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Iago (/ i ˈ ɑː ɡ oʊ /) is a fictional character in Shakespeare's Othello (c. 1601–1604). Iago is the play's main antagonist, and Othello's standard-bearer.He is the husband of Emilia who is in turn the attendant of Othello's wife Desdemona.
The overall effect was to create, in Douglas Brode's words "the tragedy of Iago"—a performance in which Iago's dominance is such that Othello is a foil to him, not the other way around. [269] The film was described as a "fair stab at turning the Bard into a decent night at the multiplex" [ 270 ] but failed to achieve success at the box office.
Othello, a General in the Venetian army, promotes a young officer, Michael Cassio, enraging Iago—the General's ensign—who expected the post himself. Outwardly loyal to Othello and his recently married wife, Desdemona, Iago proceeds to cause dissension within Othello's camp (for instance, tuning Othello's new father-in-law against him, and causing Cassio to fight another officer).
Three years earlier, in the review "Mr. Kean's Iago" in The Examiner (7 August 1814), Hazlitt had ventured to speculate that Iago's suggestions of lasciviousness in Desdemona may have had some basis in truth, as "purity and grossness sometimes 'nearly are allied,/And thin partitions do their bounds divide. ' " [155] Although he omitted this ...
At Iago's urging, Cassio produces it, whereupon Iago seizes it—for it is Desdemona's—and holds it out where he knows Otello can see it. He then returns it to Cassio and teases him, while in his hiding place Otello fumes (Iago, Cassio, Otello: Questa è una ragna dove il tuo cuor casca / "This is a spiderweb in which your heart is caught").
Othello makes Iago his Lieutenant in Act III, scene iii, line 478 ("Now art thou my Lieutenant.") Iago continues his plan to bring Othello down, so clearly the promotion is not the primary reason for his hatred. Furthermore, Iago says in soliloquy, "I hate the Moor, / And it is thought abroad that 'twixt my sheets / He has done my office."
The literary character of Othello and the plot of the play by Shakespeare has been a recurrent theme in painting for several centuries. Selected examples include The Plot depicting Othello and Iago, which was painted in oil by Solomon Alexander Hart in 1855. He also painted a watercolour version, held at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.
Otello is a 1986 film based on the Giuseppe Verdi opera of the same name, which was itself based on the Shakespearean play Othello.The film was directed by Franco Zeffirelli and starred Plácido Domingo in the title role, Katia Ricciarelli as Desdemona and Justino Díaz as Iago.