Retropost, 2014:
—From The Oxford Companion to English Literature, ed. Margaret Drabble.
Othello, the Moor of Venice, a tragedy by *Shakespeare,
written between 1602 and 1604 when it was performed before James I at
Whitehall. It was first printed in quarto in 1622, and again in a
different version in the *Folio of 1623. The story is taken from
*Cinthio, which Shakespeare could have read in Italian or French.
The play's first act (which *Verdi's opera Otello omits) is set
in Venice. Desdemona, the daughter of Brabantio, a Venetian senator, has
secretly married Othello, a Moor in the service of the state. Accused
before the duke and senators of having stolen Brabantio's daughter,
Othello explains and justifies his conduct, and is asked by the Senate
to lead the Venetian forces against the Turks who are about to attack
Cyprus.
In the middle of a storm which disperses the Turkish fleet, Othello
lands in Cyprus with Desdemona, Cassio, a yhoung Florentine, who helped
him court his wife and whom he has now promoted to be his lieutenant,
and Iago, an older soldier, bitterly resentful of being passed over for
promotion, who now plans his revenge. Iago uses Roderigo, 'a gull'd
Gentleman' in love with Desdemona, to fight with Cassio after he has got
him drunk, so that Othello deprives him of his new rank. He then
persuades Cassio to ask Desdemona to plead in his favour with Othello,
which she warmly does. At the same time he suggests to Othello that
Cassio is, and has been, Desdemona's lover, finally, arranging through
his wife Emilia, who is Desdemona's waiting-woman, that Othello should
see Cassio in possession of a handkerchief which he had given to his
bride. Othello is taken in by Iago's promptings and in frenzied jealousy
smothers Desdemona in her bed. Iago sets Roderigo to murder Cassio, but
when Roderigo fails to to this Iago kills him and Emilia as well, after
she has proved Desdemona's innocence to Othello. Emilia's evidence and
letters found on Roderigo prove Iago's guilt; he is arrested, and
Othello, having tried to stab him, kills himself.
According to *Rymer one of the play's morals was 'a warning to all good
wives that they look well to their linen'. *Coleridge in a famous phrase
described Iago's soliloquy at the end of I. iii as 'the motive-hunting
of motiveless malignity'.