SOURCE: Levitsky, Ruth M. “Prudence versus Wisdom in Othello.” Dalhousie Review 54, no. 2 (summer 1974): 281-88.

In the following essay, Levitsky contrasts Iago's suspicious, Machiavellian, and ultimately jealous personality with Othello's credulity and Desdemona's virtue.

In his Redeeming Shakespeare's Words,¹ Paul Jorgensen has pointed out how an understanding of contemporary connotations of key words can contribute to a fuller appreciation of certain Shakespearean plays. Recognizing Jorgensen's contribution in tracing the significance of the word “honesty” in Othello, I submit that an investigation of the connotations of another key word—namely, “jealousy”—may further elucidate the characters of Iago, Othello, and Desdemona. If the basic definition of jealousy is seen to be a tendency toward suspicion, then the relation between that word and the term “Machiavellian prudence” becomes clear and consequently the contrast between Iago's kind of wisdom and that of Desdemona.

Othello's fundamental error is in allowing the germ of...