GOETHE VERSUS SHAKESPEARE
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god's appearance in the context of entertainment seems doubly
questionable.
In Shakespeare, to be sure, there are no deities, and the dramas
are so excellent .as entertainment-and we are sometimes told that
he wrote only to entertain-that we are easily led to assume that no
ritual or religious elements remain. His outstanding interest in hu–
man motivation, moreover, suggests that
all
the action in his tragedies
is meant to be psychologically motivated. And yet this exoteric view
leaves out of account those levels of meaning which raise Shake–
speare's plays above mere entertainment and invite comparison with
Aeschylus, Sophocles and the Bible. For his greatness is certainly not
solely a function of his use of language.
There is, of course, one level of meaning on which
Othello,
for
example, is the tragedy of jealousy, and the play does not lack con–
sistency on this psychological plane. Iago is deeply wounded, having
been passed by when Othello made Cassio his lieutenant, though he
had less seniority and combat experience. Nor is !ago jealous of Cas–
sio alone: he also hates Othello because he suspects that the moor has
seduced his wife, Emilia, and he envies Othello his beautiful Desde–
mona.
If
one analyzes the drama psychologically, it is surely !ago
who has an inferiority complex-not, as Margaret Webster has sug–
gested, Othello. Iago is consumed by
ressentiment
against Othello,
Desdemona and Cassio- using the word
ressentiment
in precisely the
sense in which Nietzsche introduced it into psychology. Nor does this
interpretation conflict with
A.
C. Bradley's when he claims in effect
that Iago is motivated by what Nietzsche called "the will to power."
Undoubtedly, he does enjoy a sense of power in manipulating others,
in creating situations, and in sending those who hurt him to their
doom. But that his will to power manifests itself so vengefully is
surely due to his
ressentiment-especially
against the Moor. He can–
not forgive Othello his "constant, loving, noble nature" which is a
living reproach to him; nor can he forgive him that, in spite of his
black skin, Desdemona prefers him. And the thought that perhaps
his own wife does, too,
Doth like a poisonous mineral gnaw my inwards,·
And nothing can, or shall, content my soul,
Till I am even'd with him, wife for wife;
Or, failing so, yet that I put the Moor
