Othello

For other uses, see Othello (disambiguation).

Othello and Desdemona by Alexandre-Marie Colin.

The Tragedy of Othello, The Moor of Venice is a famous tragedy by William Shakespeare written around 1603.

Source

Desdemona by Frederic Leighton.

The plot for Othello was developed from a story in Cinthio's collection, the Hecatommithi, which it follows closely. The only named character in Cinthio's story is "Disdemona", which means "unfortunate" in Greek; the other characters are identified only as "the standard-bearer", "the captain", and "the Moor". In the original, the standard-bearer lusts after Desdemona and is spurred to revenge when she rejects him. Unlike Othello, the Moor in Cinthio's story never repents the murder of his beloved, and both he and the standard-bearer escape Venice and are killed much later. Cinthio also drew a moral (which he placed in the mouth of the lady) that European women are unwise to marry the temperamental males of other nations.

Date and text

Title page of the first quarto edition of Othello, published in 1622

The play was entered into the Register of the Stationers Company on October 6, 1621 by the bookseller Thomas Walkley, and was first published in quarto format by him in 1622, printed by Nicholas Okes. Its appearance in the First Folio (1623) quickly followed. Later quartos followed in 1630, 1655, 1681, 1695, and 1705; on stage and in print, it was a popular play.

Performance history

Othello possesses an unusually detailed performance record. The first certainly-known performance occurred on November 1, 1604, at Whitehall Palace in London. Subsequent performances took place on Monday, April 30, 1610 at the Globe Theatre; on November 22, 1629; and on May 6, 1635 at the Blackfriars Theatre. Othello was also one of the twenty plays performed by the King's Men during the winter of 1612-13, in celebration of the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Frederick V, Elector Palatine.

At the start of the Restoration era, on October 11, 1660, Samuel Pepys saw the play at the Cockpit Theatre. Nicholas Burt played the lead. Soon after, on December 8 1660, Thomas Killigrew's new King's Company acted the play at their Vere Street theatre, with Margaret Hughes as Desdemona—probably the first time a professional actress appeared on a public stage in England.

It may be one index of the play's power that Othello was one of the very few Shakespearean plays that was never adapted and changed during the Restoration and the eighteenth century. Famous nineteenth century Othellos included Edmund Kean, Edwin Forrest, Ira Aldridge, and Tommaso Salvini, and outstanding Iagos were Edwin Booth and Henry Irving.

The 1943 Broadway run of Othello ran 296 performances.

The play has maintained its popularity into the 21st century. The most famous production may Margaret Webster's 1943 production starring Paul Robeson as Othello and Jose Ferrer as Iago. It ran for 296 performances, almost twice as long as any other Shakespearean play ever produced on Broadway. Another famous production was the 1982 Broadway staging with James Earl Jones as Othello and Christopher Plummer as Iago, who became the only actor to receive a Tony Award nomination for a performance in the play. When Laurence Olivier played his legendary performance of Othello at the Royal National Theatre in 1964, he had developed a case of stage fright that was so profound that when he was alone onstage, Frank Finlay (who was playing Iago) would have to stand offstage where Olivier could see him to settle his nerves. When Patrick Stewart played Othello at the Folger Shakespeare Library, he portrayed the Moor as a white man with the other characters played by black actors.

Actors have alternated the roles of Iago and Othello in productions to stir audience interest since the nineteeth century. Two of the most notable examples of this role swap were William Charles Macready and Samuel Phelps at Drury Lane (1837} and Richard Burton and John Neville at the Old Vic Theatre (1955). When Edwin Booth's tour of England in 1880 was not well attended, Henry Irving invited Booth to alternate the roles of Othello and Iago with him in London. The stunt renewed interest in Booth's tour. James O'Neill also alternated the roles of Othello and Iago with Booth, with the latter’s complimentary appreciation of O'Neill’s interpretation of the Moor being immortalized in O'Neill’s son Eugene’s play Long Day's Journey Into Night.

Characters

"Desdemona's Death Song" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Persons Represented:

• Duke of Venice.
• Brabantio, also written Brabanzio, a Senator, father of Desdemona.
• Other Senators.
• Gratiano, Brother to Brabantio.
• Lodovico, Kinsman to Brabantio.
• Othello, a noble Moor, in the service of Venice.
• Cassio, his Florentine Lieutenant
• Iago, his Ancient, the antagonist of the play
• Roderigo, a Venetian Gentleman.He was in love with Desdemona.
• Montano, Othello's predecessor in the government of Cyprus.
• Clown, Servant to Othello.
• Herald
• Desdemona, Daughter to Brabantio, and Wife to Othello.
• Emilia, Wife to Iago, maid to Desdemona.
• Bianca, A Courtesan.
• Miscellaneous: Officers, Gentlemen, Messenger, Musicians, Herald, Sailor, Attendants, servants etc.

Synopsis

The Death of Desdemona by Eugène Ferdinand Victor Delacroix.

Fair Desdemona, daughter of Venetian senator Brabantio, has just eloped to be with Othello, a "noble Moor" and a Venetian general, when the play opens. Brabantio accuses Othello of seducing Desdemona by witchcraft, but Othello defends himself successfully before an assembled Senate. By order of the Duke, Othello leaves Venice to command the Venetian armies against invading Turks on the island of Cyprus, accompanied by his new wife, his lieutenant Cassio, his ensign Iago and Emilia, Iago's wife. When they arrive, they find that a storm has destroyed the Turkish fleet.

Iago, who secretly resents Othello for favoring Cassio, takes this opportunity of stay to manipulate his superiors. He persuades Roderigo, a rich, foolish young man, to engage Cassio in a fight. When Othello discovers Cassio drunk and in a fight, he strips him of his ranks. Masquerading as an "honest man", Iago persuades Cassio to try Desdemona as an intermediary on Othello.

By Iago's machinations, Othello overhears Cassio admitting to an affair, which he supposed to be with Desdemona – but really with Bianca, a courtesan, and the handkerchief becomes the final piece of "evidence" to Desdemona's guilt.

In the night, Othello confronts and then smothers Desdemona in bed out of intense jealousy, before Iago's wife, Emilia, eventually arrives. She reveals Desdemona's "affair" was Iago's invention, and Iago anything but honest. Iago kills Emilia; Othello, realizing he has been toyed, attacks Iago but is disarmed. Lodovico, a Venetian nobleman, apprehends both Iago and Othello, but Othello commits suicide with a sword before they could escort him. At the end, it can be assumed, Iago is taken off to be tortured and possibly executed.

Themes and Tropes

Othello's race

File:Othellopainting.jpeg

"Othello and Desdemona in Venice" by Théodore Chassériau (1819–1856)

Some argue that Othello is not overly concerned with racial difference and that the protagonist's specific race is not clearly indicated by Shakespeare. Othello is referred to as a "Moor", but for Elizabethan English people, this term could refer either to the Muslim Berbers (or Arabs) of North Africa, or to the people now called "black" (that is, people of sub-Saharan African descent). In his other plays, Shakespeare had previously depicted both a Berber Moor (in The Merchant of Venice) and a black Moor (in Titus Andronicus). In Othello, however, the references to the character's physical features do not settle the question of which race Shakespeare envisioned.

In his Arden edition of the play, E.A.J. Honigmann summarises the contradictory evidence. The various uses of the word 'black' (for example, "Haply for I am black") do not help, since 'black' could simply mean 'swarthy' for Elizabethans. Iago twice uses the word 'Barbary' or 'Barbarian' to refer to Othello, apparently referring to the Barbary coast inhabited by the "white" Moors. Yet Roderigo also calls him 'the thicklips', which seems to refer to African physiognomy. Honigmann says that since these comments are all insults, they need not be taken literally.

Honigmann also notes one piece of external evidence: an ambassador of the Arab King of Barbary with his retinue stayed in London in 1600 for several months and occasioned much discussion. Honigmann wonders whether Shakespeare's play, written only a year or two afterwards, might have been inspired by the ambassador. Also, it should be noted that a real Othello might be a Berber or Arab (northern-African) rather than of entirely sub-Saharan African ancestry. On the other hand, sub-Saharans had visited the Mediterranean long before the time in which the events of the play are set, and a portrayal of Othello as sub-Saharan adds much to the feelings of alienation and suspicion that the audience must sense from him -- here is truly a stranger in a strange land, which makes his psychological plight all the more striking and his final inability to trust his wife the more explicable if he is constantly reminded of the fact that the two of them are from what would then be considered almost literally two different worlds. A Barbary Arab would probably not experience the same emotions; he might not be trusted but he would not be considered totally alien by the Venetians. Therefore when a Barbary Othello cannot trust Desdemona, the audience would be more likely to blame him and not pity him.

Also, interpretations of Othello's origins as "Black" were current as of the 1930s, when a performance of the play was banned in a southern U.S. state due to the prejudices against representing an idealized, inter-racial love. The performance included a middle-age African-American performer.

Social predispositions and/or prejudice among modern-day, typical readers and theatre directors lean towards the "black" interpretation, and "white" Othellos have been rare. One exception is Patrick Stewart, who had wanted to play the title role since the age of 14, so he (along with director Jude Kelly) inverted the play so Othello became a White man in a Black Society.

Iago / Othello

Although the title suggests that the tragedy belongs primarily to Othello, Iago is also an important role, with more lines than the title character. In Othello, it is Iago who manipulates all other characters at will, controlling their movements and trapping them in an intricate net of lies. A. C. Bradley — and more recently Harold Bloom — have been major advocates of this interpretation.

Other critics, most notably in the later twentieth century (after F. R. Leavis), have focused on Othello. Apart from the common question of jealousy, some argue that his honour is his undoing, while others address the hints of instability in his person (in Act IV Scene i, for example, he falls "into an epilepsy").

Furthermore, his inside personality is also shown as responsible for his fate, with an inside combat between "the noble Moor" and the "malignant and turbaned Turk" (act V scene ii), his moorishness brings up in himself. Othello is the victim of two opposite sides fighting inside his body and soul, which would then result in the dramatic ending that takes place.

Sexuality

At the beginning of the 21st Century, several critics inferred that the relationship between the Moor and his Ancient is one of Shakespeare's characteristic subtexts of repressed homosexuality. Most notably David Somerton, Linford S. Haines and JP Doolan-York in their 2006 publication "Notes for Literature Students on the Tragedy of Othello," devote several chapters to arguing the case for 'Sexuality and Sexual Imagery' in the play. They analyze in great depth the play's climax, Act III Scene III, with its oaths, vows and formal, semi-ritualistic declarations of love and commitment as being a dark parody of a heterosexual wedding ceremony; they continue by saying that Iago replaces Desdemona in Othello's affections. It was Iago temptation that made him get attracted to Othello, in the sense that he was the upper, more dominant male.

Somerton, Haines and York-Doolan come to the conclusion that Iago is a pre-Jungian expression of Shakespeare's shadow, his repressed sexuality (which remains the subject of much heated debate among today's scholars). This also would explain why the anti-protagonist of this tragedy is so much more appealing and developed as a character than in any of Shakespeare's other plays. The discourse concludes with the speculation that Shakespeare has drawn on the androphilia of Classical society and that Iago's unrequited love for the General is the explanation for his otherwise motiveless but passionate loathing.

It should be stressed that though there are arguments for this reading of the play's central relationship, it is a reading currently adopted only by a minority of critics.

Adaptations and cultural references

Laurence Fishburne and Kenneth Branagh as Othello and Iago respectively, in a scene from the 1995 version of Othello.

File:OmkaraStill.jpg

Still from the film Omkara featuring Saif Ali Khan as Langda Tyagi (Iago) and Ajay Devgan as Omkara 'Omi' Shukla (Othello)

Opera

Othello is the basis for three operatic versions:

• The opera Otello (1816) by Gioacchino Rossini
• The opera Otello (1887) by Giuseppe Verdi, libretto by Arrigo Boito
• The opera Bandanna, the opera (1999) by Daron Hagen

Film

See also Shakespeare on screen (Othello).

There have been several film adaptations of Othello. These include:

• Othello (1922) starring Emil Jannings. Silent.
• The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice (1952) by Orson Welles
• Отелло (1955), USSR, starring Sergei Bondarchuk, Irina Skobtseva, Andrei Popov. Directed by Sergei Yutkevich.
• Othello (1965) starring Laurence Olivier, Maggie Smith, Frank Finlay, and Joyce Redman
• Othello (1981) part of the BBC's complete works of William Shakespeare. Starring Anthony Hopkins and Bob Hoskins.
• Otello (1986) A film version of Verdi's opera, starring Plácido Domingo, directed by Franco Zeffirelli. Won the BAFTA for foreign language film.
• Othello (1995) starring Kenneth Branagh, Laurence Fishburne, and Irene Jacob. Directed by Oliver Parker.
• Kaliyattam (1997), in Malayalam, a modern update, set in Kerala, starring Suresh Gopi as Othello, Lal as Iago, Manju Warrier as Desdemona, directed by Jayaraaj.
• O (2001) a modern update, set in an American high school. Stars Mekhi Phifer, Julia Stiles, and Josh Hartnett
• Othello (2001). TV film. A modern-day adaptation in modern English, in which Othello is the first black Commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police. Made for ITV by LWT. Scripted by Andrew Davies. Directed by Geoffrey Sax. Starring Eamonn Walker, Christopher Eccleston and Keeley Hawes.
• Omkara (2006) (Hindi) is an Indian version of the play, set in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The film stars Ajay Devgan as Omkara (Othello), Saif Ali Khan as Langda Thyagi(Iago), Kareena Kapoor as Dolly (Desdemona), Vivek Oberoi as Kesu (Cassio), Bipasha Basu as Billo (Bianca) and Konkona Sen Sharma as Indu (Emilia). The film is directed by Vishal Bharadwaj who earlier adapted Shakespeare's Macbeth as Maqbool. All characters in the film share the same alphabet or sound in their first name as in the original Shakespeare classic. It is one of the few mainstream Indian movies to contain uncensored swear-words.

External links

• Othello – plain vanilla text at Project Gutenberg.
• Lesson plans for Othello at Web English Teacher
• Othello study guide by M.J. Cummings
• "100 essays on Othello" by Dr. Bill Long
• Othello study guide by SparkNotes