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Abstract. One of the most curious events in Othello is the titular character's epileptic fit, which does not appear in the story by Cinthio that is the accepted source of the play's plot. Why does Shakespeare invent such an incident? The easiest direction to take is the equation of epilepsy with demonic possession, a common belief in the early modern period. In this essay, however, I argue from textual and critical evidence for a philosophical interpretation of Othello's epilepsy: namely, that his seizure, particularly in relation to the play's conflict of reason and emotion, can be seen as a challenge to early modern orthodoxy concerning the mind-body problem, in that it conflates the distinction between body and soul.
And wheresoeuer he taketh him, he teareth him, and he fometh, and gnasheth his teeth, and pineth away.
-Mark 9:18 (Geneva Bible)
Two epileptics appear in the Shakespearean corpus, Caesar and Othello. But in regard to his sources, Shakespeare assumes Caesar's condition on the wide testimony of the Ancients,1 while the Moor's affliction has no precedent in the barbaro of Cinthio's Un capitano Moro. Though critics have long relegated this episode to the periphery of their inquiries-perhaps because its peculiar intensity is more easily ignored on the page than on the stage-Othello's seizure, as such a violent deviation from its source material, entreats us, like the death of Cordelia in King Lear, to interrogate its function. Here, I shall present a reading of Othello's epileptic fit as a point of aporia that challenges early modern orthodoxy concerning the mind-body problem.
Othello's last utterance before his seizure is the cry "O devil!" (4.1.43),2 which recalls the common association, even identification, of epilepsy with demonic possession.3 The imagery of possession recurs when Othello later insists that his wife falsify her fidelity, "lest, being like one of heaven, the devils themselves / Should fear to seize thee" (4.2.37-38), and when he finally laments before the tragically loaded bed, "Whip me, ye devils, / From the possession of this heavenly sight" (5.2.275-76).4 Recognizing that possession or seizure implies some power without, it is tempting to defer to Iago's stereotype as the...