“In the Backshop. Honesty as Paradox in _Othello_"

This article explores the paradox of honesty in Othello, arguing that the most interesting paradoxes are the barely visible ones that challenge not simply general consensus but the norm of sincerity itself. The article also delves into the relationship between lying and intention, with falsehood often being coupled with not-being: lying depends not only on the truth or falsehood of the things that are expressed but on the intention of the mind. While most of Iago’s paradoxes are similar to the liar’s paradox and therefore antinomies, the article discusses the use of paradoxes focusing especially on the Aristotelian concept of honesty as a virtue that consists of a mediocrity, whose two extreme violations are the boaster (Othello) and the dissembler (Iago). Iago thus creates a space of self-retreat, the arrière boutique (the backshop) of inwardness invoked by Montaigne as personal sanctuary and identity. The article also explores the concept of defamation and slander in early modern law and how it related to perjury, investigating the final paradox of (self-)posthumous slander. The article eventually argues that, by way of using the paradox of mediocrity, Iago brings into existence the non-being that was conventionally associated with lying.