Othello

In Othello, Shakespeare unflinchingly contrasts the malicious villain Iago with the honest and principled hero of the play’s title, and in the process delivers some of the most electrifying and exquisite language in the canon. Othello’s consuming passion for his wife Desdemona descends into paranoia as Iago uses language as a weapon for intimate destruction, sowing the insidious seeds for the tragic hero’s fall.