69 “I am not what I am”: Corpus-based Analysis of Shakespeare’s Character Iago from Othello, the Moor of Venice Teja Furlan, Monika Kavalir Abstract The paper uses keyword analysis as the empirical basis for the characterization of Shake- speare’s character Iago from Othello, the Moor of Venice. The aim of the paper is to deter- mine how Iago’s manner of speech reflects his deceitful and manipulative nature and how it differs from the speech-styles of non-deceitful prominent characters: Othello, Cassio, Roderigo, Desdemona and Emilia. Keywords for the chosen characters are based on the corpora of character speech and the Sketch Engine tool is used to process the data. The results are then interpreted and discussed on the basis of six interconnected points of discussion: focus, adjectives, use of the expression Moor, references to the handkerchief, poisoning-the-ears technique, and pronouns, all of which confirm that Iago’s manipula- tive nature is indeed evident in his speech and that there is a clear difference between his speech-style and the speech-styles of other, non-deceitful, prominent characters. Keywords: characterization, corpus linguistics, keyword analysis, Othello, William Shakespeare, Iago ACTA NEOPHILOLOGICA UDK: 81'322:821.111-21Shakespeare W. DOI: 10.4312/an.54.1-2.69-86 Acta_Neophilologica_2021_FINAL.indd 69 6. 12. 2021 11:36:09 70 Teja Furlan, Monika kavalir INTRODUCTION A fictional character is brought to life in the mind of the reader or spectator through their actions and their words, and this relationship is particularly intrigu- ing when there is a mismatch between the two. The aim of this paper is to use keyword analysis to determine whether the cunning, deceitful and manipulative nature of Shakespeare’s character Iago from Othello, the Moor of Venice is evident in his speech-style and if so, how Iago’s speech-style then differs from that of some of the other, non-deceitful, prominent characters within the play, such as Othello and Cassio. The first part of the paper reviews the existing literature on characterization in Othello and proposes keyword analysis as an attested method of corpus sty- listic research. In the methodology section, the preliminary steps of the study are described alongside the specific parameters used within the Sketch Engine tool. In the third part of the paper, the quantitative results of the keyword analysis are given in the form of tables with keywords for each of the chosen characters: Iago, Othello, Cassio, Roderigo, Desdemona and Emilia. These statistical results are then discussed, interpreted and compared to previous studies in the fourth, qual- itative and final part of the paper. LITERATURE REVIEW As one of Shakespeare’s prominent works, Othello has been extensively analyzed and interpreted, with the character of Iago receiving much of the scrutiny. Re- cently, the development of corpus stylistics has brought with it new ways of ap- proaching familiar texts and there are already a host of studies examining various Shakespearean characters. This section summarizes what has so far been proposed about Iago (and to a lesser extent other characters in Othello) as well as the current developments in corpus stylistics. The master and the puppets: characters in Othello As pointed out by John W. Draper in his article “Honest Iago,” there is a gen- eral agreement among scholars and critics of Shakespeare across centuries, from Johnson, Coleridge, Swinburne and Shaw to Bradley, Canning, Herford, Stoll and Winstanley, as well as visible German and French writers and academics, that Iago is “a villain of the deepest dye” (724). There is thus a consensus that Iago is a villain- ous, manipulative, dishonest and deceitful character, even if researchers may disa- gree on his motives. In his article “Iago—An extraordinary honest man,” Weston Acta_Neophilologica_2021_FINAL.indd 70 6. 12. 2021 11:36:09 71“I am not what I am” Babcock for instance agrees that Iago is an exceptionally clever manipulator (299– 300; 301) yet ascribes this behaviour not to his wickedness but to his frustration stemming from a socially inferior rank of which he is constantly reminded by oth- er characters, something also apparent in the characters’ use of thou and you (298). Bradley, Arenas and West, on the other hand, characterize Iago not as a wronged or understandably envious man but as a psychopathic schemer. A. C. Bradley in his Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth chooses what Are- nas describes as a “humanizing approach to literary characters” (Arenas 43) and arrives at similar conclusions as Arenas does in his article “Causal attribution and the analysis of literary characters”, where he uses Covariance Theory of Causal Attribution (CTCA) to review Bradley’s claims about Iago. Arenas thus uses a cognitive approach to confirm Bradley’s characterization of Iago as an exception- ally clever schemer with a tendency to deceive (Arenas 56; cf. Bradley 211) and succeed at it (Arenas 59; cf. Bradley 192), turning other characters, primarily Oth- ello, into his puppets (Arenas 57; cf. Bradley 195). Fred West goes a step further in his article “Iago the Psychopath”, stating that there was great interest in (what we now know as) the field of psychology during Shakespeare’s time (27), that Shake- speare himself must have been familiar with it (34) and that he constructed Iago as a clinically accurate example of a psychopath (27). West also revises Bradley’s description of Iago and claims that it clearly depicts Iago as a psychopath (33) even though Bradley never uses the term himself. Similarly, Marvin Rosenberg in his article “In defense of Iago” analyzes Iago as having a neurotic personality. Rosenberg uses a psychoanalytic approach and relies upon the theoretical contri- butions of Karen Horney to explain Iago’s manipulative scheming (151) and his exceptional abilities as well as his desire to deceive (152) as a consequence of a “severe function disorder” (155). Earl L. Dachslager, on the other hand, points out that what makes Iago a su- perb character is precisely the elusiveness of his motives (5), which are also, he claims, rather unimportant as he merely does what he is supposed to do as a dra- matic character: perform his function of the villain (10). In a similar manner, in- stead of focusing on Iago’s motives, Jacobsen, Beier, Altman and Vickers focus on Iago’s superb rhetorical skills which he uses to gain power over other charac- ters. In the article “Iago’s art of war: the ‘Machiavellian moment’ in Othello,” Ken Jacobsen writes that Iago’s smooth and convincing manipulation (502) is largely informed by Machiavelli’s text The Art of War (498). Iago, as analyzed by Jacobsen, employs Machiavelli’s military techniques transferred to the level of speech in or- der to gain power over other characters, as military strategy (Iago as the general) and rhetoric (Iago as the orator) are closely connected (505). Benjamin V. Beier in the article “The art of persuasion and Shakespeare’s two Iagos” similarly describes Iago as “the play’s exemplary sophist” (36) since his Acta_Neophilologica_2021_FINAL.indd 71 6. 12. 2021 11:36:09 72 Teja Furlan, Monika kavalir goals as well as his methods are unethical and his skill of manipulation extraordi- nary (38), and claims that it is through Iago (especially in comparison with Iachi- mo from Cymbeline) that Shakespeare explores the dangerous powers of sophistry. Brian Vickers in “Power of persuasion” marks Iago as “Shakespeare’s greatest rhet- orician” (434 qtd. in Beier), and in his study The Improbability of Othello, Joel Alt- man, labelling Othello as the most intimate portrait of “rhetorical anthropology” (22), analyzes Iago’s great skills of manipulation on the basis of the Greek sophists Protagoras, Gorgias, and Isocrates (23). In “Talk, small talk and silence in Othel- lo,” Robert Frost uses discourse analysis to characterize Iago as a manipulative and cunning initiator of dialogue based on the manner Iago chooses to get Othello’s attention. Iago is also described as an initiator in Alexander G. Gonzalez’s article “The infection and spread of evil: some major patterns of imagery and language in Othello.” Gonzalez analyzes Iago’s technique of infecting other characters with his manner of speech and thought and then letting them finish his job for him (37). Iago’s status as a villainous master manipulator is thus largely agreed upon by a majority of scholars and critics employing various methodological tools. Seen either as a wicked man, a wronged man, a psychopath or the Devil itself, Iago is commonly regarded as a deceitful, lying and cunning character. Othello, on the other hand, is commonly thought of as a good, noble and trustful character, not unintelligent yet not as sharp as Iago (cf. Bradley 189), which is why he also fails to recognize Iago’s intrigue. He is, however, not to be blamed for his inabil- ity to see through Iago’s manipulation, as none of the characters are in fact able to see through him (cf. Bradley 192; Arenas 56; Jacobsen 508; Draper 725–6; Beier 43, 46-7; Rosenberg 152), not even his wife Emilia, whose love for and loyalty to Desdemona proves crucial in the end (cf. Bradley 239–40; Babcock 301; Jacobsen 529). Emilia and Desdemona are commonly regarded as likeable characters (cf. Gonzalez 39), as is the character of Cassio (ibid.), who is regarded as a good-natured and handsome character loyal to Othello (cf. Bradley 238–9). One of the least important characters per se yet crucial for Iago’s plan is the character of Roderigo, who primarily functions as Iago’s most easily manipulat- ed tool (cf. Gonzalez 46). Corpus stylistic approaches to Shakespeare Despite developing rather late compared to other areas of corpus research, cor- pus stylistics has had an important impact on literary critical work since the early 2000s. What is more, Sean Murphy, Dawn Archer, and Jane Demmen demonstrate that corpus stylistic methods to Shakespeare are “well established” with a number of different studies already undertaken in this vein (224). An Acta_Neophilologica_2021_FINAL.indd 72 6. 12. 2021 11:36:09 73“I am not what I am” important contribution to corpus stylistic studies of Shakespeare is the 2020 special issue of Language and Literature, entitled Shakespeare’s Language: Styles and meanings via computer, which offers a selection of corpus-based studies of Shakespeare’s plays. One such corpus-based approach, also used in this paper, is keyword analy- sis, used early on in Shakespearean stylistics by Jonathan Culpeper, whose cor- pus-based study “Computers, language and characterisation: An analysis of six characters in Romeo and Juliet” from 2002 this paper is largely informed by. In his innovative study, Culpeper analyzes the dialogue in Romeo and Juliet using keyword analysis to demonstrate how this computational approach can be used to determine the speech-styles of different characters. He also emphasizes how function words such as pronouns can be an important factor in determining style (27). “Style,” as explained by Culpeper, “is a matter of ‘frequencies’, ‘prob- abilities’ and ‘norms’” (12). Style-markers can be equated with words whose fre- quencies in the text under investigation are significantly skewed compared to their frequencies in some reference text(s), which corresponds very well to the statistical notion of “keyword” (cf. Culpeper, “Keyness” 30). In his 2009 article, Culpeper analyzes key part-of-speech and key semantic domains in addition to keywords, once again using Romeo and Juliet to illustrate how these additional re- search techniques may be of great contribution to keyword analysis with regard to characterization. Keyword analysis can thus be used as a starting point for characterization, as “the text for each character is highly likely to constitute a different, and some- times radically different, kind of style” (Culpeper, “Keyness” 31). In their study “Depictions of deception: A corpus-based analysis of five Shakespearean charac- ters,” for example, Dawn Archer and Mathew Gillings also use keyword analy- sis, in combination with some additional techniques, to characterize five decep- tive Shakespeare’s characters: Aaron, Tamora, Lady Macbeth, Falstaff and Iago. Their findings reveal that the five examined characters exhibit different deceptive speech-styles consistent with their different character traits. They also confirm a correlation between Shakespeare’s depictions of deceptive language and a real-life use of deceptive language features. They analyze Iago on the basis of six keywords: money, purse, Roderigo, lieutenant, sleep, and angry, and discuss how these keywords reveal Iago’s cunningness although this may not be readily apparent (253–4). They also examine the characters’ use of pronouns and find that, across the board, de- ceptive characters statistically overuse other-oriented references (e.g., you, he, she, him) as opposed to non-deceptive characters, who predominantly use self-ori- ented references (e.g., I, me, my). Furthermore, they find that this feature is, even among the deceitful characters, especially typical for Iago, who proves to be par- ticularly skilful at keeping himself out of others’ focus (261). Acta_Neophilologica_2021_FINAL.indd 73 6. 12. 2021 11:36:09 74 Teja Furlan, Monika kavalir METHODOLOGY Keeping in mind its historical nature and potential problems such as spelling variation and the existence of various editions of Othello, the online version pub- lished on The Complete Works of William Shakespeare1 webpage was used. This was followed by the choice of characters to be examined and compared to Iago and the compilation of corpora and reference corpora. First, the three most prominent male characters were included who are characteristically different from Iago, that is, not presented as cunning and deceitful: Othello, Cassio and Roderigo. Then the two most prominent female characters were added, Desdemona and Emilia. Ex- cluding stage directions and other non-speech material, six different corpora were compiled, each consisting of the lines spoken by the target character only: Iago Corpus, Othello Corpus, Cassio Corpus, Roderigo Corpus, Desdemona Corpus and Emilia Corpus. Each character corpus was then paired with a correspond- ing reference corpus, consisting of a combination of all the lines spoken by other characters. Sketch Engine was selected as the tool to be used for corpus analysis, and each character was examined for seven different types of keywords as the “key items that reflect the distinctive styles of each character compared with the other char- acters in the same play” (Culpeper, “Keyness” 34): • positive single-words (with the parameter for the rare-common focus set at 1000) • negative single-words (rare-common focus: 1000) • positive multi-words (rare-common focus: 1000) • negative multi-words (rare-common focus: 1000) • positive common/grammatically oriented single-words (rare-common focus: 1000000) • negative common/grammatically oriented single-words (rare-common focus: 1000000) • positive rare/lexically oriented single-words (rare-common focus: 0.001) Here, the term multi-words refers to combinations of two words. Positive key- words are items that are overrepresented in a character’s speech compared to other characters’ lines, and negative keywords are items that a character uses less com- monly than the other protagonists. When it comes to the last group of rare/lexi- cally oriented keywords, only positive single-words were considered, since positive as well as negative rare multi-words turned out to be extremely similar or identical (e.g. Roderigo) to keywords (1000): (negative or positive) multi-words, probably 1 http://shakespeare.mit.edu/index.html Acta_Neophilologica_2021_FINAL.indd 74 6. 12. 2021 11:36:09 75“I am not what I am” due to the smallness of the corpora. It is for the same reason that the minimum frequency was set to 1 and only the top 10 keywords were considered with some interesting and interpretatively important exceptions discussed below. The attrib- ute for all of the corpora was set to lemma. The last step was to deal with spelling variation, which has been deemed “per- haps the greatest obstacle in the statistical manipulation of historical texts” (Cul- peper, “Romeo and Juliet” 14). In this case, using a single play facilitated the ma- nipulation of the data, as the small size of the datasets allowed manual scrutiny (cf. Culpeper, “Keyness” 31), so examples of spelling variation which were parsed incorrectly, such as ti or t for tis, for instance, were rare and did not present an issue as the concordances in such cases were simply manually checked. RESULTS OF KEYWORD ANALYSIS Table 1: Keywords for Iago keywords (1000): single- words negative keywords (1000): single- words keywords (1000): multi- words negative keywords (1000): multi- words common/ grammati- cally orient- ed keywords (1000000) negative common/ grammati- cally orient- ed keywords (1000000) rare/ lexically oriented keywords (0.001) 1 Roderigo Iago good lieutenant honest Iago you my mark 2 lieutenant heaven good name o thou he I thief 3 Moor willow noble nature good night in me trash 4 may thou noble lord good Iago his O sometimes 5 which O honest man virtuous Desdemona him thou second 6 mark husband fair Desdemona whole course be Iago directly 7 his die inclining Desdemona o devil a do degree 8 yourself me lusty Moor thou diest and have clink 9 money my great ability good faith Cassio heaven chair 10 Cassio deed timorous accent good lady as it apt Acta_Neophilologica_2021_FINAL.indd 75 6. 12. 2021 11:36:09 76 Teja Furlan, Monika kavalir Table 2: Keywords for Othello keywords (1000): sin- gle-words negative keywords (1000): single- words keywords (1000): multi-words negative keywords (1000): multi- words common/ gram- matically oriented keywords (1000000) negative common/gram- matically ori- ented keywords (1000000) rare/ lexically oriented keywords (0.001) 1 thy lord honest Iago o heaven of you moon 2 Iago Moor whole course good liutenant the him story 3 once him o devil good lord thou he soft 4 thee may st thou noble lord thy lord earth 5 turn help o thou virtuous Desdemona Iago I wake 6 thou alas gentle Desdemona other course O be pitiful 7 handkerchief willow brave Iago good faith she his oh 8 whose his o brave Iago warlike isle her in heed 9 heaven he such acco- modation heavenly light thee will yond 10 moon watch old acquaintance nether lip my Moor wont Table 3: Keywords for Cassio keywords (1000): single- words negative key- words (1000): single-words keywords (1000): multi- words negative key- words (1000): multi-words common/ gram- matically oriented keywords (1000000) negative common/ grammati- cally oriented keywords (1000000) rare/ lexically oriented keywords (0.001) 1 ha lord virtuous Desdemona good night the do ship 2 drunk say good Iago honest Iago me her past 3 reputation thy divine Desdemona o heaven I as exquisite 4 general Cassio bold Iago good liutenant of lord expert 5 Bianca as good ancient sweet Desde- mona Iago Cassio enemy 6 save husband haste- post-haste appearaance good lord here you drinking Acta_Neophilologica_2021_FINAL.indd 76 6. 12. 2021 11:36:09 77“I am not what I am” 7 bold when own power- ful breath noble lord general say divine 8 ancient these powerful breath honest man ha if arrive 9 God handkerchief poor caitiff st thou drunk thy Fore 10 Iago her great contention whole course reputation not worser Table 4: Keywords for Roderigo keywords (1000): single- words negative keywords (1000): single- words keywords (1000): multi-words negative keywords (1000): multi- words common/ grammati- cally oriented keywords (1000000) negative common/ grammati- cally oriented keywords (1000000) rare/ lexically oriented keywords (0.001) 1 signior love lascivious Moor good night I the wheel 2 return Cassio wise consent honest Iago have he votarist 3 Barbatio lord fair daughter o heaven me love unkindly 4 reason speak great devotion good liutenant will for tush 5 myself see inhuman dog o thou if Cassio transport 6 issue such much experience sweet Des- demona it a torment 7 tell there full fortune good Iago but his tie 8 jewel must good guard good lord to lord thinkest 9 courtesy upon common hire noble lord not by thicklip 10 house their knave of common hire honest man can as suppliest Acta_Neophilologica_2021_FINAL.indd 77 6. 12. 2021 11:36:09 78 Teja Furlan, Monika kavalir Table 5: Keywords for Desdemona keywords (1000): single- words negative keywords (1000): single- words keywords (1000): multi-words negative key- words (1000): multi-words common/ gram- matically oriented keywords (1000000) negative common/ grammati- cally orient- ed keywords (1000000) rare/ lexically oriented keywords (0.001) 1 willow Desde- mona good night honest Iago I the unkind- ness 2 lord she good faith o heaven my and falsely 3 Emilia more green willow good liutenant lord she sing 4 praise Iago noble Moor o thou him her unpin 5 sing up dear absence sweet Desdemona do of trespass 6 him devil finger ache good Iago me it sooth 7 talk ti (tis) last article homest man willow this morn 8 bad thus such baseness st thou not a more 9 lose which unkind breach virtuous Desdemona you ti (tis) education 10 alas nothing maid call other course so more dinner Table 6: Keywords for Emilia keywords (1000): single- words negative keywords (1000): single- words keywords (1000): multi- words negative key- words (1000): multi-words common/ gram- matically oriented keywords (1000000) negative common/ grammati- cally orient- ed keywords (1000000) rare/ lexically oriented keywords (0.001) 1 husband of good madam good night husband of villany 2 villany sir o villany honest Iago have to frailty 3 jelaous much o heaven good Iago O and despite 4 madam one t Iago (“give it to Iago”) noble lord lord in yonder 5 lady at cruel Moor honest man she me wicked 6 alas these dull Moor st thou for him west 7 false him o thou dull Moor virtuous Desdemona do be wedlock 8 us night thou dull Moor other course speak the wayward 9 lie yet great affinity o devil some love wager 10 speak Othello filthy bargain thou diest it I venture Acta_Neophilologica_2021_FINAL.indd 78 6. 12. 2021 11:36:10 79“I am not what I am” FROM KEYWORDS TO KEY CHARACTER TRAITS Generating a list of keywords “does not in itself constitute an analysis” (Bondi 3) and “only by examining the usage of those keywords can [one] determine whether a keyword has anything to do with characterisation” (Culpeper, “Romeo and Juli- et” 18). The characterization of Iago as a deceitful character is carried out by com- paring his keywords to the keywords of the other five examined characters. The interpretative analysis of the obtained data is divided into six (interconnected) points of comparison: focus, adjectives, the use of the expression Moor, references to the handkerchief, poisoning-the-ears technique, and pronouns. Focus Iago’s top three keywords (1000: single-words), referred to here as the character’s focus, are Roderigo, lieutenant, which refers to Cassio, and Moor, which refers to Othello. The three unlucky characters in Iago’s focus all end up fighting, wounded and/or dying either of each other’s or their own hand, which goes to prove how successful a manipulator Iago is, as this is one of his goals (cf. Beier 39). Othello’s top keywords (1000: single-words), in comparison, show his preoc- cupation with Iago, as Iago is his second top keyword. Furthermore, Othello’s first keyword is thy which is used predominantly to refer to Iago and Desdemona, or to Emilia, speaking to her about Iago, for example in the often repeated phrase “thy husband”. As honest Iago is Othello’s top multi-word keyword (1000), his preoccupation with and what seems a kind of dependency on Iago can again be interpreted as proof of Iago’s successful manipulation of Othello (cf. Arenas 57; Bradley 196–7; Gonzalez 37). Cassio, on the other hand, does not seem to pay much attention to Iago as his top three keywords are ha, drunk and reputation, yet his lack of attention (cf. Bradley 238) makes him just as easy a pray (Gonzalez 46). It is also clear that Cassio ignorantly trusts Iago, as good Iago is Cassio’s sec- ond multi-word (1000) keyword, which again confirms Iago’s manipulator status. Adjectives At first glance, some keywords may seem irrelevant for the present analysis yet they prove to be important tools of manipulation when considered in context (Archer and Gillings 252). The adjectives Iago uses point to his manipulative nature as they are either flattering or pejorative, often about the same referent, depending on the situation Iago finds himself in (cf. Jacobsen 507 on Iago’s ad- aptation of his manner of speech to different interlocutors). The group of the Acta_Neophilologica_2021_FINAL.indd 79 6. 12. 2021 11:36:10 80 Teja Furlan, Monika kavalir most interesting and relevant keywords for this point are the positive and negative (1000) multi-word keywords. As pointed out by Archer and Gillings, to disguise his ill intentions regarding Cassio, for instance, Iago cunningly refers to him as good lieutenant, but only after he has already revealed his cunning scheme2 to the audience (253). In this situa- tion the flattering adjective thus clearly points to his manipulative MO (cf. Frost on Iago’s increasingly ironic use of noble lord). Another subtle proof of his manip- ulation is the way he describes Desdemona. As he is carefully trying to convince Othello of her infidelity yet retain the façade of good intentions, he calls her fair Desdemona and inclining Desdemona but never virtuous Desdemona, a phrase which we in fact find in his negative keywords. Lastly, adjectives reveal further evidence of his success in Othello’s top multi-word keyword (1000): honest Iago. This makes it clear that Othello, just like the other characters, trusts him (cf. Bradley 192; Arenas 56; Jacobsen 508; Draper 725–6; Beier 43, 46–7; Rosenberg 152) which is additional proof of his successful manipulation. Moor Not unlike adjectives, the use of the arguably pejorative expression Moor by different characters is another interesting feature. As pointed out by Maggie Bayles in “Othel- lo: The ‘Other,’” the expression Moor functions as an othering device used in tandem with animalistic and hyper-sexualized imagery evident in expressions such as black ram3 and thicklip (cf. Roderigo’s keywords) to continuously emphasize Othello’s posi- tion of an outsider. As mentioned above, Moor is Iago’s third top keyword (1000), as this is a common expression he uses to talk about Othello to other characters. When he is speaking to Othello directly, however, he uses the fourth top multi-word key- word (1000), noble lord, again revealing his deceitful nature, as argued already by Frost. Tables 7, 8, and 9 list additional negative keywords (1000, multi-words) for Moor. Table 7: Iago’s negative keywords (1000) multi-words featuring Moor 24 cruel Moor 25 dull Moor 26 lascivious Moor 27 noble Moor 28 o thou dull Moor 29 thou dull Moor 2 “with as little a web as this will I / ensnare as great a fly as Cassio” (2.1.157) 3 “An old black ram / is tupping your white ewe” (1.1.89–90) Acta_Neophilologica_2021_FINAL.indd 80 6. 12. 2021 11:36:10 81“I am not what I am” Table 8: Othello’s negative keywords (1000) multi-words featuring Moor 25 cruel Moor 26 dull Moor 27 lascivious Moor 28 lusty Moor 29 noble Moor 30 o thou dull Moor 31 thou dull Moor Table 9: Cassio’s negative keywords (1000) multi-words featuring Moor 33 cruel Moor 34 dull Moor 35 lascivious Moor 36 lusty Moor 37 noble Moor 38 o thou dull Moor 39 thou dull Moor As we can see, Iago somewhat carefully only ever uses the expressions Moor and lusty Moor even when he is speaking to other characters. He is, it seems, always careful not to reveal his villainous nature (cf. Bradley 216; Dachslager 6). If we then examine the usage of other expressions featuring the word Moor in the tables above, we see that lascivious Moor is used by Roderigo, noble Moor interestingly by Desdemona and the rest, cruel Moor, dull Moor, o thou dull Moor and thou dull Moor by Emilia. This seems to suggest that it is in fact Iago’s wife who dislikes Othello the most. However, as proposed by Culpeper in his “Romeo and Juliet” article, “[a]n important factor … in determining whether keywords relate to a par- ticular character or not is whether they are localised or well-dispersed throughout the play” (39). Emilia uses all those labels in the final act, where Othello, enraged by jealousy that Iago instills into him, murders Desdemona, so they are rather an expression of her distress in this particular situation (cf. Bradley 240) and not so much a reflection of her general dislike for Othello (cf. Culpeper 2009, 41 with regard to the character of Romeo). What is more interesting although less appar- ent is that Cassio never, not once, uses the expression Moor, which additionally even appears as his thirteenth single-word negative keyword (1000), and only ever refers to Othello as general, which is his fourth top single-word keyword (1000). This suggests that Cassio is an honest character and reinforces the interpretation that he is truly devoted to Othello (cf. Bradley 238–9; Gonzalez 39). Acta_Neophilologica_2021_FINAL.indd 81 6. 12. 2021 11:36:10 82 Teja Furlan, Monika kavalir Handkerchief Further evidence of Iago’s successful manipulation, as well as Cassio’s ignorance of it, can be found in the presence and absence of the keyword handkerchief. The handkerchief is used by Iago to seemingly prove to Othello that Desdemona is having an affair with Cassio yet it does not appear in his keywords. Iago only sub- tly plants the idea in Othello’s – at the time already manipulated and thus suspi- cious – mind4 (cf. Bradley 186; Jacobsen 519; Beier 43): “Tell me but this, / Have you not sometimes seen a handkerchief / Spotted with strawberries in your wife’s hand?” (3.3.443–5). It is Othello who then becomes preoccupied with it (cf. Beier 41; Gonzalez 47–8): it appears in seventh place among his single-words (1000) keywords. Cassio, however, has no idea about Iago’s plan (cf. Bradley 239), which is supported by the fact that handkerchief not only does not appear within his pos- itive keywords, but even appears in his negative single-word (1000) keywords and thus emphasizes his ignorance as well as the success of Iago’s cunning plan. Poisoning the ears Subtle planting of ideas into other characters’ minds seems to be Iago’s speciality (cf. Jacobsen 521; Beier 41) and yet additional proof of his cunningness (cf. Arenas 56; Bradley 192; Jacobsen 517) as apparent in his speech ( Jacobsen 528; Gonza- lez 36–7). This aspect of his subtly manipulative speech (cf. Jacobsen 516) can also be observed in his frequent use of expressions such as may, mark and see (Iago’s eleventh positive single-word keyword: 1000), all of which appear on his list of keywords (single-words: 1000), also in combination with sometimes (cf. handker- chief ), appearing in his rare or lexically-oriented keywords (0.001), which further points to his careful and indirect smooth-talking and manipulation (cf. Jacobsen 502; Beier 40, 43). Instead of bluntly telling his victims what he wants them to believe, Iago care- fully guides them towards certain conclusions in such a way that the victims think they saw everything on their own: “You shall observe him / And his own courses will denote him so / That I may save my speech: do but go after / And mark how he continues” (4.1.229–32). First, he delicately pours the poison, all the while making sure he is efficient yet not too direct: “Foh! one may smell in such a will most rank / Foul disproportion thoughts unnatural / But pardon me; I do not in position / Distinctly speak of her, though I may fear…” (3.3.238–41). Then he provides further guidelines such as: “Didst thou not see her / … didst not mark that?” (2.1.246–7), or, “I say, but mark his gesture” (4.1.77), “And mark the fleers, 4 “The Moor already changes with my poison” (3.3.335). Acta_Neophilologica_2021_FINAL.indd 82 6. 12. 2021 11:36:10 83“I am not what I am” the gibes, and notable scorns / That dwell in every region of his face” (4.1.72–3). He thus carefully creates and then controls the situation yet cunningly positions himself outside of it, presenting himself merely as an objective observer. Pronouns A similar technique can also be observed in the most interesting and perhaps the most telling feature of all, Iago’s use of pronouns, especially when compared to other characters. Pronouns normally appear in the positive and negative gram- matically-oriented single-word keywords (1000000) presented below. Table 10: Pronouns among positive and negative grammatically-oriented sin- gle-word keywords (1000000) Iago + - Othello+ - Cassio + - Roderigo + - Desde- mona + - Emilia + - 1 you my you I I 2 he I him me her he my 3 me thou he I me she 4 his thy him her 5 him thou I she me 6 you me him 7 she his his 8 her 9 thee thy you 10 my I As proposed by Archer and Gillings, the pronouns are divided into “(singular and plural) self-oriented references and (singular and plural) other-oriented referenc- es” (257). The findings confirm their claim that other-oriented references are more typical of deceptive characters as they suggest that the character is “taking the fo- cus away from himself ” (261). Especially telling is the fact that the pronoun I ap- pears among Iago’s negative keywords and his positive keywords consist mostly of other-oriented pronouns such as you, he, his and him (ibid.). In contrast, other, non-deceitful, characters predominantly tend to use self-ori- ented references, something particularly obvious in Cassio’s, Roderigo’s and Des- demona’s speech, which further supports Archer and Gilling’s findings although these three characters were not included in their research. Othello, interestingly, does not use self-oriented pronouns. That, however, is rather the consequence of him being completely taken in by Iago’s schemes (cf. Arenas 57). He consequently mainly focuses on Desdemona (thy, she, her). He also tends to focus on Iago, but Acta_Neophilologica_2021_FINAL.indd 83 6. 12. 2021 11:36:10 84 Teja Furlan, Monika kavalir in a non-threatening, dependent way. This goes to prove that Iago’s cunning and manipulative nature is indeed expressed in his speech and stylistically differenti- ated from the speech of other, non-deceitful characters. CONCLUSION Keyword analysis is a useful and already established method in the research of stylistic features of language, including when it comes to the characteristics of fictional characters’ speech. In this paper keyword analysis is used to determine whether the status of the villainous character Iago from Shakespeare’s tragedy Othello, the Moor of Venice as a manipulative puppet-master is also reflected in his speech-style. This is confirmed on the basis of six points of discussion: fo- cus, adjectives, use of the expression Moor, references to the handkerchief, poi- soning-the-ears technique, and pronouns. While keyword analysis is a form of computer-assisted research and the interpretation of the data requires a certain amount of subjectivity, all of the discussed features show that Iago’s cunning na- ture is indeed reflected in his speech and that there is a clear difference between his speech-style and the speech-styles of other, non-deceitful, prominent charac- ters, especially Othello and Cassio. BIBLIOGRAPHY Altman, Joel B. The Improbability of Othello: Rhetorical Anthropology and Shake- spearean Selfhood. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2010. Archer, Dawn, Mathew Gillings. “Depictions of Deception: A Corpus-based Analysis of Five Shakespearean Characters.” Shakespeare’s Language: Styles and meanings via computer, special issue of Language and Literature 29.3 (August 2020): 246–274. Arenas, Enrique Cámara. “Causal Attribution and the Analysis of Literary Char- acters: A. C. Bradley’s Study of Iago and Othello.” Journal of Literary Semantics 39.1 (2010): 43–66. Babcock, Weston. “Iago--An Extraordinary Honest Man.” Shakespeare Quarterly 16.4 (Autumn 1965): 297–301. Baker, Paul. “Keywords: Signposts to objectivity?” The Corpus Linguistics Discourse: In honour of Wolfgang Teubert. Eds. Anna Čermáková and Michaela Mahlberg. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2018. 77–94. Bayles, Maggie. “Othello: The ‘Other.’” Confluence, 30 March 2018, confluence. gallatin.nyu.edu/context/interdisciplinary-seminar/othello-the-other. Web. 28 June 2021. Acta_Neophilologica_2021_FINAL.indd 84 6. 12. 2021 11:36:10 85“I am not what I am” Beier, Benjamin V. “The Art of Persuasion and Shakespeare’s Two Iagos.” Studies in Philology 111.1 (2014): 34–64. Bondi, Marina. “Perspectives on Keywords and Keyness: An Introduction.” Keyness in Texts, special issue of Studies in Corpus Linguistics (SCL) 41 (2010): 1–18. Bradley, Andrew Cecil. Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth. London: Macmillan, 1919. Project Gutenberg, gutenberg.org/ files/16966/16966-h/16966-h.htm. Web. 24 August 2021. Culpeper, Jonathan. “Computers, Language and Characterisation: An Analysis of Six Characters in Romeo and Juliet.” Conversation in Life and in Literature: Papers from the ASLA Symposium, Association Suedoise de Linguistique Appliquee (ASLA). Eds. U. Melander-Marttala, C. Ostman and Merja Kyto. Uppsala: Universitetstryckeriet, 2002. 11–30. Culpeper, Jonathan. “Keyness: Words, Parts-of-speech and Semantic Categories in the Character-talk of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.” International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 14.1 (2009): 29–59. Dachslager, Earl L. “The Villainy of Iago: ‘What you know, you know.’” CEA Crit- ic 38.3 (1976): 4–10. Draper, John W. “Honest Iago.” PMLA 46.3 (1931): 724–737. Frost, Robert. “Talk, Small Talk and Silence in Othello: Robert Frost Applies Techniques Adopted from Discourse Analysis to the Way Characters Speak in Othello.” The English Review 14.1 (2003): 28–30. Gonzalez, Alexander G. “The Infection and Spread of Evil: Some Major Patterns of Imagery and Language in ‘Othello.’” South Atlantic Review 50. 4 (1985): 35–49. Jacobsen, Ken. “Iago’s Art of War: The ‘Machiavellian Moment’ in Othello.” Mod- ern Philology 106.3 (2009): 497–529. Murphy, Sean, Dawn Archer, Jane Demmen. “Mapping the Links between Gen- der, Status and Genre in Shakespeare’s Plays.” Shakespeare’s Language: Styles and meanings via computer, special issue of Language and Literature 29.3 (Au- gust 2020): 223–245. Rosenberg, Marvin. “In Defense of Iago.” Shakespeare Quarterly 6.2 (1955): 145–158. Shakespeare, William. Othello, the Moor of Venice. Eds. E. A. J. Honigman and T. Nelson, 1996, shakespeare.mit.edu/othello/full.html. Web. 22 April 2021. Vickers, Brian. “The Power of Persuasion: Images of the Orator, Elyot to Shake- speare.” Renaissance Eloquence: Studies in the Theory and Practice of Renaissance Rhetoric. Ed. James J. Murphy. Berkeley-London: University of California Press, 1983. 411–35. West, Fred. “Iago the Psychopath.” South Atlantic Bulletin 43.2 (1978): 27–35. Acta_Neophilologica_2021_FINAL.indd 85 6. 12. 2021 11:36:10 86 Teja Furlan, Monika kavalir Teja Furlan Monika Kavalir University of Ljubljana monika.kavalir@ff.uni-lj.si »Tisto pa več nisem jaz«5: korpusna analiza Jaga iz Shakespearove tragedije Othello Prispevek na podlagi analize ključnih besed obravnava Jaga iz Shakespearovega Othella. Namen prispevka je raziskati, kako se v Jagovem načinu govora odraža njegova manipu- lativna narava in kako se njegov govor potemtakem razlikuje od govora nemanipulativnih osrednjih likov, in sicer Othella, Cassia, Roderiga, Desdemone in Emilije. Diskusija te- melji na analizi ključnih besed posameznih dramskih likov z orodjem Sketch Engine in je razdeljena na šest medsebojno povezanih delov: fokus, raba pridevnikov, raba izraza Ma- ver, omemba Desdemoninega robčka, Jagova tehnika zastrupljanja ušes in raba zaimkov. Raziskava potrjuje, da se Jagova manipulativna narava resnično zrcali v njegovem govoru, ta pa se tudi jasno razlikuje od govora ostalih obravnavanih likov. Ključne besede: karakterizacija, korpusno jezikoslovje, analiza ključnih besed, Othello, William Shakespeare, Jago 5 Shakespeare, William. Othello. Trans. Milan Jesih. Mladinska knjiga, 1996. Acta_Neophilologica_2021_FINAL.indd 86 6. 12. 2021 11:36:10