"A Short View of Tragedy: It's original, excellency, and corruption"

"A Short View of Tragedy: It's original, excellency, and corruption"

A critique of Shakespeare's "Othello"

“A Short View of Tragedy: It’s Original, Excellency, and Corruption” by Thomas Rymer is a short book that focuses on the praises, but more than that the criticisms, of Shakespeare’s “Othello”. Published in 1692 – 88 years after Shakespeare’s famous play was published – Rymer discusses the many pitfalls of the by then well-known piece of literature, comparing it to a fable out of a novel complete with a moral that educates the audience, rather than an entertaining play for audiences to enjoy. This argument is an excellent example of a debate that has followed the moor ever since he was first published: whether or not this play and depiction is worthwhile, accurate, and influential. Rymer, like many others, definitely seems to argue against Othello’s pervasive nature, constructing his book around the fallacies in the story. One of the possible reasons for this incredible dispute is the very mystical and magical nature Shakespeare ingrains so deeply into the Moor of Venice. At a time when exploration and discovery was the norm, these ideas were accompanied by a simultaneous fascination with what was considered the “other” and an intense fear and dislike for anything foreign or strange. This also explain Rymer’s condemnation of “Othello” as merely a fable, as these tales often included magical elements to help reinforce the underlying moral. No matter how you look at it, Rymer’s book is an excellent example of the many questions that dogged “Othello” ever since it was published, the least of these being the very mystical elements that so excellently grounded the reader in the moor’s world.

Rymer, Thomas

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Richard Baldwin

1693

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With permission from the Rose Library

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book

English

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PN1891 .R8 1693

Published in the decades following Othello's popularity