techniques of persuasion in julius caesar and othello

TECHNIQUES OF PERSUASION IN

JULIUS CAESAR AND OTHELLO

Abst rac t

The article is an analysis of the rhetorical techniques of persuasion in Antony’s speechto the Roman mob, and Iago’s persuasion of Othello in the temptation scene. The analysisis based on the Gricean maxims of the Co-operative Principle, and the Politeness Principlein normal conversation. These models are all quite accessible to literary readers ofShakespeare’s text. This is an attempt to find a middle ground between close textualanalysis of a philological kind and the broader polemical vistas of cultural materialism.The writer believes that English studies is fundamentally concerned with the close studyof literary texts.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

I

In passages of dialogue where one character is persuading another inShakespeare’s plays, we find that dramatic irony is a major device. Theaudience knows the motives of the persuader, and can follow the processof persuasion step by step. The dominant speaker, who is the persuader,exploits the maxims of good conversational practice in a calculated,ambivalent way to advance his argument.1 The argument is based onan emotional appeal to the subordinate speaker, who is not fully awareof the strategy adopted. In this context, the dominant speaker disguiseshis control and direction of the interaction; he appears to have no overtsuperiority of status or position in relation to the subordinate speaker.Often he appears to be in a subordinate position himself. Antony speaksat Caesar’s funeral by leave of Brutus and the rest of the assassins;Iago is Othello’s ensign, the lowest rank of commissioned officer of foot,and Othello speaks to him as to a subordinate, using ‘thou’, while Iagouses ‘you’, the polite form to a superior. But the control of topic andinformation by these apparently subordinate speakers makes themdominant, and their hearers are made to adopt a dependent relation almostwithout being aware of it. This is a covert asymmetrical interaction,unlike the overt asymmetry of kings dominating their courts. Forexample, Mark Antony, in his speech at Caesar’s funeral, exploits theresidual loyalty of the Roman mob to Caesar, but he allows this emo-tional appeal to emerge gradually in what he says. Iago knows Othello’sbelief in his own integrity, and the passionate nature of this noble bar-barian, who can be easily roused to jealousy. He plays on this side ofOthello’s character in his suggestion that Cassio has been too familiarwith his wife.

Neophilologus

81: 309–323, 1997. 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

The process by which both speakers achieve their purposes can bestbe shown by an analysis of the strategy they adopt. This can be definedby the Politeness and Co-operative Principles.2 Both dominant speakersexploit the Politeness Principle with great elegance and flair. They showrespect and concern for their hearers, and strive to maximise politebeliefs, as the Politeness Principle requires they should. But they delib-erately fail to achieve what they appear to aim for. The various pragmaticscales in the Politeness Principle become devices of persuasion becauseof this apparently genuine but calculated failure.3 Speakers who set outto persuade, motivate their utterance with a concealed purpose and inten-tion. There is a deliberate lack of explicitness in their remarks, whichexploits the indirectness scale of the Politeness Principle. This makes thehearer work hard at the inference behind what they say, for he cannotgrasp their meaning immediately. They emphasise their intention tobenefit the hearer, and place all the cost of their remarks (the moral orpolitical cost) on themselves. They allow the hearer a great deal of option-ality in his interpretation, at first, to draw from him the co-operation theyneed to persuade him of truths which may be unpalatable if presenteddirectly. They do not press their case with any urgency or aggression.This use of optionality carries with it an important advantage: it againmakes the hearer work out for himself what is implied by what is said.It conveys the impression that the hearer has actually worked out thespeaker’s meaning for himself, and so makes that meaning carry moreconviction with the hearer. The persuader is exploiting the natural co-operativeness of the hearer in normal conversation. Further, there is animplicit appeal behind all these local tactics to the central maxims ofthe Politeness Principle: maximise polite beliefs, minimise impolitebeliefs. The problem the hearer is confronted with is easily defined:why is the speaker apparently inhibited by these maxims, and unableto say directly and openly what he means? The implication follows atonce that the speaker is striving with some conflict of knowledge inhis own mind: that he is trying to reconcile his knowledge of the truth(which is what he wants the hearer to come to believe, and is probablya lie, although the hearer won’t know this) with his respect and concernfor the hearer. The speaker wishes to avoid a face threatening act, andhe suffers an inhibition which embarrasses him, because he knowssomething that will embarrass the hearer if he gets to know of it. Asin all conversations, the inference is catching and the hearer is soonbusy tracking down what the speaker is getting at. This problem solvingresponse is exactly what the speaker wanted.

We can see how the speaker reinforces the Politeness Principle whenwe turn to the Co-operative Principle and its maxims.4 In persuasion,the Co-operative Principle is exploited to focus the Politeness Principle;in normal usage, the Politeness Principle is used to repair the Co-oper-

310 Anthony Gilbert

ative Principle and its apparent failure in context.5 Here we see even moreclearly how the persuader constructs a problematic discourse thatprovokes active responses from the hearer. Under the maxim of quality,the speaker shows an apparent concern with the truth of his assertions.At first sight, the hearer thinks this may be the reason why the speakerseems inhibited in his utterance: he may know something, but not be sureof his grounds for making it absolutely clear. This shows regard for thehearer and a concern for his welfare. It conveys the ‘sincerity’ of thespeaker, who is in fact quite insincere and deliberate in his tactics.(Mark Antony is quite willing to order political assassination when hethinks it’s necessary, as we see in act four, scene one.) Under the maximof quantity, the speaker is far less informative than is required. ThePoliteness Principle inhibits his explicitness, or so it appears: this inturn implies that he knows something rather discreditable or unaccept-able to the hearer. In trying to maximise polite beliefs, he focuses,paradoxically, on what has not been said, on what is implied. The hearerquickly gets on to the fact that the evasion he encounters, or the lackof explicitness, is a glaring revelation of a concealed truth. This lackof adequate information about what the speaker means, or what he says,is reinforced by the maxim of manner, which is deliberately obscure inpersuading. But it is obscurity for a particular purpose. There is ambi-guity which allows room for alternative interpretations of what is saidto emerge. This disrupts and delays, as well as focusing, the hearer’suptake. The speaker trips up the smooth process of communication bya deliberate complexity of utterance.

Sometimes, as in the case of Antony, the persuader talks at exces-sive length, and breaches the maxim of quantity, carrying the listenerswith him step by step towards the ulterior purpose. At the opposite endof the scale, Iago is a master of brevity, and exploits an avoidance ofprolixity to devastating effect. His remarks are pithy, intractable, andprovocative. The child in Othello cannot ignore the fear such remarkscreate; he is too anxious, uncertain, and lost to deal in an adult, problem-solving way with Iago’s suggestions. He is lapsing into a psychoticdelusion which shuts out all reality. Lastly, under the maxim of manner,the persuader is in addition, often disorderly in his handling of topics,as the hearer first encounters them. Gradually, a pattern emerges, andthe hearer puts together the bits and pieces that have been so cunninglylaid out to snare the unwary. The hearer makes the connections himself,and the meaning springs upon him like a wild beast. So that’s what youmean, he says to himself, and because he has worked it out, he is alreadyhalf way to believing it. We are always inclined to believe what wehave found out for ourselves. If someone tells us something directly, itis much more likely that we may stand back, as adults do, and examinethe assertion on its own terms. But a ‘truth’ we have stumbled on our-

“Julius Caesar” and “Othello” 311

selves, especially when it seemed to resist identification, has a terriblypersuasive power of its own. We construct for ourselves the concealedrelevance of the persuader’s utterance. We think we’ve worked it out,and our natural vanity deceives us, for every man believes there is someunique quality in himself which sets him above other men. We rarelyquestion our own judgment, although we may readily admit we are poorat mathematics, or have no knowledge of physics.

II

With these general remarks in mind, we can turn to Mark Antony’s speechto the Roman mob at Caesar’s funeral:6

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.The evil that men do lives after them;The good is oft interred with their bones;So let it be with Caesar.

JC III. ii. 73–77

The manner of this opening utterance is obscure, although it appears tobe unequivocal in sense. Antony places together, throughout the speech,incompatible statements whose implications have a deliberate rhetor-ical effect. ‘I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him’ appears to mean,in its position in the utterance, ‘I am here to pronounce the funeraladdress, that is all; I have no intention to glorify Caesar or pretend thathe was any better than he was.’ This gives him the attention of themob, who are a dangerous and fickle audience. They don’t expect tobe told directly that Antony disagrees with Brutus, and that he regardsthe death of Caesar as a tragic disaster for Rome. This would be toosudden and too difficult to accept against the arguments of Brutus, whohas just spoken. Some may have been persuaded by Brutus that the killingwas justified; Antony cannot know for sure. So Antony appears to speakin conformity with Brutus.

However, his technique here is to obscure the connection betweenthese short simple assertions, and so develop alternative meanings forthem. What is the evil that survives a man’s death: is it merely the evilactions he has done, or the memory of them, as Brutus appears to havesuggested, or is Antony referring, in an oblique way, to the assassinsthemselves, close associates of Caesar, who rose to power and influ-ence through his support? (‘The evil that men do lives after them’ seemsto imply an animate subject. This is an exploitation of the maxim ofmanner in its ambiguity.) The latter meaning emerges in the course ofthis speech, and the ambiguity of ‘The evil that men do’ reverberates

312 Anthony Gilbert

through it. The assassins survive Caesar; the good actions of Caesarare forgotten and buried with him. Is this a covert criticism of Brutus andthe assassins? Brutus has sung the praises of Caesar, but sent him tohis death. ‘I come to bury Caesar’ takes on another meaning in thesequence: beside the remark, ‘The good is oft interred with their bones’,we may see an implication that Antony comes to speak of Caesar’s virtuesand to celebrate his memory, at his funeral. Is the topic raised in a dis-orderly way to exploit the maxim of manner once again? What appearedto be a simple assertion accumulates another sense in the sequence, bya selective interpretation of the text. Antony may not come to praiseCaesar explicitly, but he will speak by indirection of what he knows,and so plant firmly in the minds of his hearers the good Caesar hasdone.

Antony can only speak in short sentences because the mob are not ableto sustain extended attention, and each remark must seem clear and direct.Yet the indirection of this opening sequence is its most remarkablequality. Antony unpicks his meaning as he goes along, transforminghis utterance into something ambiguous, inexplicit, and resistant to easyinterpretation. The mob may not fully understand all of this yet, butthey continue to listen.

The noble BrutusHath told you Caesar was ambitious.If it were so, it was a grievous fault;And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest –For Brutus is an honourable man;So are they all, all honourable men –Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.He was my friend, faithful and just to me;But Brutus says he was ambitious,And Brutus is an honourable man.

III. ii. 77–87.

In plain style, which he adopts here, Antony allows the uncertainty ofmeaning to simmer. If we accept the implication from the earlier partof the speech that the evil which survives Caesar is those ambitious asso-ciates of his who decided to get rid of him for their own advantage,then the reference to the ‘noble Brutus’ here is especially ironic. Forwas it not ambition that led Brutus and the assassins to kill him? Thereseems to be a concealed ambiguity of relevance here, which arises fromthe earlier ambiguity of meaning, and the implication that can be derivedfrom that context now. The tone of voice and emphasis might wellallow such a meaning: ‘The noble Brutus/ Hath told you Caesar wasambitious.’ The emphasis could not escape the listeners: Brutus andCaesar are brought together in one utterance where some contrastive


stress is possible and which itself is a deliberate exploitation of indirectreported speech. Once again, it is an exploitation of the maxim of mannerin the way the utterance is phrased. It is also what Brutus has said, notwhat Antony believes; he merely reports the statement, and gives it notruth value from his own assessment. Indeed, it rapidly becomes clearthat truth is uncertain here: ‘If it were so,’ can imply ‘It may have beenso, but I don’t know’, although the concessive clause here can be inter-preted as the polite subjunctive, which was grammatically required inElizabethan English. Antony walks a tight-rope of syntactic ambivalencehere.

He returns to the permission that Brutus and the others have given himto speak; this is a cover for any offence he may have caused those whomight have been persuaded by Brutus beforehand. The speech is againslightly disorderly at this point. But it is a calculated disorder, for itfocuses Antony’s dilemma, that he is under some constraint here andunable to speak openly, and the meaning is again ambivalent. DoesAntony mean that he is speaking at the direction of Brutus and the rest,and so required to say what they have said, whether he believes it or not?Again, what does ‘Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral’ really mean?The apparent meaning is clear enough, but Antony has shifted his groundfrom the earlier utterance, ‘I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him’,to this more open meaning, the verb ‘speak’. What does he intend tospeak of? It begins to sound as if he might speak out of turn, and saywhat he knows to be the unacceptable truth. The maxim of quantity isexploited in this new formulation (he says less than he implies), and thereis a covert appeal to the maxim of quality. Antony appeals indirectlyto the maxim that he should be truthful in what he says. Later on hemakes this appeal more explicit, when he says, ‘I speak not to disprovewhat Brutus spoke, /But here I am to speak what I do know.’ (ll. 100–101)He denies the implication that everyone listening to the speech can recog-nise: that he does in effect deny what Brutus has said. His appeal hereto the Politeness Principle, attempting to fend off impolite beliefs, onlyfocuses on them more clearly, because of this appeal to the maxim ofquality. For his remark, ‘But here I am to speak what I do know’, giventhat he has been scrupulous up to now, implies that this knowledge istrue. ‘He was my friend, faithful and just to me’ is an unequivocalassertion of knowledge, contrasting with ‘But Brutus says he was ambi-tious.’ Again, Antony reports what he has been told to say, in such away as to cast doubt on its truth. What he knows is distinct from whatothers merely say, which is only their opinion. Again, the manner isambivalent, and the double sense deliberate.

The use of the adjective ‘honourable’ is a particularly clear exampleof the way Antony exploits the Politeness Principle. He uses the epithetconstantly throughout the speech (ll. 82–83, 87, 94, 99, 124), culminating

314 Anthony Gilbert

in the final ironic denial (an attempt to appeal to the Politeness Principle,which deliberately fails):

I fear I wrong the honourable menWhose daggers have stabb’d Caesar; I do fear it.

(ll. 151–152).

The collocation of the words ‘honourable men’ and ‘stabb’d’ is impos-sible to hear without a sense of contradiction; as one of the plebeianssays, ‘They were traitors. Honourable men!’ (l. 153) He’s worked outthe implication of the utterance, through a consideration of the generalrelevance of the context. The maxim of relevance operates to ironisethe maxim of manner, transforming ‘honourable’ into an ambivalentsense. The honorific epithet has turned into a stiletto, and Caesar’sdeath is avenged, for the moment, by a verbal dagger. A final exampleof savage irony can be found in the remark, ‘Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabb’d’ (l. 176), where a listener would again respondto the incompatibility of the language. The speaker’s attitude is out inthe open now, and he shares the irony with his audience. The maximof politeness again clashes with the maxim of relevance. The statusattributed to Brutus is wholly at odds with his actions, but ‘well-beloved’could still be understood by some listeners at this moment in the utter-ance as a formal, polite gesture of a conventional kind in a funeral speechabout a distinguished public figure. It could also have a political sense:‘given significant political support’, ‘recipient of political favours’. It’swhen we hear ‘stabb’d’ again that the false assumption explodes in ourfaces. The manner of the utterance requires the listener to work at a seriesof implications. He must understand that Antony wants to make a numberof complex assertions in one concise phrase. He implies the treacheryof Brutus, his brutality (playing on a punning sense of his name), theinnocence of Caesar, his unreadiness to defend himself against a surpriseattack from such a quarter, and as well the envy and ambition of theassassins. They had been given high honours by Caesar and developedan appetite for more. We see here once more how obscurity of manneris resolved by an appeal to a higher level of relevance in the generalcontext. Again, we stumble across the partial truth that Antony wantsus to accept; he spends most of the funeral speech advancing the personalworth of Caesar and his generosity to the people of Rome, togetherwith the pathos of his cruel death. But it’s sentimental rhetoric from acunning politician, and there are other views of Caesar in the play. Antonyhimself, as we see in the next act, is not above assassination when it suitshim. Yet the funeral speech remains a masterpiece of persuasive rhetoric,amongst the competing narrative ironies of this deeply cynical play.


III

When Iago persuades Othello that Desdemona is having an affair withCassio, we see again the Politeness Principle and the Co-operativePrinciple exploited by the persuader. Iago begins with a rather formal,polite question to Othello, after Desdemona and Emilia have left thescene:

Did Michael Cassio, when you woo’d my lady,Know of your love?

Oth III. iii. 95–96.

He picks up the casual reference by Desdemona earlier on:

What! Michael Cassio,That came a-wooing with you, and so many a time,When I have spoke of you dispraisingly,Hath ta’en your part – to have so much to doTo bring him in! III. iii. 71–75

We can see how the idea has arisen in Iago’s mind: he detects the innocentambiguity of ‘Hath ta’en your part’, by which Desdemona means ‘takenyour side in the argument’; another meaning suggests itself to thismalicious listener, one that he wants to persuade Othello of: ‘Cassiohas usurped your place as Desdemona’s suitor’. (The phrase, ‘came a-wooing with you’, must have an innocent sense – ‘was in your companywhen you visited me’, but not to Iago.) So he gets to work, and raiseshis question, which is deliberately obscure in manner, and also unclearin reference. The indirectness of the utterance is also a calculated strategy.The formality of the syntax (using ‘do’ in a polite way, instead of simpleinversion, which would be more casual), implies some careful thoughton the part of the speaker. It is a considered question, and so impliessomething. But what? We can hazard a guess. The question surelyimplies: ‘You must have known Cassio was interested in Desdemona,and I find it rather odd that his behaviour suggested to me that he wasstill interested in her while you were wooing her. Perhaps he didn’t knowabout your interest, or perhaps he did. If he did know, then it suggeststo me that he was a rival, and perhaps he still is.’ Othello is provokedby the uncertainty of the pragmatic force of this question: is it in factan accusation in disguise, as seems to be implied here?7 Is Iago actuallyimplying that Othello, given his almost certain knowledge of Cassio’sinterest in Desdemona, chose to do nothing about it, and allowed thesituation to develop without taking action which lay within his power?This is an humiliating suggestion, and perhaps even racist, for Iagomay be hinting that the sexual customs of other races may allow a kind

316 Anthony Gilbert

of tolerance unacceptable to white Europeans. The indirectness of theaccusation makes it more sinister and disturbing for the hearer, causinghim to probe the motive for the question, and attempt to clarify theintention behind it. But Iago can claim a few lines later that he hasno such malicious intention (although the audience knows he has),and maintain his apparent commitment to the Politeness Principle asa tactful subordinate. This eventually leads Othello to believe thatthere is something awful that Iago knows, but is too embarrassed toreveal. This sets him on the path of discovering the implications wehave just surveyed. The question is charged with unspoken meanings andassumptions.

As Othello turns it over in his mind, doing Iago’s work of persua-sion for him, he cannot fail to see that these vicious alternativeassumptions lie behind the question: ‘If Cassio is honourable, then Imust suppose he didn’t know of your love for Desdemona when you werewooing her, because he was courting her too. If Cassio is dishonourable,which I’m not sure about, then his conduct gives rise to suspicion, bothbefore and after your marriage.’ Either assumption can justify the inquiry,and either way Othello is caught in a dilemma. He must either concedethat Cassio did not know of his wooing of Desdemona (but he knows thisto be untrue – Iago can’t know this, or be sure of it, at any rate that iswhat he pretends now, so he puts this forward to see what happens),or, which is more appalling in consequence, since it is a fact that Cassiodid know Othello was wooing Desdemona, then it follows that he isdishonourable, and could be having an affair with his wife after themarriage. The whole question is based on a false assumption, that Cassiois having an affair with Desdemona: but this is wholly untrue and aconcealed assumption in the deep background of the question. Iago con-stantly refers to hypotheses in his utterance; he seldom allows facts tostand on their own.8 How much do I really know about my wife’s socialrelations with the men around her, Othello must be beginning to ask.He knows little of the social world of Venice, and lives in a simpler worldof heroic trials and adventures. The obscurity of manner, and the dis-orderly way this topic has been raised, out of the blue as it were, is anenormous provocation to Othello. He is snared by the factual truth ofhis own knowledge, that Cassio knew of his love for Desdemona, andthis appears to reinforce the lie Iago has put forward so indirectly. Thelie depends on the natural assumption that people do not ask questionswithout a reason. The tragedy here is that Iago’s reason for asking thequestion is known to the audience, but the malice of that motive is thevery last thing Othello could recognise. The question focuses on Cassio’sinterest in Desdemona by implication (‘your love’ can imply ‘his love’),and there can be no other reason, on the surface, for bringing togetherthese two persons into the one question, except the possibility of some


kind of connection between them. But what kind of connection? The veryform of a question leaves that open and unresolved. The maxims ofrelevance and manner are exploited to full effect.

Naturally, Othello is then set in pursuit of the motive behind thequestion, and this traps him in the speculations which Iago wishes totorment him with. ‘Why dost thou ask?’ (l. 97) begins the process: Iago’sreply is again a deliberate provocation:

Iago.: But for a satisfaction of my thought –No further harm.

Oth.: Why of thy thought, Iago?Iago.: I did not think he had been acquainted with her.Oth.: O, yes; and went between us very often.Iago.: Indeed!Oth.: Indeed? Ay, indeed. Discern’st thou aught in that?

Is he not honest?Iago.: Honest, my lord?Oth.: Honest? Ay, honest.Iago.: My lord, for aught I know.Oth.: What dost thou think?Iago.: Think, my lord?Oth.: Think, my lord! By heaven, he echoes me,

As if there were some monster in his thoughtToo hideous to be shown. Thou dost mean something:I heard thee say but now thou lik’st not that,When Cassio left my wife. What didst not like?And when I told thee he was of my counselIn my whole course of wooing, thou criedst ‘Indeed!’And didst contract and purse they brow together,As if thou then hadst shut up in thy brainSome horrible conceit. If thou dost love me, Show me thy thought.

III. iii. 98–120.

‘No further harm’ – what does this mean? It can only fuel further enquiry,although it appears to be an appeal to the Politeness Principle, in its inten-tion to maximise polite beliefs about Cassio. The reply, ‘I did not thinkhe had been acquainted with her’ must be a downright lie, for Iago wouldnot have phrased his first question in the way he did if he had reallythought that.9 (There is a strong implication in the emphasis on ‘yourlove’, coming in final position as it does in the utterance. It suggests,by implication, ‘his love’, though once again, this implication is leftunstated, as so often in Iago’s speech. Iago exploits the maxims of mannerand relevance as always.) He shifts his ground and appears to disown,without explicit denial, the earlier implications and assumptions of hisquestion. But this is a palpable fiction: a gesture of politeness that isat the same time an apparent attempt to maximise polite beliefs, and asavage exploitation of relevance in the local context of the utterance.

318 Anthony Gilbert

Othello, in attempting to clarify the apparent misunderstanding aboutCassio’s role in his courtship of Desdemona, finds that he has merelyreinforced the covert doubts and uncertainties that Iago appears to haveabout the man: ‘O, yes; and went between us very often’ – ‘Indeed!’Iago’s reply here is a breach of the maxims of quantity, quality andmanner, for it is at once uninformative (Iago is suggesting that this isa matter for concern and surprise, but doesn’t say why), untruthful (Iagoknows that Cassio often accompanied Othello), and obscure (What doesthis confirm about Cassio’s behaviour in Iago’s opinion?).

The dominant speaker keeps his real motives to himself, so Othellois driven to re-gloss the whole sequence, gathering evidence as he goes.He is engaged in the normal process of problem-solving that any listenermight undertake. Iago’s evasions about Cassio’s honesty, or honourablebehaviour towards Desdemona, goad him on to further analysis. (Thisechoing of Othello’s utterance is a breach of the maxim of quantity, beingdeliberately uninformative, while maintaining a cunning exploitationof the maxim of relevance in the general context. Iago wishes to maintainthe uncertainty about Cassio at all costs in Othello’s mind.) He, for hispart, assembles more of the material from Iago’s previous utterances. Iagois expert, as an intuitive and malicious speaker, in creating mysterieswhere none exists. (Mainly because of his breach of the maxim ofquantity and quality; he defends his lie about Cassio by avoiding explic-itness.) But Othello colludes with Iago in entertaining such mysteries andletting them go further. The fact that Othello admits to the implicationof ‘some horrible conceit’ only encourages Iago. Othello is allowingthe Co-operative Principle to take him further than he should go inspeculation and surmise. Like all co-operative hearers, Othello allows thesearch for relevance to dominate and override the maxim of quality,because he thinks Iago is speaking the truth, in a disorderly and inhib-ited way. This is exactly the area of creative malice Iago is expert in.Othello should have said, ‘I don’t know what you mean, but I’ve heardenough of your nonsense.’ Then there would be no dramatice narrativeof the kind Shakespeare wrote: there would simply be an abrupt andsudden termination of the exchange. Iago would have failed, and beendismissed as a reliable informant.

But Othello is willing to explore, with Iago, the mutual shared knowl-edge that seems to be emerging in the conversation. This is fatal, andso Iago returns, as he has the chance to do, to the original topic:

Iago.: For Michael Cassio,I dare presume I think that he is honest.

III. iii. 128–129

These careful words prepare more ground for speculation: ‘dare’ implies‘I’m taking a risk that I know about, but to ease your uncertainties, I’ll


say what you want me to’; ‘presume’ means ‘I can make a guess, but Imight well be wrong: I’m trying to be polite and maximise polite beliefs’;‘think’ is witheringly distinct from ‘know’. The maxim of manner isdeliberately exploited to reinforce doubts about Cassio. This is not whatOthello wants to hear. It creates more doubt, but he snatches at the fragilecertainty here:

Oth.: I think so too.Iago.: Men should be that they seem.

Or those that be not, would they might seem none!Oth.: Certain, men should be what they seem.Iago.: Why then, I think Cassio’s an honest man.

III. iii. 130–133.

But Iago takes away that certainty by returning implicitly to his under-lying doubts about Cassio, emphasising that his opinion is based on whatseems to be the case. Iago appeals to the maxim of quality here, tomake his utterance seem more cautious, and so more accurate, but theaudience knows this is a complete lie. Othello interprets all this in a morepositive way, as a general principle which he tries to reinforce with‘Certain’, but Iago ignores this implicit appeal for clarification and‘firming up’ of his comments. Othello is asking for a specific confir-mation about Cassio in terms of an adequate amount of information,an appeal to the maxim of quantity. But Iago simply follows through withan apparently artless, but lethal consequence: ‘Why then, I think Cassio’san honest man.’ What does this amount to? Iago appears to be sayinghere that Cassio only appears to be honest, and may in fact not be; heclings stubbornly, and deliberately, to his original qualified comment.This is a brilliant exploitation of the maxims of manner, quantity andquality, for though it is actually reinforcing a doubt about Cassio, itappears, on the surface to be a polite agreement with Othello. Theimpression created is that of a subordinate impaled on a dilemma betweentruth and loyalty to a superior officer. Yet the appeal to the maxim ofmanner, through the careful use of ‘Why then,’ implies merely a logicalconnection to what has been said, a logical relevance and not a truthfulone, so that the remark constructs a conflict between the maxims ofmanner and quality. In the new context, this is only what seems to bethe case. And again, the maxim of quantity is breached to suggest some-thing which remains unsaid, for no reason is given for ‘seems’ as opposedto ‘is’. No wonder Othello goes on to say, ‘Nay, yet there’s more inthis.’

The doubts about Cassio have been brilliantly established in Othello’smind, and Iago is now able gradually to disclose his ‘real’ thoughts abouthim. He demurs out of respect for the maxim of quality: ‘Through I

320 Anthony Gilbert

perchance am vicious (i.e. ‘mistaken’) in my guess’ (l. 149). This makeshis opinion look more cautions, and so more truthful. The topic shiftsto the question of reputation (whose?) (ll. 159–165): ‘Good name inman and woman, dear my lord, / Is the immediate jewel of their souls.’These remarks elicit further angry questions from Othello: ‘Zounds! Whatdost thou mean?’ (l. 158), and ‘By heaven, I’ll know thy thoughts.’ (l.166). The continued interest Othello shows in what Iago says is disas-trous for his peace of mind: he is gradually assembling a picture of Iago’sthought, even though he does not yet know all. Then Iago shifts to yetanother topic: ‘O, beware, my lord of jealousy’ (l. 169). The implica-tion in the sequence (only Iago’s) is that Othello and Desdemona haveboth lost their reputations, and that Othello must know, in some partof his mind, outside full awareness, that he has been betrayed by Cassioand his wife. Iago warns him against jealousy because the assumption(again, only that of the malicious speaker) is, surely, that Othello alreadyknows or suspects there is an affair in progress, and that he must resentit, as any normal man would. Again, we see how it is the initial assump-tion that does the damage. Iago then goes on to establish completedominance over Othello, and to explain at length his beliefs: ‘I speaknot yet of proof.’ (l. 200). This is the cruellest of tactics, for Othello isdesperate to know one way or the other, but Iago keeps him in a stateof doubt and anxiety that can only enrage him.

Shorn of the one relationship that maintained his sense of identityand stability of mind, Othello lapses into a state of completely psy-chotic fear and anger. As he says earlier, ‘Perdition catch my soul/But I do love thee; and when I love thee not/ Chaos is come again.’(ll. 91–93). Othello has joined the world of western civilisation throughhis marriage to Desdemona; now he regresses back into the world ofprimitive beliefs and fears which Shakespeare represents as Othello’schildhood and early experience.

These two examples of persuasion in Julius Caesar and Othello showus the creative interpretation of normative conversational practice inShakespeare’s dialogue. The rhetorical technique of Mark Antony inbreaking down assumed categories of thinking, and the exploitation ofhypothesis in Iago’s speech, both demonstrate the extraordinary natu-ralism of Shakespeare’s writing, and its profound sensitivity to the usageof common speech.

University of Lancaster ANTHONY GILBERT

Dept of EnglishLancaster LA1 4YTEngland


Notes

General Note: All references to Shakespeare’s text are to P. Alexander (ed.), William,Shakespeare: The Complete Works, London, 1951, repr. 1980 etc.

1. The Gricean maxims of good conversational practice are well known to linguists,but perhaps not so well known to readers of Shakespeare’s plays. A speaker should belucid, concise, truthful as far as he can, and relevant in his utterance. Naturally,Shakespeare’s dramatic dialogues exploit these regulative maxims for effect. The originalarticle setting out these maxims was H. P. Grice, ‘Logic and conversation’, in P. Coleand J. Morgan (eds.), Speech Acts: Syntax and Semantics, vol. 3, New York, 1975,pp. 41–58. Recent discussions of the Co-operative Principle, that these maxims jointlydefine, are to be found in G. N. Leech, Principles of Pragmatics, London, 1983,pp. 7–10, 30–34, 79–84, and S. Levinson, Pragmatics, Cambridge, 1983, 100–118. Seefurther, for the flouting of these maxims in detail, below and note 4.

2. The Politeness Principle states that a speaker, all things being equal, shouldmaximise polite beliefs and minimise impolite beliefs. I use the model suggested by Leech,op. cit., pp. 79–151 (Chaps. 4–6). For the Co-operative Principle, see note 1 above andmore generally, in terms of interpersonal rhetoric, Leech, Chap. 4.

3. The pragmatic scales in the Politeness Principle, according to Leech, are set outin Chapter 5 of his book, particularly pp. 123–127. The indirectness scale avoids a facethreatening confrontation by presenting possibly unacceptable ideas indirectly, the cost-benefit scale places the ‘cost’ of any opinions or suggestions on the speaker rather thanthe hearer, and the optionality scale allows the hearer apparent freedom to accept orreject what is suggested. Actually, all these scales are exploited by the persuader to imposea particular view and set of beliefs on the hearer, although they appear to invite ratherthan impose agreement.

4. It is interesting to note that the Co-operative Principle is closely similar to the morehistorically based notion of virtutes elocutionis: these comprise, among other aspects ofeloquent utterance, latinitas, as linguistic correctness (comparable to the maxim ofmanner); aptum, as the most general norm of situational and contextual adequacy (themaxim of relevance); perspecuitas, as clarity and intelligibility for the hearer (the maximof manner in terms of perspicuous speech); ornatus, as pleasant, entertaining expression(again, the maxim of manner, extending into the Politeness Principle); brevitas, thenotion of conciseness (the maxim of manner). I take this point from Dorothea Franck,‘Seven Sins of Pragmatics: Theses about Speech Act Theory, Conversational Analysis,Linguistics and Rhetoric’, in H. Parret, M. Sbisa, and J. Verschueren (eds.), Possibilitiesand Limitations of Pragmatics: Studies in Language: Companion Series vol. 7, Amsterdam,1981, pp. 233–234.

5. See further Leech, op. cit., Chapter 4.6. In this discussion I am very much indebted to Roman Jakobson’s shrewd remarks

on this passage in his ‘Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics’, in T. A. Sebeok(ed.), Style in Language, Cambridge, Mass., 1960, pp. 350–377 (pp. 375–376), and thediscussion of irony in terms of the Co-operative Principle by Professor Leech, op. cit.,pp. 82–84 and 142–145.

7. An accusation can take the form of a question when the question implies thatthe person questioned had the power or the knowledge to act in a particular way, butactually did nothing. Questions move towards accusation when they embody a self-can-celling opposition of elements such as this. See further, for modern examples of thiscorrosive technique, Karen E. Rosenblum, ‘When is a question an accusation?’, SemioticaLXV (1987), pp. 143–156.

8. As Othello remarks later, in a revealing comment, ‘It is not words that shakesme thus’ (IV. i. 41); he implies it is surmise and conjecture that torment him. In a recent

322 Anthony Gilbert

and perceptive article, Kenneth Palmer makes the penetrating comment, ‘It is Iago’sbusiness (when he is not giving instructions, or playing the blunt good fellow) to isolateother characters from what they know.’ (K. Palmer, ‘Iago’s questionable shapes’, in“Fanned and Winnowed Opinions”: Shakespearean Essays Presented to Harold Jenkins(eds.) John W. Mahon and Thomas A. Pendleton, London, 1987, pp. 184–201 (p. 184).)Iago’s exploitation of implicature in a pragmatic and Gricean sense is brilliantly analysedby Brian Vickers, Appropriating Shakespeare, New Haven and London, 1993, pp. 74–91.I am very much indebted to both these distinguished critics in my discussion here.

9. A point noted by Malcolm Coulthard, An Introduction to Discourse Analysis,Harlow, Essex, 1977, repr. 1981, p. 176. A speaker must make a question obviouslyrelevant, and the only kind of relevance here must be some kind of belief in a connec-tion between Cassio and Desdemona. Coulthard shows the oddness of the sequence ifOthello replied in the negative, and Iago agreed with Othello’s answer. The whole dis-cussion of Othello in Chapter 9 of Discourse Analysis is of great interest and importanceto a close reading of the text.


techniques of persuasion in julius caesar and othello

Documents