The Improbability of Othello

“Joel Altman’s brilliant study of Othello takes us deeply into the play by means of theatrical as well as intellectual history, epistemology, traditions of persuasion and ideas of selfhood, protocols of evidence and inference, humanist learning—in sum, the rhetorical anthropology which suffuses Shakespeare’s art. This is dramatic criticism of the highest order, illuminating not simply the play but Shakespearean dramaturgy, acting, even theatergoing itself.”—Thomas O. Sloane, University of California, Berkeley

“In this wide-ranging and powerfully argued book, Joel Altman offers a sweeping account of the relations between probability and truth, word and thing, and self and world, foregrounding Shakespeare’s representation and critique of the rich rhetorical heritage underlying such relations. Using Othello as his base text, but attending to a wide array of other plays, Altman brilliantly weaves together textual details and the complex history of what he calls ‘rhetorical anthropology,’ with its focus on how language situates the self in the world. He traces that history from the sophists and Aristotle through Cicero and Augustine to the humanists of the sixteenth century, showing how it contributed to Shakespeare’s construction of theatrical character and his understanding of the intricacies and vulnerabilities of selfhood—the multiple ‘subject-possibilities’ that the playwright found to be inherent in the self. Altman’s command of the contexts behind all this is unparalleled, and his detailed analysis of both rhetorical theory and theatrical practice is deeply impressive. Altogether, this is a large and serious work, one that will greatly expand our understanding of the foundations of personhood in the early modern period.”—Anthony B. Dawson, University of British Columbia

“Joel Altman’s The Tudor Play of Mind has long been a bible for those who wish to know more about the inquiring mind in Tudor literary texts. Now Altman applies his massive learning and incomparable insight to what he calls ‘the problematics of Shakespearean probability’ in Othello. Probability lies in the eyes of the beholder. Altman shows us brilliantly how Othello and Iago especially ‘do as if for surety’ in the twilight world of probability. Othello is thus a tragedy of probability, or perhaps we should say, in the spirit of Altman’s title, a tragedy of improbability. This is a book to be read with careful attention and with awe.”—David Bevington, author of This Wide and Universal Theater: Shakespeare in Performance Then and Now

“With The Improbability of Othello, Altman himself accomplishes the improbable: he persuades us that Shakespeare crafts his iconic tragedy from the rich and variegated intellectual inheritance that antiquity bequeathed to Renaissance humanism. With Altman’s help, we hear in the contrapuntal voices of Othello and Iago the interplay between competing philosophical schools—sophistry, Platonism, Stoicism, Aristotelianism—and complementary academic disciplines—grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic. A knowing guide, Altman gives us the grand tour, demonstrating at every stop how such a seemingly remote culture has had such startling consequences for the composition of this play.”—Kathy Eden, Columbia University

“Joel Altman’s masterful book links classical and Renaissance rhetorical texts to selfhood, the development of ‘probability,’ the material practices of the theater, and Shakespeare’s Othello. Nobody does criticism like Altman; he has a way of keeping the study of rhetoric fresh and meaningful. He gets at some of the big issues of Shakespeare and Renaissance studies—epistemology, ontology, multicultural characters, the contemporary conditions of the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage—via different avenues and materials than his fellow Shakespeareans have explored. Altman is an original and his book is an essential contribution to the field.”—Peter Platt, Barnard College

“Magisterial. . . . Altman enables us to understand that the structure of feeling in Shakespeare’s plays was made possible by rhetorical and dialectical habits of mind which have ceased to dominate our scientific and technological world, but which nevertheless continue to have a profound effect on the way we think we know about one another.”—Times Literary Supplement