Alexander Leggatt

Love and Faith in Othello and Otello

Boitos libretto for Verdis Otello is not just an adaptation of Shakespeares Othello but a radical transformation, particularly in its treatment of love and religion. In the opera, religious language is used to exalt love. In the play the link is ironic, as Othellos jealousy becomes a perverted religion. Boito gives Otello and Desdemona a closer, more harmonious relationship than Shakespeare does, turning Othellos public speech about the birth of their love into a private duet for the lovers. While Shakespeares religious references are mostly scattered and ad hoc, Boito creates a formal public celebration of Desdemona using Catholic imagery. Elsewhere Catholic forms are turned to personal ends, in Iagos parody of the Credo and Desdemonas transformation of the Ave Maria. In general the opera is more personal and intimate than the play.

Dickens and the Angels

Do be an angel and fetch my spectacles/slippers/newspaper ... This is a characteristic use of angel in modern demotic English. It trails wisps of meaning from the theological past of the term: the work of an angel seems a work of supererogation (Fido isnt an angel if he brings the newspaper in his mouth, nor is the newsboy who delivers the paper), a free manifestation of goodness, not constrained or dutiful, and what is thus free is celestial, not earthly, or, if earthly, reminds us of the celestial. She (it is commonly she, though the nineteenth-century angel is often represented as epicene) may be A Creature not too bright or good / For human natures daily food and A Traveller betwixt life and death. And yet she is a Spirit still, and bright / With something of angelic light. We are also reminded by our locution of what is traditionally one of the functions of the angels: they are messengers, fetchers and carriers of the heavenly courts.