This course will explore Shakespeare’s Othello, arguably the most controversial of his mature tragedies. There will be two main objectives. Firstly, you will develop your analytical skills by a close reading of the play and its two key intertexts—a tale from Cinthio’s De Gli Hecatommithi (1566) and an extract from Leo Africanus’s The History and Description of Africa (1600). Secondly, by focusing on the main characters (Othello, a black general, Desdemona, his Venetian wife, and Iago, who convinces Othello to doubt Desdemona’s fidelity), we will discuss race and gender in early modern England, and how these issues have and will continue to influence the way the play has been received, performed, and filmed.
Primary Text:
Shakespeare, Othello. Revised Edition. Ed. E.A.J. Honigmann. With a new introduction by Ayanna Thompson. The Arden Shakespeare Third Series. Bloomsbury, 2016.
- Enseignant·e: Antoinina Bevan Zlatar