Warfare and evil in Shakespeare's Othello and Jonson's Masque of Queens

Theme of Warfare vs. Evil in Jonson’s Masque of Queens and Shakespeare’s Othello Elizabethan plays designed with rich social and political commentary. Some, like William Shakespeare’s Othello and Ben Jonson’s Masque of Queens, depict the dichotomy between war as a noble endeavor on the one hand, and warfare as a potential source or expression of evil on the other. In both Othello and Masque of Queens, warfare is also cleverly juxtaposed with intimate relationship, romance, and gender norms. Yet these two literary works use totally different tropes, methods, and motifs in order to expose the complex connections between warfare and evil. Jonson uses the symbolic potency of witches—quintessentially female supernatural figures—in order to comment on the possible political pitfalls of English queens. Queens are the diametrical opposite of witches, and yet the witches also represent their shadow selves. Witches represent chaos, and queens signify order: the battle between the two is the warfare within each woman’s soul. In Othello, Shakespeare exposes the inconspicuous weaknesses of the title character not through supernatural forces, but through the mundane but malicious machinations of the primary antagonist, Iago. As in Masque of Queens, however, Othello also shows how the evils of warfare lie not on the battlefield but within the human spirit.
Othello starts off as the embodiment of masculinity, honor, and dignity. A high-ranking military officer, Othello commands respect. Even though Iago’s primary motive is to destroy Othello and undermine the war hero’s power, it is certain that Iago also fears and respects his rival—otherwise he would not devote his entire being to manufacture Othello’s downfall. While Othello had been a mastermind in battle, he proves far less capable of reading his fellow human beings. Othello fails to detect Iago’s schemes and more importantly, fails to trust Desdemonda. Marriage and warfare are entwined in Othello. Neither marriage nor warfare can be considered outright evils. Yet the evil within the hearts and souls of men and women are shown to affect the quality and outcome of either institution: war or marriage. Othello is a brilliant and honorable fighter; his nature on the battlefield can therefore be considered good and upright. In the marriage bed, too, and in his relationships with his fellow men outside of the warfare context, Othello lacks what would be considered an evil nature but he does exhibit several of the evils that are personified in Jonson’s witches in Masque of Queens.
Iago is the embodiment of pure evil, and his character’s brand of evil finds its counterpart in almost all of Jonson’s witches: such as Malice, Murmur, Falsehood, Bitterness, Rage, Slander, and Mischief. Othello, on the other hand, has as his most evil qualities Ignorance, Credulity and Suspicion. Shakespeare may never have intended to draw parallels between the Moor and Jonson’s witches; and yet both Shakespeare and Jonson demonstrate that there is no such thing as an unequivocally good or evil nature. Even the seemingly innocent characters in Othello, like Desdemonda, for example, cannot be considered perfect in any way. The witches remind audiences to recognize personal vices, within those who might otherwise seem like saints. In Iago, though, it is almost impossible to locate any one of the virtues held by Jonson’s queens. Iago is more akin to a witch than any other character in Othello. Iago, like Jonson’s witches, “signify chaos itself, threatening to undermine the ‘order of the universe,’” (Smialkowska 268). The witches in Masque of Queens disrupt courtly festivities well, just as Iago successfully sabotages the success of Othello.
Both Shakespeare and Jonson use the symbolism of warfare and evil as warnings to their audiences. The warnings pertain to the potential for evil thoughts and feelings like jealousy or vengeance to come directly in the way of achieving genuine happiness or fulfillment. Also, the warnings offered through Shakespeare and Jonson reveal the potential for political power to become disrupted by those self-same evils in human nature. By succumbing to character faults, and being seduced by evil, otherwise good individuals become torn apart and turn into tragic figures. Queens must fight against the witches, and they often fail. Othello also fails to see the truth about Desdemonda or Iago before it is too late. The ensuing tragedies give rise to a new layer or type of warfare: the warfare within the human psyche. Similarly, Shakespeare and Jonson depict the battles between individuals as being even more senseless, destructive, and linked to pure evil than the fights that take place on the battleground. Jonson in fact directly distinguishes between the nobility of a genuine war or battle, and the evils of a manipulative person such as Iago. For example, Jonson mentions the Persian ruler Cyrus as having had invaded Thomyris, the Queen of the Scythians, “rather by Treachery than War,” (7). Iago’s character is best described as Treachery.
Othello understands the nobility of war, and banks his entire identity and his classic masculinity on his warrior nature. Even his prowess, bravery, and fairness in war cannot prepare him for the bigger battles in the bedroom and between his war buddies. Jonson also describes war as a “masculine habit” in Masque of Queens (352). Also a masculine habit exhibited by Othello is jealousy; likewise with suspicion, ignorance, and gullibility. Even Iago knows that Othello’s trusting nature will become his greatest weakness, his Achilles’ heel: “The Moor is of a free and open nature / That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,” (Shakespeare I, iii, 442-443). When Iago comes to this realization about Othello’s character, he becomes determined to use the Moor’s credulity against him by planting the seeds of suspicion against Desdemonda. Like Cyrus, Iago works “rather by Treachery than War,” for Iago himself lacks the genuine sort of bravery and courage required of a truly noble soldier like Othello. Unfortunately, bravery and nobility are insufficient traits to ensure the Moor’s success in his battle with his nemesis Iago. Othello succumbs in this secondary battle, paradoxically the loser.
Shakespeare sets Othello purposefully against the backdrop of the battle for Cyprus fought by the Turks. The background warfare adds tension to the play and showcases the potential evils of war. War can be a just cause, or it can be fought unjustly or for an ignoble cause. Likewise, leaders—queens and military leaders alike—can rule justly and with the trust of good counsel or be fooled into taking unnecessary political action. Both Shakespeare and Jonson connect witchcraft and evil openly, too. Iago’s friend Brabantio is Desdemonda’s father. Brabantio also happens to be a politician who believes that Othello resorted to witchcraft to seduce Desdemonda. Jonson takes the concept a step further by claiming “all evils are, Morally, said to come from Hell,” (345). Evil assumes multiple forms in Othello; one is through the motif of racism and especially when Brabantio considers the Moor as “evil,” and suspects him of witchcraft for to him, there would be no logical reason why his daughter would fall in love with Othello (I, i, 176). Evil is at its ripest through the character of Iago, though, as he manufactures a sort of war or battle as a manipulative maneuver, as in Act II when Iago lures Cassio and Roderigo in a fight, resulting in his foe being demoted. Then Iago plants seeds in Othello’s head that Desdemonda does not love him and is unfaithful to him.
Through their respective works, Shakespeare and Jonson question the value of war as a sign of masculinity. Othello cannot fight his way out of his relationship with Desdemonda; the power structure is different within the context of the marriage relationship. The Moor might be a star in battle, but he is not deft at reading other people. He succumbs to real evils like jealousy and suspicion, which are also discussed as evil characteristics in Masque of Queens. Masque of Queens covers at least twelve witches, each of which represents a specific human vice, like Ignorance or Creduilty. The queens, on the other hand, embody ideal traits. Jonson also offers other personified virtues like Heroic Virtue, a feature Othello also happens to exhibit. Similarly, the daughter of Heroic Virtue is Good Fame. It is precisely Othello’s Good Fame that instigates Iago to become so jealous as to undermine him. Iago’s treachery also becomes a clear sign of the ensign’s lack of genuine gumption. He resorts to what could be considered feminine means of warfare, which causes Iago’s masculinity to be called into question. Unlike Othello, Iago could not prove his manly nature in the act of warfare.
Both Jonson and Shakespeare show that war is not necessarily an evil act or a manifestation of evil, in spite of its causing death. Both authors also suggest that peace is often a desirable condition, both in human societies and in intimate human relationships. Holbrook points out, Jonson refers to Pallas’s chariot in the opening scene, and tht her shields “are reactivated as engines of peace, pre-empting the traditional attack that peace is dishonorable and soft,” (87). The noble, honorable emblems of warfare like Athena or Pallas are sharply contrasted with the dishonorable nature of men like Iago. Athena is armed, but she is also an “enemy of strife and harbinger of peace,” (Hollbrook 87). Throughout Jonson’s Masque of Queens, witches and queens are depicted as being “antithetical,” to one another, or as “antipodenas,” they are as if enemies or opponents in war (Smialkowska 268). Seen this way, each human being becomes a potential battleground between good and evil, waiting to erupt via the unexpected stressors of life.
Similarly, both Shakespeare and Jonson undermine the traditional view that masculinity is inextricably tied up in warfare. If Othello had been victorious over Iago, resisting the urge to suspect Desdemonda of infidelity, then Shakespeare would have painted the picture of the idealized man who is both a victor on the battlefield and also victorious politically. Because Othello succumbs to the evils of Suspicion, Ignorance, and Creduilty, he is shown as being an ineffective hero. Just because he was a star soldier does not make him a winning man. Just as Shakespeare contrasts the nobility of a real war hero with the stupidity of human failings, “Jonson subverts the ‘war is honor’ ideology by providing a psychopathology of the war-drive, reducing it to ‘malice,’ ‘spite,’ ‘hate,’ fear,” and “folly,” (Hollbrook 87). Interestingly, Othello himself comes to see the potential psychopathology of warfare. At one point he refers to the “barbarous brawl” between the Christians and the Ottomans (Shakespeare II, iii, 184). In that same passage, Othello displays the evil of Ignorance when he refers to “Honest Iago,” (II, iii, 189). Othello also seems ignorant of his own jealous tendencies, as when he later tells Iago, “Think’st thou I’d make a life of jealousy, / To follow still the changes of the moon / With fresh suspicions?” (Shakespeare III, iii, 207-210). Iago’s ridiculously manufactured wars between Othello, Roderigo, and Cassio result in multiple deaths, including those of the innocent. This is not warfare at its most noble and just, but simply human nature at its most wanton.
Marriage becomes an ironic battleground in Othello, especially when Othello comes to accuse Desdemonda of adultery and even calls her the Devil (IV, 1, 275). For Jonson and the virtues embodied by the good queens, marriage is unequivocally good, linked to the virtues of Loyalty and Love (352). At the same time, women and wives are supposed to live up to strident gender norms dictating the limits of their sexuality. Even though Desdemonda is in fact faithful, she would have been held to much higher standards than her husband given the Elizabethan moral climate in which a woman becomes “renowned for her Chastity, and love to her Husband,” (Jonson 352). Also indicative of a double standard for men and woman is the relationship between gender and war. War is described as a uniquely “masculine habit,” and when a woman participates in war, she is considered less virtuous than the typically demure and chaste of her kind (Jonson 352). The parameters and standards for good and evil in Shakespeare and Jonson depend on contextual variables like gender, but also like ethnicity. As much as Brabantio and other Venetians prejudice Othello because of his ethnic background, the narrator of Masque of Queens is sure to treat the Persian rules especially harshly. Double standards for sexuality and warfare become evident in both Masque of Queens and Othello.
While war and evil have come to connote similar sources of pain and suffering, when Othello and Masque of Queens were written, war was still considered a noble and essential act. War was not necessarily or inherently evil, but in fact was part and parcel of masculine identity. Masculine prowess and power coincided with the heroism of a warrior. Both Jonson’s Masque of Queens and Shakespeare’s Othello distinguish political from military power. Othello is a military, but not a political hero. The queens in Jonson’s text are quite the reverse, although the narrative does mention several examples of legendary female warriors like Pallas Athena. Both Jonson and Shakespeare spend a considerable amount of time differentiating between those wars which are just and necessary, and those battles that seem senseless, brutal, and fought dishonorably. Likewise, both Elizabethan authors demonstrate the multiple ways battles and wars are fought in daily life. The wars of daily life are fought with treachery and manipulation, as Iago does, even when physical weapons do become involved and result in death and destruction. The downfall of Othello is linked to both the machinations of evil Iago, as well as to Othello’s own inability to apply sound social intelligence to life’s mundane battlegrounds. Witches, evil, and warfare comingle in politically meaningful ways in Jonson’s Masque of Queens and in Shakespeare’s Othello.

Bibliography Holbrook, Peter. “Jacobean Masques and the Jacobean Peace.” Chapter 4 in Bevington, D. & Holbrook, P. (Eds.) The Politics of the Stuart Court Masque. Cambridge University Press, 1998. Jonson, Ben. 1609. The Masque of Queens. Retrieved from: https://www.hollowaypages.com/jonson1692fame.htm Shakespeare, William. Othello. Retrieved from: https://www.folgerdigitaltexts.org/html/Oth.html Smialkowska, Monika. "Out of the authority of ancient and late writers": Ben Jonson's Use of Textual Sources in "The Masque of Queens" English Literary Renaissance, Vol. 32, No. 2, Studies in Drama and Culture (SPRING 2002), pp. 268-286