William Hazlitt on Edmund Kean’s Othello:
May 6, 1814
Othello was acted at Drury-Lane
last night, the part of Othello by Mr. Kean . . . His voice and person were not
altogether in consonance with the character, nor was there throughout that noble
tide of deep and sustained passion, impetuous but majestic, that “flows on to
the Propontic, and knows no ebb,” which raises our admiration and pity of the
lofty-minded Moor. There were,
however, repeated bursts of feeling and energy which we have never seen
surpassed. The whole of the latter
part of the third act was a masterpiece of profound pathos and exquisite
conception, and its effect on the house was electrical. The tone of voice in
which he delivered the beautiful apostrophe, “Then, oh farewell I” struck on
the heart and the imagination like the swelling notes of some divine music.
The look, the action, the expression of voice, with which he accompanied
the exclamation, “Not a jot, not a jot”; the reflection, “I felt not
Cassio’s kisses on her lips”’ and his vow of revenge against Cassio, and
abandonment of his love for Desdemona, laid open the very tumult and agony of
the soul.