ABSTRACT
One notable aspect of the tension Shakespeare is exploiting is the lover's sense of himself as a parvenu. For ennoblement through love is a new richness. Hence, in breaking the proprieties of love into their components, in dramatically carving this idea at the joints, we should encounter also in Othello as lover the theme of the newly rich, the marriage above one's station. First, as regards the rationality of the intrigue, the dramatis personae should be analyzed with reference to what we have elsewhere called the agent-act ratio. That is, the over-all action requires contributions by the characters whose various individual acts must suit their particular natures. And these acts must mesh with one another, in a dialectic of cooperative competition. So, in filling out the analysis of the dramatis personae, we should look for the acts, attitudes, ideas, and images that typify each of the characters.
