Don Quixote and Othello: Failed

¶ … Don Quixote and Othello: Failed Artists

Compare and contrast how the artist is depicted within two or more of the works that we have read so far. You might want to address how and if a concept of "genius" is presented. Consider whether or not the creation of art is a collaborative. What is the source of inspiration for the artist? Is there such a thing as inspiration? What is the purpose of the art; i.e. The advancement of political ends, the creation of beauty, the recording of history, etc.

Both Cervantes' epic satire Don Quixote and Shakespeare's Tragedy of Othello, the Moore of Venice are considered works of towering genius, yet these artistic creations portray the art of romantic, chivalric storytelling in very suspicious lights. Art and storytelling has the power to lead men astray, and the nature of romantic fiction can distort reality for the worse as well as for the better. The purpose of art may be theoretically to elevate beauty, but in the case of Don Quixote and Othello's imagination, art is used for dark purposes to delude the central characters about the true nature of women.

In Othello, the main character is lead astray by the fictitious, jealousy-driven lies and storytelling of Iago. Iago in many ways is a kind of master-playwright of evil, cunningly crafting a story in which Desdemona is falsely unchaste and in love with Michael Cassio, a man whom Othello promoted to the position Iago believed he deserved. Just as under the influence of chivalric fictions Don Quixote sees his ladylove Dulcinea in the face of the peasant Aldonza Lorenzo, Othello under Iago's artistic influence sees a cunning whore in the face of the pure Desdemona. Just as Don Quixote sees a squire in the form of the fat farmer Sancho Panza, Othello sees a rival in the face of the guileless Michael Cassio.

Even Othello and Desdemona's original relationship was built upon romantic storytelling and lies. Neither of them knew one another very well before they married, instead Othello merely told the guileless girl romantic stories. Like Don Quixote, she was enchanted when she heard and:

Still question'd me the story of my life,

From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes,

That I have passed (2.2).

Although, unlike Don Quixote's stories, Othello's fantastic tales are true, Shakespeare hints that Desdemona falls in love with an incomplete picture of Othello. She knows nothing of the true, rough life of soldiering that makes him mistrust femininity at the soonest breath of suspicion conjured up by Iago and a stolen, strawberry-spotted handkerchief. The courtship of the lovers in Othello is not portrayed as a real exchange of minds, but in terms of a kind of 'as if' of ideals:

My story being done,

She gave me for my pains a world of sighs:

She swore, in faith, twas strange, 'twas passing strange, 'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful:

She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'd

That heaven had made her such a man: she thank'd me,

And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her

I should but teach him how to tell my story.

And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake:

She loved me for the dangers I had pass'd,

And I loved her that she did pity them (2.2).

The 'friend' or the imaginary Desdemona, one might say, falls in love with the imaginary, story-teller version of Othello, just as Othello will later grow to hate her and Cassio because of the false dream spun by Iago, where Cassio writhes in his sleep, calling out for Desdemona. Desdemona and Othello's love is a love of impossible dreams, killed by impossible dreams.

Othello is a play where individuals are incapable of communicating as 'real' people -- everyone, one could say, is an artist, but a bad one. Cassio becomes drunk and sings, losing his true morality and true self, and losing himself in Iago's plot. Rather than confronting her husband, Desdemona sings her "Willow Song," of a dead maid to explain her sorrow and confusion over the fact she has lost her husband's love, apparently for no reason. These characters tilt at windmills of their imagination -- whether windmills of adultery like Othello, or windmills of perceived injustice like Iago.

No fiction leads to any positive ends throughout Shakespeare's tragedy. Othello first sees Desdemona as a kind of Dulcinea, an utterly pure and chaste being. Although she is no peasant girl like Quixote's Aldonza, she cannot live up to her husband's projected ideals. So she becomes a kind of whore in Othello's eyes, a prostitute worthy of death, because she is no longer 'perfect.' Their marriage is false, an imitation of a marriage, which seems more perfectly initially and then is shown to be based upon sand and fictions. Much as it is said in Don Quixote, ironically "All that you have to do is to make proper use of imitation in what you write, and the more perfect the imitation the better will your work be." Fictions and imitations, or stereotypes, are more potent than realities. It is very easy to be put under the spell of another person's fiction, if they seem to believe that fiction with enough fervor -- even the practical Sancho Panza finds himself going along with Don Quixote, against his better judgment, even when the Don's actions result in more harm than good for the people whom he is trying to save.

Not everyone is taken in by fictions in these tales in Don Quixote, there is also a plot by the old knight's niece to relieve the old knight of his illusions, just as Emilia strives to convince Othello of her mistress' chastity -- and is just as completely rebuffed as Quixote's niece, only Emilia dies for her efforts. Once these false artists, Othello and Don Quixote, storytellers to themselves, believe in illusions, nothing can dissuade them. And worse, many believe their illusions and take them for reality.