The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice
(c.1604) is the only venture by Shakespeare into the popular
genre of domestic tragedy, in which the protagonists are not
great nobles. Othello is a professional soldier, a person on
whom the city of Venice depends; he is also an African Moor,
however, and thus an alien figure in Venetian society. After
marrying Desdemona, the daughter of Brabantio, a senator,
Othello (pictured left as played by Orson Welles, in Othello,
1952) is tricked into killing his loving wife through the
diabolic machinations of Iago - Shakespeare's most highly
developed villain. The play is based on an Italian story in
Giraldi Cinthio's Hecatommithi (1566), but Shakespeare may
have worked from a French translation (1584).
