| Description |
xiv, 243 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm |
| Contents |
Pt. I. Jacobean Contexts. 1. Global discourse: Venetians and Turks. 2. Military discourse: knights and mercenaries. 3. Racial discourse: black and white. 4. Marital discourse: husbands and wives -- Pt. II. Representations. 5. Othello in Restoration England. 6. Amateur versus professional: the Delaval Othello. 7. William Charles Macready and the domestic Othello. 8. Salvini, Irving, and the dissociation of intellect. 9. "The Ethiopian Moor": Paul Robeson's Othello. 10. Orson Welles and the patriarchal eye. 11. Othello in the 1990s: Trevor Nunn's 1989 Royal Shakespeare Company production |
| Summary |
The first section examines these four sets of contemporary writings and demonstrates how they were embedded in the text of Othello. The following chapters trace Othello's history on stage or in film in England and the United States from the Restoration to the late 1980s. Each chapter highlights particular productions or performers to demonstrate how and why elements from Shakespeare's text were emphasized or repressed. In the Restoration, for example, Othello was a gentleman and an officer, his characterization shaped by actors who had served in King Charles' army. During the Victorian period, in contrast, the Moor's private role of devoted husband was privileged over his occupation. When Paul Robeson performed Othello in 1930 and 1943-44, race was highlighted as the play's central issue. Othello is thus revealed as a significant shaper and major reflector of cultural meanings, as it participated in a complex negotiation between actors, critics, audiences, and the culture at large |
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Shakespeare's Othello has exercised a powerful fascination over audiences for centuries with its intense portrayal of passionate love and destructive jealousy. This study is a major exercise in the historicization of Othello. Initially the author examines the early Jacobean context of the play, and the discourses which formed its writing. Circulating simultaneously in late Renaissance London were accounts of Mediterranean clashes between Turks and Venetians, treatises on the professionalization of England's military forces, depictions of North Africans and blackamoors, and narratives of jealous husbands who murdered their wives. In the centuries after 1604, productions of Othello stressed the contextual discourse that best reflected current cultural concerns |
| Analysis |
English drama |
| Notes |
Includes index |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Subject |
Othello (Fictitious character from Shakespeare)
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Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Contemporary England
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Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Stage history.
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Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616.
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Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616. Othello.
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Interracial marriage in literature.
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Jealousy in literature.
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Literature and history -- England -- History -- 17th century.
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| LC no. |
93050148 |
| ISBN |
0521460697 (hardback) |
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