The story
Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by Shakespeare. A performance at Whitehall Palace before King James I on 1 November 1604 is the first one on record, and the play was printed in 1622. Othello is a respected black general serving Venice, who secretly marries Desdemona, the daughter of a senator. His ensign, Iago, resentful at being passed over for promotion, convinces Othello that Desdemona is unfaithful, and the general kills her before learning the truth.
Shakespeare based the play on a story in the Hecatommithi (1565) by the Italian writer Cinthio, and he changed it sharply, giving Iago a far more elaborate and mysterious malice and Othello a more tragic dignity. The play came a few years after Hamlet and shares its concern with doubt and the corrosion of trust, but it works in a smaller, domestic frame. It was written for the King's Men, with the great actor Richard Burbage traditionally associated with the title role.
Othello has been a central, and often contested, play ever since. Its treatment of race, jealousy and manipulation has been read in very different ways, and Iago is one of the most studied villains in drama. Verdi's opera Otello (1887) took the story to opera houses, and actors from Ira Aldridge in the nineteenth century to Paul Robeson in the twentieth made the role a landmark for black performers.
Why it mattered
- The play fixed the figure of Iago, the charming manipulator who destroys others through suggestion, in world drama.
- It put race and prejudice at the center of a major tragedy, and it remains a main text for debates about representation.
- Verdi's Otello and later adaptations made it one of Shakespeare's most reworked plays.
Sources
- Othello Folger Shakespeare Library
- Summary of Othello Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
- Othello Britannica
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