The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 23.0201  Thursday, 24 May 2012

[1] From:        Larry Weiss < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

     Date:         May 23, 2012 4:23:42 PM EDTc 

     Subject:     Re: SHAKSPER: Hebrew

[2] From:        Joseph Egert < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

     Date:         May 23, 2012 4:45:36 PM EDT

     Subject:     Re: Hebrew Verbs

[3] From:        S. L. Kasten < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

     Date:         May 24, 2012 7:20:19 AM EDT

     Subject:     Re: SHAKSPER: Hebrew Verbs--I am and God 

[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------

From:        Larry Weiss < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

Date:         May 23, 2012 4:23:42 PM EDT

Subject:     Re: SHAKSPER: Hebrew

>I’m sorry, Larry, but the reverse of a well-known biblical positive has 

>a great deal of importance. In Iago’s case, it identifies him with Satan 

>and privative evil.  In Viola’s case, it identifies her, however playfully, 

>with the traditional prejudice against theatrical performance as a 

>manifestation of that same evil in order to subvert the equation. 

Actually, I was not taking a position as to whether there is a connection  between Iago’s and Viola’s statements and the passage in Exodus. I was just trying to refocus on the mission of this List.

The suggestions of some members that Iago’s declaration is intended to equate himself to Satan, as possibly confirmed by Othello’s looking at his feet (but even Othello acknowledges “that’s a fable”), is intriguing.  But wouldn’t the parallel be “I am what I am not,” rather than “I am not what I am”?  It is a greater stretch to find a connection between Viola’s statement and the biblical passage, as these responses show.

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From:        Joseph Egert < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

Date:         May 23, 2012 4:45:36 PM EDT

Subject:     Re: Hebrew Verbs

Hannibal Hamlin supposes

>one could argue that Iago’s statement is also just a confession of 

>dissembling, but I have Coleridge’s remark in mind about his “motiveless 

>malignity” which seems right—and there are the satanic allusions.

Indeed, these allusions are so striking and so carefully wrought as to cast doubt whether Iago’s ‘malignity’ was truly ‘motiveless’:

http://shaksper.net/archive/2009/274-april/26913-playing-iago

Joe Egert 

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From:        S. L. Kasten < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

Date:         May 24, 2012 7:20:19 AM EDT

Subject:     Re: SHAKSPER: Hebrew Verbs--I am and God

Larry Weiss asked:

>To bring this back to Shakespeare, does anyone think this “I am” stuff 

>has anything to do with Iago or Viola, both of whom declare that “I am 

>not what I am”?

As usual a seemingly throwaway remark by Larry opens interesting avenues: Whom Iago would destroy he first makes mad. 

The Viola connection seems deeper but given enough time and fluency in the narrative, literary and religious, one might succeed in reading the metaphor suggested by this borrowed, albeit inverted, phraseology.

All the best,

Syd Kasten