"
Coleridge has made a great deal of the notion that Othello was justified
in describing himself as "not easily jealous"; but poor Coleridge's
perverse ingenuity never led him further astray. The exact contrary
must, I think, be admitted; Othello was surely very quick to suspect
Desdemona; he remembers Iago's first suspicious phrase, ponders it and
asks its meaning; he is as quick as Posthumus was to believe the worst
of Imogen, as quick as Richard II. to suspect his friends Bagot and
Green of traitorism, and this proneness to suspicion is the soul of
jealousy. And Othello is not only quick to suspect but easy to
convince--impulsive at once and credulous. His quick wits jump to the
conclusion that Iago, "this honest creature!" doubtless
"Sees and knows more, much more, than he unfolds."
On hinted imputation he is already half persuaded, and persuaded as only
a sensualist would be that it is lust which has led Desdemona astray:
"O curse of marriage!
That we can call these delicate creatures ours,
And not their appetites.
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