Here there is something of the same deadly
coldness, the same gaiety in destruction. But then Mephistopheles, like
so many scores of literary villains, has Iago for his father. And
Mephistopheles, besides, is not, in the strict sense, a character. He is
half person, half symbol. A metaphysical idea speaks through him. He is
earthy, but could never live upon the earth.
Of Shakespeare's characters Falstaff, Hamlet, Iago, and Cleopatra (I
name them in the order of their births) are probably the most wonderful.
Of these, again, Hamlet and Iago, whose births come nearest together,
are perhaps the most subtle. And if Iago had been a person as attractive
as Hamlet, as many thousands of pages might have been written about him,
containing as much criticism good and bad. As it is, the majority of
interpretations of his character are inadequate not only to
Shakespeare's conception, but, I believe, to the impressions of most
readers of taste who are unbewildered by analysis. These false
interpretations, if we set aside the usual lunacies,[107] fall into two
groups. The first contains views which reduce Shakespeare to
commonplace. In different ways and degrees they convert his Iago into
an ordinary villain. Their Iago is simply a man who has been slighted
and revenges himself; or a husband who believes he has been wronged, and
will make his enemy suffer a jealousy worse than his own; or an
ambitious man determined to ruin his successful rival--one of these, or
a combination of these, endowed with unusual ability and cruelty.
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