointing to ‘I humbly do beseech you of your pardon / For too much loving you’, as well as ‘what is spoke / Comes from my love’.[54] With these extensive declarations of love, it is now reasonable to investigate any puns and double meanings in the text to prove whether or not there are homosexual feelings from Iago to Othello.

Of particular interest are the numerous examples of Freudian slips in the drama. At the end of Act I Iago explains ‘it is thought abroad that twixt my sheets / H’as done my office’.[55] One can certainly argue for the resemblance to the word ‘orifice’ here. Thereby the meaning transforming into the idea of Iago enjoying Othello sexually, which would align with the already explored idea of Iago enjoying Othello sexually through the image of being a cuckhold. Moreover, combining these two ideas further, I would argue that in Act IV when Iago speaks ‘Do it not with poison, Strangler her in her bed, / Even the bed she hath contaminated’ there is a double meaning here.[56] I have a point of disagreement again here with Hyman, who argues that for Iago the bed is ‘contaminated’ for Othello because his wife has slept with Cassio in it. I would instead suggest that the focus is not on Othello but in fact Iago, and that the bed is contaminated for Iago’s fantasy with Othello because it is the site of heterosexual sex. This is backed up by the already demonstrated contempt for heterosexual sex, as well as the fact that Iago has already been proven to enjoy Othello sexually in his fantasies.

Lastly for this case, I wish to examine the signifiers in the names ‘Iago’ and ‘Othello’. While Shakespeare cannot have meant these in a Lacanian sense, it being anachronistic to suggest otherwise, we can nevertheless learn something of the characters from these signifiers. Initially, ‘Iago’ is remarkably similar to the word ‘ego’. And this does sum up Iago’s character very neatly: he is a narcissist who is driven entirely by his own desires and drives. The other example, ‘Othello’ is reminiscent of the word ‘Other’, and just as neatly is ‘the other’ to Iago. He is the object of desire for Iago and around whom all his motivations lie. Lacan divided the psyche into three orders: the Real, the Imaginary and the Symbolic, or Big Other. It is the Imaginary which will be of most interest here, as it offers an interesting insight into Iago’s feelings towards Othello. For Lacan, the Imaginary was simply a projection of the ego, or what he termed an ‘Ideal-I’. With the Imaginary is also the introduction of the ‘Mirror Stage’, which for Lacan corresponds to the time in childhood when a child can look in the mirror and perceive themselves as separated from the outside world. With this comes a sense of loss, and the Ideal-I is an attempt to fill this void. This is particularly relevant when it comes to love. Lacan argued that love was inherently narcissistic and that what one wants when one wants to love, is actually to be loved.[57] And this is precisely what we can learn from Iago’s name: his love of the small other within the Imaginary order, corresponding to Othello, he loves only because he loves himself. The Imaginary order aspect of Iago’s psyche is decidedly over-developed, and thus he is trapped in a position of loving Othello, but only because he loves himself.

To conclude, Milton and Shakespeare’s texts and their characters offer many of the same themes and conclusions. There is a pyramidical structure to any approach in examining the relationships between these different avenues. At the base the two authors interact, followed by the texts, and rounded off by the characters. Using a psychoanalytical lens has been especially useful in this regard, in its ability to provoke discussion around the subjects of influence both by authors and characters, as well as unconscious motivation. Such an approach offers the reader a chance to unlock the texts and consider what at the very top of the pyramid we might learn as readers about ourselves. The texts represent a frightening and thrilling insight into our own minds, and into two characters who are all too human.

Bibliography:

Andrew Barnaby, ‘Debt Immense: The Freudian Satan, Yet Once More’, Milton Studies, 60 (2018), pp. 1-22

Augustine, City of God, 11:11, 13, 15 12:1,7

Augustine, On Free Choice of The Will, 3:25.262–63

Harold Bloom, Ruin the Sacred Truths: Poetry and Belief from the Bible to the Present (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1991)) pp.112

Harold Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973) pp.20

Jacques Lacan, The Seminar. Book XI. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, 1964. Trans. by Alan Sheridan (London: Hogarth Press and Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1977) pp.253

Jean-Michel Rabaté, The Cambridge Introduction to literature and psychoanalysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014)

John Milton, Paradise Lost, ed. by Alistair Fowler, 2nd edn (London: Longman, 1998)

King James Bible

Regina Schwartz, Remembering and Repeating: On Milton`s Theology of Creation (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1993)

William Shakespeare, Milton’s annotated copy of Shakespeare [accessed 27th May 2022] pp.310-39

William Shakespeare, Othello ed. by Edward Pechter (New York: W. W. Norton Company, 2004)

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[1] Ella Freeman Sharpe, ‘The Impatience of Hamlet’, in Collected Papers on Psycho-Analysis (London: Hogarth Press, 1950) p.20 henceforth Sharpe.

[2] William Shakespeare, Milton’s annotated copy of Shakespeare [accessed 27th May 2022] pp.310-39.

[3] John Milton, Paradise Lost, ed. by Alistair Fowler, 2nd edn (London: Longman, 1998) IX .538-39 henceforth Paradise Lost.

[4] William Shakespeare, Othello ed. by Edward Pechter (New York: W. W. Norton Company, 2004) III.3.119 Ibid., III.3.218-19 henceforth Othello.

[5] Othello, I.1.154 Othello, I.1.151-53.

[6] Paradise Lost, IX.492-93.

[7] Paradise Lost, IX.704.

[8] Othello, III.3.199.

[9] Paradise Lost, IX.733-34 Othello, III.3.359-60.

[10] Paradise Lost, IX.736-37 Othello, I.3.148-49.

[11] Othello, II.3.344.

[12] Othello, II.1.302-03 Othello, II.1.167-68.

[13] Paradise Lost, X.485-87.

[14] Othello, III.3.331-34.

[15] Paradise Lost, IX.404-08.

[16] Othello, III.4.463-68.

[17] Paradise Lost, II.01-05.

[18] Harold Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973)

(Henceforth: The Anxiety of Influence)

[19]Andrew Barnaby, ‘Debt Immense: The Freudian Satan, Yet Once More’, Milton Studies, 60 (2018), pp.1-22, pp.4 henceforth Barnaby The Anxiety of Influence, pp.20.

[20] Barnaby, pp.4 see Harold Bloom, Ruin the Sacred Truths: Poetry and Belief from the Bible to the Present (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1991)) pp.112

[21] John Milton, Paradise Lost, V. 859-61.

[22] Barnaby, pp.1.

[23] Barnaby, pp.4.

[24] Paradise Lost, V.864-65.

[25] King James Bible, 1 Peter 3.22.

[26] Jean-Michel Rabaté, The Cambridge Introduction to literature and psychoanalysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014) pp.21.

[27] Regina Schwartz, Remembering and Repeating: On Milton`s Theology of Creation (Chicago, 1993), pp.14.

Henceforth Schwartz

[28] Schwartz, pp.14.

[29] Paradise Lost, IV.55-56.

[30] On Free Choice of the Will, 3:25.262–63 City of God, 11:11, 13, 15 12:1,7 Schwartz, pp.22,93,95.

[31] Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, 18.18-19.

[32] Cathy Caurth, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1996)

[33] Barnaby, pp.7 Cathy Caruth, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1996) pp.4.

(Henceforth: Caruth)

[34] Caruth, pp.7.

[35] William Shakespeare, Othello, ed. by Edward Pechter (New York: W. W. Norton Company, 2004) I.1.23-24 Ibid., I.1.10

(Henceforth: Shakespeare)

[36] Sharpe, pp.20 Rabaté, pp.31.

[37] Sharpe, pp.20.

[38] Ibid., pp.20

[39] Paradise Lost, IV.958-61.

[40] Schwartz, pp.14.

[41] Paradise Lost, IV.368-70.

[42] Paradise Lost, II.01-05.

[43] Stanley Edgar Hyman, ‘Iago Psychoanalytically Motivated’, The Centennial Review, 14, 4 (Michigan State University Press, 1970) pp.369-84. Henceforth Hyman

[44] Othello, II.1.110-11.

[45] Othello, IV.2.74 Othello, IV.2.83.

[46] Othello, I.1.85-86 Othello, I.1.112-13 Hyman pp.370.

[47] Othello, III.3.404-5.

[48] Othello, II.1.292-96

[49] Othello, III.3.419-20 Hyman, pp.375-76.

[50] Othello, III.3.421-25.

[51] Hyman, pp.376.

[52] Hyman, pp.376.

[53] Othello, III.3.119.

[54] Hyman, pp.374-75 Othello, III.3.213-14 Othello, III.3.218-19.

[55] Othello, I.3.378-79.

[56] Othello, IV.1.201-2).

[57] Jacques Lacan, The Seminar. Book XI. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, 1964. Trans. by Alan Sheridan (London: Hogarth Press and Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1977) pp.253