Tragic Cognition in Shakespeare’s Othello

Abstract

As the cognitive revolution has begun heavily to influence Shakespeare and early modern studies, related critical methodologies such as psychoanalytic criticism have begun to seem provincial, outworn, or, in some more hostile quarters, simply misdirected. If we are indeed living through a cognitive revolution and “age of the brain,” the time seems appropriate to revisit psychoanalytic criticism, not in order to displace, but rather to supplement, the application of brain science to literary analysis. This book represents the first attempt to bring together cognitive and psychoanalytic criticism, through a startling new analysis of Iago’s character. Iago is a recalcitrant literary figure and neither cognitive nor psychoanalytic theory alone can explain our strange, embarrassed kinship with him, nor the unique ways in which Iago’s very staging of his own catharsis prevents a full purgation of our pity and fear. Through looking at both critical methodologies, Paul Cefalu opens up new insights into the mechanisms of tragic identification and catharsis within Othello.

Shakespeare and cognition: Scientism, theory, and 4E

“…Paul Cefalu's Tragic Cognition in Shakespeare ' s Othello for the Shakespeare NOW series combines theory of mind with psychoanalysis with cognitive science with phenomenology with various strands of philosophy to create a complex web of theoretical and scientific discourse that devotes significant time to rationalizing the interconnections of these approaches. The primary contribution that Cefalu makes, however, is the diagnosis of Iago as a person with autism (, p. 29–49). Although this is an original argument and perspective on the play that offers an alternative to the improvisatory nature of Iago that Greenblatt originally developed (, p. 222–254), there is the lingering concern for what its merit is, given Cefalu's alignment of a stigmatized condition with what is arguably Shakespeare's most opprobrious villain.…”

“…For a study that centers on the manipulation of Othello, there is no consideration of landmark studies on early modern race, such as Kim F. Hall's Things of Darkness () . Cefalu does devote passing attention to race (, p. 80 and 84–86), and there are reasons why we would not want to entertain a connection between race and cognition (i.e., the racist history of phrenology), but a consideration of how one's social environs may affect cognition is still warranted . That being said, Cefalu at least makes an effort to discuss or address the intersection of cognition and race, thereby establishing a break from the typical retreat into considering the brain's functions in isolation of embodiment and identity politics.…”