Snyder, Susan, " Othello: A Modern Perspective" in Mowat, Barbara A (ed.), Werstine, Paul (ed.) and Shakespeare, William, "Othello", Folger Shakespeare Library edition, Simon and Schuster, 2017, pp.291-302 at p.299.

Cyprus is where most of the play happens. It’s an outpost, or army camp, where the Duke of Venice sends his army to fight against the Turkish. However, the Turkish fleet iThe scene crowns love triumphant. The formerly self-sufficient Othello has now staked his life to his faith in Desdemona and their union, and she has done the same. The fulfillment of the wedding night that should come at the climax of the comedy is relocated to act 2, with the aftermath of the courtship and the wedding now taking center stage. Having triumphantly bested the social and natural forces aligned against them, having staked all to the devotion of the other, Desdemona and Othello will not be left to live happily ever after, and the tragedy will grow out of the conditions that made the comedy. Othello, unlike the other Shakespearean comedies, adds three more acts to the romantic drama, shifting from comic affirmation to tragic negation. TL;DR (may contain spoilers): Iago manipulates literally everyone. Othello gets really jealous. (Almost) everyone dies. Othello Summary At the turn of the century, performances at the RSC were dominated by their Iagos. Richard McCabe followed Simon Russell Beale in portraying misogynistic, embittered NCOs, older than their respective Othellos: [240]

Othello begins on a street in Venice, in the midst of an argument between Roderigo, a rich man, and Iago. Roderigo has been paying Iago to help himwin Desdemona's hand in marriage. But Roderigo has just learned that Desdemona has married Othello, a general whom Iago begrudgingly serves as ensign. Iago says he hates Othello, who recently passed him over for the position of lieutenant in favor of the inexperienced soldier Michael Cassio. Iago hates Othello for promoting an aristocrat named Cassio above him, whom Iago considers a less capable soldier than himself. Iago tells Roderigo that he plans to exploit Othello for his own advantage and convinces Roderigo to wake Brabantio and tell him about his daughter's elopement. Meanwhile, Iago sneaks away to find Othello and warns him that Brabantio is coming for him. Shakespeare's source story in Cinthio takes place entirely in the long time scheme: Shakespeare appears to have introduced the shorter time scheme to increase dramatic tension, while also introducing moments where Iago's plot could fall apart – for example if Emilia had given an honest answer to Desdemona's "Where should I lose that handkerchief?" [177] or if Roderigo had chosen to denounce Iago. [178] One of the first full-length plays to be released on vinyl was the Broadway production starring Paul Robeson, José Ferrer and Uta Hagen, issued in 1944. [310] Othello has been performed on at least twelve separate occasions on BBC Radio. [311] Music [ edit ]Othello’s ensign (a job also known as an ancient or standard-bearer), and the villain of the play. Iago is twenty-eight years old. While his ostensible reason for desiring Othello’s demise is that he has been passed over for promotion to lieutenant, Iago’s motivations are never very clearly expressed and seem to originate in an obsessive, almost aesthetic delight in manipulation and destruction. The official authority in Venice, the duke has great respect for Othello as a public and military servant. His primary role within the play is to reconcile Othello and Brabanzio in Act I, scene iii, and then to send Othello to Cyprus. Montano Scholars have identified many other influences on Othello: things which are not themselves sources but whose impact on Shakespeare can be identified in the play: [7] these include Virgil's Aeneid, [8] Ovid's Metamorphoses, [9] both The Merchant's Tale and The Miller's Tale from Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, [10] Geoffrey Fenton's Certaine Tragicall Discourses, [11] [12] Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy, [13] George Peele's The Battle of Alcazar, [14] [15] the anonymous Arden of Faversham, [16] Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, [17] and Heywood's A Woman Killed with Kindness. [18] These also include Shakespeare's own earlier plays Much Ado About Nothing, in which a similar plot was used in a comedy, [19] The Merchant of Venice with its high-born, Moorish, Prince of Morocco, [20] and Titus Andronicus, in which a Moor, Aaron, was a prominent villain, and as such was a forerunner of both Othello and Iago. [21] Portrait of Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud ben Mohammed Anoun, Moorish ambassador to Queen Elizabeth I in 1600, sometimes suggested as the inspiration for Othello. [22] Tags: Analysis Of William Shakespeare’s Othello, Bibliography Of William Shakespeare’s Othello, Character Study Of William Shakespeare’s Othello, Criticism Of William Shakespeare’s Othello, Drama Criticism, ELIZABEHAN POETRY AND PROSE, Essays Of William Shakespeare’s Othello, Literary Criticism, Notes Of William Shakespeare’s Othello, Othello, Othello Analysis, Othello Criticism, Othello Essay, Othello Feminism, Othello Notes, Othello Play, Othello PSychoanalysis, Othello Summary, Plot Of William Shakespeare’s Othello, Simple Analysis Of William Shakespeare’s Othello, Study Guides Of William Shakespeare’s Othello, Summary Of William Shakespeare’s Othello, Synopsis Of William Shakespeare’s Othello, Themes Of William Shakespeare’s Othello, William Shakespeare, William Shakespeare’s Othello Related Articles