ABSTRACT
The fact that King Lear was written so soon after Othello is a reminder of how misleading the phrase “Shakespearean Tragedy” can be. Each play is “a new beginning,” a fresh “raid on the inarticulate,” for although there is development there is no repetition. Even from the narrowly technical point of view there are marked differences of manner and approach between the tragedies, corresponding to equally marked differences of intention. Thus Othello , although a poetic drama, of which the success is determined by specifically poetic effects of language and symbolism, comes closer than any of the other tragedies to what is commonly understood by “revelation of character,” and its focus is on individual and, people might say, the domestic qualities. The storm scenes, and the scenes immediately following, represent a two-fold process of discovery—of the “nature” without and within.
