But in point of substance, and, in certain respects, in point of style, the unlikeness of Othello to Hamlet is much greater than the likeness, and the later play belongs decidedly to one group with its successors.  We have seen that, like them, it is a tragedy of passion, a description inapplicable to Julius Caesar or Hamlet.  And with this change goes another, an enlargement in the stature of the hero.  There is in most of the later heroes something colossal, something which reminds us of Michael Angelo’s figures.  They are not merely exceptional men, they are huge men; as it were, survivors of the heroic age living in a later and smaller world.  We do not receive this impression from Romeo or Brutus or Hamlet, nor did it lie in Shakespeare’s design to allow more than touches of this trait to Julius Caesar himself; but it is strongly marked in Lear and Coriolanus, and quite distinct in Macbeth and even in Antony.  Othello is the first of these men, a being essentially large and grand, towering above his fellows, holding a volume of force which in repose ensures preeminence without an effort, and in commotion reminds us rather of the fury of the elements than of the tumult of common human passion.

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What is the peculiarity of Othello?  What is the distinctive impression that it leaves?  Of all Shakespeare’s tragedies, I would answer, not even excepting King Lear, Othello is the most painfully exciting and the most terrible.  From the moment when the temptation of the hero begins, the reader’s heart and mind are held in a vice, experiencing the extremes of pity and fear, sympathy and repulsion, sickening hope and dreadful expectation.  Evil is displayed before him, not indeed with the profusion found in King Lear, but forming, as it were, the soul of a single character, and united with an intellectual superiority so great that he watches its advance fascinated and appalled.  He sees it, in itself almost irresistible, aided at every step by fortunate accidents and the innocent mistakes of its victims.  He seems to breathe an atmosphere as fateful as that of King Lear, but more confined and oppressive, the darkness not of night but of a close-shut murderous room.  His imagination is excited to intense activity, but it is the activity of concentration rather than dilation.

I will not dwell now on aspects of the play which modify this impression, and I reserve for later discussion one of its principal sources, the character of Iago.  But if we glance at some of its other sources, we shall find at the same time certain distinguishing characteristics of Othello.