Abstract

This paper relies on the interpretive methodology of semiography. The findings of iconographic and iconologic research are recontextualized by semiography in the new theoretical framework of the postsemiotics of the subject, and they are analyzed within the semiotic world model of the historically specific social symbolic order, in relation to the status of the sign and the speaking subject. Semiography maps out the ideologically specific semiotic logic that governs the social circulation of symbols and images. The paper investigates the representational logic of liminality and abjection in The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice. It argues that the drama is grounded in a systematic imagery of mercantile transactions and abjection, and it employs the character of Iago as a merchant-like agent who observes the horizon of expectations of the audience and works to sell Othello as a dubious merchandise.