"Iago, as Harold Goddard finely remarked, is always at war; he is a moral pyromaniac setting fire to all of reality.......In Iago, what was the religion of war, when he worshiped Othello as its god, has now become the game of war, to be played everywhere except upon the battlefield."
--Harold Bloom
I guess since a "pyromaniac" is someone who likes setting fire to things, then a "moral pyromaniac" is someone who likes setting fire to morality, and, apparently, "all of reality." Unfortunately, that isn't nearly as cool as it sounds. What Bloom is saying is that Iago feels a compulsion to destroy Othello, Desdemona, and Cassio's "reality," and not that Iago is a supreme being with a Satan-like pyrotechnic super-power, like I imagined when I first read the quote. Then I realized that Satan-powers would perfectly fit Iago's self-characterization of himself as a "devil," and I understood why Iago would be a moral pyromaniac instead of, say, a moral destructimaniac.
Because Iago was a soldier before the story begins, it makes since that, like any successful soldier, war would have been his religion, and Othello, as his commanding officer, would have been akin to his god. However, when he felt his "god" had forsaken him, Iago lost faith in his religion, and it became nothing more to him than a game. Also because of his moral pyromania, an appetite for destruction which he may have acquired on the battlefield, his only response could be all-out war. Only now, he would be fighting in the battlefield of everyday life, playing his cruel game with those who he formerly called his allies.
I guess since a "pyromaniac" is someone who likes setting fire to things, then a "moral pyromaniac" is someone who likes setting fire to morality, and, apparently, "all of reality." Unfortunately, that isn't nearly as cool as it sounds. What Bloom is saying is that Iago feels a compulsion to destroy Othello, Desdemona, and Cassio's "reality," and not that Iago is a supreme being with a Satan-like pyrotechnic super-power, like I imagined when I first read the quote. Then I realized that Satan-powers would perfectly fit Iago's self-characterization of himself as a "devil," and I understood why Iago would be a moral pyromaniac instead of, say, a moral destructimaniac.
Because Iago was a soldier before the story begins, it makes since that, like any successful soldier, war would have been his religion, and Othello, as his commanding officer, would have been akin to his god. However, when he felt his "god" had forsaken him, Iago lost faith in his religion, and it became nothing more to him than a game. Also because of his moral pyromania, an appetite for destruction which he may have acquired on the battlefield, his only response could be all-out war. Only now, he would be fighting in the battlefield of everyday life, playing his cruel game with those who he formerly called his allies.
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