Is somebody really comparing J.K. Rowling’s Voldemort to Bill Shakespeare’s Iago?
I disagree with some of Dr. Stelzig’s observations. Iago is not “as evil as the wizard Voldemort.” The Dark Lord began his history of cruelty and murder at an early age, and however manipulative Iago’s relationships, Voldemort cannot tolerate the society of others and dominates even his Death Eaters through fear and torture. Also, the names that a scholar like Dr. Stelzig finds “too camp” are not obvious to many readers. My own students often experience moments of revelation when in my Classical Mythology class they learn about Draco, Minerva and Sibyl or in British literature they learn from the smatterings of French and Latin in medieval texts that mal foi means “bad faith.”
You can’t make this stuff up, people.
