96 Fun Facts About Othello

Besides being passed over, what rumour does Iago say fuels his hatred of Othello?

Othello slept with his wife: Iago admits he doesn't know whether the rumour is true, yet vows to act on mere suspicion as if it were certain.

What does Othello demand that Iago produce against Desdemona, on pain of his wrath?

Ocular proof: Othello wants to see the betrayal with his own eyes, but Iago says catching the lovers in the act is impossible and offers circumstantial evidence instead.

What military rank does Iago hold under Othello?

Iago is Othello's ensign, called his 'ancient' in the text: the standard-bearer ranked below the lieutenant, the post he believes he deserved.

Whom does Othello promote to lieutenant, provoking Iago's resentment?

Cassio: Iago sneers that the Florentine is a mere 'arithmetician' who never set a squadron in the field, and plots to get his place.

Who is Desdemona's father?

Brabantio, a senator, is the bride's father; he accuses Othello before the Duke of winning her by witchcraft and disowns her when she defends the marriage.

Which wealthy, dissolute gentleman pays Iago to help him win Desdemona?

Roderigo, a rich gentleman who hoped Iago could buy him the lady's favour, is finally stabbed by Iago in the dark to silence him.

Which enemy fleet is threatening Cyprus when Othello is dispatched there?

The Turks: the senate sees through the Ottoman fleet's feint toward Rhodes and sends Othello to command the island's defence.

How does Othello say he won Desdemona's love, rather than by witchcraft?

By telling stories of his life: her father, who now cries witchcraft, had often invited Othello home to tell them, and she fell for the storyteller.

What happens to the enemy fleet before Othello lands on Cyprus?

A storm destroys it: a 'desperate tempest' wrecks the enemy ships at sea, so the war Othello was sent to fight is over before he lands.

Who finds the dropped handkerchief and hands it to Iago?

Emilia, Iago's wife, hands it over without knowing his plan, and her revelation of the truth about it exposes him in the final scene.

What fruit is embroidered on the handkerchief?

Strawberries: Iago describes it as 'spotted with strawberries', and Othello, who denied using magic to win his wife, later insists there is magic in its web.

In Othello, who is Bianca?

Bianca is a courtesan involved with Cassio; Iago gets him laughing about her while Othello, eavesdropping, believes the talk is about his wife.

How does Othello kill Desdemona?

He smothers her: yet when help arrives, the dying Desdemona answers 'Nobody; I myself' to shield him with her last words.

What rank does Othello hold when the play opens?

General: the senate needs him so urgently that he must sail to take command in Cyprus on the very night his secret marriage comes out.

What does Iago vow once he is exposed?

To never speak again: asked why he ensnared Othello, Iago answers 'Demand me nothing', so the several motives he gave earlier are never confirmed.

How does Othello die?

He commits suicide: after learning the truth Othello stabs himself with a hidden weapon and dies kissing his wife's body, 'to die upon a kiss'.

Who apprehends both Iago and Othello for the murders at the end of the play?

Lodovico, the envoy from the senate, strips Othello of his command, orders Iago held for torture, and closes the play promising to report 'this heavy act' to the state.

Whose 1565 collection of novellas was Shakespeare's main source for Othello?

Cinthio: in his tale the Moor is later killed by his wife's relatives.

In the Italian tale behind Othello, how is the Moor's wife killed?

Beaten with sand-filled socks: the killers then bring down the cracked bedroom ceiling on her so the death looks like an accident.

Which acting company played Othello at court in 1604?

The King's Men: Shakespeare's company, formerly the Lord Chamberlain's Men, took that name when James I came to the throne in 1603.

Othello reached print a year before which Shakespeare collection?

First Folio: two of Shakespeare's fellow actors gathered it after his death.

What song does Desdemona sing in a passage missing from Othello's first edition?

Willow Song: the first edition lets Desdemona mention her mother's maid's old song of willow, but only a later printing has her actually sing it.

What does Iago call jealousy when he warns Othello to beware of it?

The green-eyed monster: Iago warns that jealousy 'doth mock the meat it feeds on', while deliberately planting that very feeling in Othello.

Which word appears over 40 times in Othello, most often in describing Iago?

Honest: everyone keeps calling him 'honest Iago', the play's central irony, since he is the one deceiving them all.

Which critic coined the phrase "motive-hunting of motive-less Malignity" to describe Iago?

Samuel Taylor Coleridge: his note answers Iago's soliloquy, where he tries out one reason after another for a hatred that none of them explains.

Which critic suggested in 1693 that Othello should have been called "The Tragedy of the Handkerchief"?

Thomas Rymer, in A Short View of Tragedy (1693), mocked the play's reliance on the handkerchief and drew the moral that wives should 'look well to their Linnen'.

Which visitor to London in 1600 may have helped inspire Othello?

The ambassador of the King of Barbary: his embassy officially came to talk trade, but its real aim was a military alliance with England against Spain.

Which star of Shakespeare's company was the first actor to play Othello?

Richard Burbage: after his death in 1619, a funeral elegy mourned 'the grieved Moor' among the great parts that died with him.

Who gave the first known professional performance of Othello by a Black actor, in 1820s New York?

James Hewlett starred at New York's African Grove Theatre; his young castmate Ira Aldridge, unable to build an acting career in America, left for England and made Othello his most famous role.

Which actor's 1943 Othello set a Broadway record for a Shakespeare production?

Paul Robeson: his run neared 300 performances, but in 1950 the US revoked his passport, stalling his career until it was restored eight years later.

Which Russian director staged a 1930 Othello by letter while recovering from illness in France?

Konstantin Stanislavski: the plan he mailed helped shape his acting system, and rehearsing Othello became a main thread of his book on creating a role.

Which actor's 1965 filmed Othello earned Oscar nominations for all four of its leads?

Laurence Olivier: he played the Moor in blackface, a performance later critics have increasingly judged racially offensive.

Which director shot his Othello film in stops and starts, halting whenever the money ran out?

Orson Welles: when his costumes failed to arrive, he staged a murder scene in a bathhouse, where the actors needed only towels.

Who played Iago in Oliver Parker's 1995 film of Othello?

Kenneth Branagh: critics praised his Iago, while the Swiss star Irene Jacob, as Desdemona, struggled with the English.

What did Parker's 1995 Othello do first among major-studio films?

Cast an African American actor in the title role: with Laurence Fishburne as the Moor, the film played up the story's sexual and racial tensions.

Which composer's opera Otello, with a libretto by Arrigo Boito, premiered in Milan in 1887?

Giuseppe Verdi: after Aida in 1871 he wrote no new opera for 16 years, until his publisher Giulio Ricordi coaxed him into setting Boito's libretto.

Which composer's 1816 opera Otello called for three leading tenors?

Rossini: its libretto did not follow Shakespeare's play, and an alternative happy ending was later written for it.

In the teen film O, what is the name of the character based on Othello?

Odin: made around the time of the 1999 Columbine massacre, the high-school drama was then held back for about two years, until 2001.

Vishal Bhardwaj's Omkara relocates Othello to the gang politics of which Indian state?

Uttar Pradesh: the film turns Othello's racial difference into caste, making its hero an enforcer born to a low-caste mother.

Which 1956 Western, compared to Othello, has a scheming ranch hand make a rancher believe his wife is cheating?

Jubal: Rod Steiger plays the schemer, though critic Jonathan Rosenbaum judged the film's Othello parallels to be fairly loose.

Which Shakespeare comedy has a villain who, like Iago, tricks a lover into believing his bride-to-be is unfaithful?

Much Ado About Nothing: Don John's plotters stage a scene at Hero's window, so the deceived Claudio denounces her at their wedding.

In Othello's 'short' time scheme, how long after reaching Cyprus is Desdemona murdered?

About a day and a half: that leaves no time for the affair Iago alleges, yet other lines imply more than a week has passed, a clash critics call 'double time'.

Which white actor played Othello in a 1997 Washington 'photo-negative' production, with Black actors in most other roles?

Patrick Stewart: none of Shakespeare's lines about race were changed, so the other characters still called his white Othello black.

Which actor initiated the 'Bronze Age of Othello' by rejecting blackface for lighter makeup?

Edmund Kean: by theatre legend he collapsed onstage while playing Othello at Covent Garden in 1833, and he died about two months later.

Which Italian actor always played Othello in Italian, even alongside English-speaking casts?

Tommaso Salvini: at Gibraltar he studied a Moor he admired, then copied the man's gestures, movements and carriage for his Othello.

Which stand-up comedian played Othello in Northern Broadsides' 2009 production at the West Yorkshire Playhouse?

Lenny Henry: decades earlier, as a teenager, he had toured as a comedian with a stage version of The Black and White Minstrel Show.

Which board game of black and white discs was relaunched in 1970s Japan under the name Othello?

Reversi dates from 1883, but Goro Hasegawa patented his own version in 1971 and named it after the play. Its green board is meant to recall Othello leading his troops across a field.

Which everyday phrase comes from Iago's speech about hiding his motives in Othello's first scene?

Heart on your sleeve is where Iago says he will never wear his, since birds would only peck at it. He closes the speech with the chilling 'I am not what I am'.

Which Disney film gives its villain a loud-mouthed parrot named after the schemer of Othello?

Aladdin's parrot Iago, voiced by comedian Gilbert Gottfried, serves the sorcerer Jafar. In an early story treatment the bird was called Sinbad and written as a calm, serious British type.

Which Hollywood star returned to Broadway in 2025 to play Othello opposite Jake Gyllenhaal's Iago?

Denzel Washington had first played the part as a student at Fordham University in the 1970s. Kenny Leon, who directed him in Fences on Broadway, staged the 2025 revival.

In his final speech, Othello asks to be remembered as one who loved not wisely but how?

Too well is Othello's own verdict: a man undone by the strength of his love, not the lack of it. He also compares himself to someone who threw away a pearl worth more than all his tribe.

The Othello heroine Desdemona gives her name to a small moon of which planet, found by Voyager 2?

Uranus has moons named after characters from Shakespeare and Alexander Pope, and Voyager 2 spotted this one in January 1986. Its close neighbours include Juliet, Portia and Cressida.

The 2001 teen film O moves the plot of Othello to an American high school and which sport?

Basketball makes the hero his school's star player, and the Iago figure the coach's son, passed over for an award. The film sat unreleased for almost two years after the Columbine shooting.

What becomes of Iago at the very end of Othello, once his plot has been laid bare?

He is led away for torture, so the villain is still alive when the play ends. Othello wounds him but is glad he survives, saying that to die would be a happiness.

Asked in Othello who has attacked her, whom does the dying Desdemona name as the guilty party?

Herself is the answer she gives: Desdemona says nobody did it but she, then sends her love to her husband and dies. Othello repeats the lie for a moment before confessing.

Fittingly for a double-dealer, Iago swears an oath in Othello's first act by which Roman god?

Janus, the god of doorways and beginnings, is usually shown with two faces looking in opposite directions. Iago swears by him while posing as Othello's loyal protector in the street.

Which British film star played Iago to David Oyelowo's Othello at New York Theatre Workshop in 2016?

Daniel Craig took the role off-Broadway between his fourth and fifth James Bond films, in a modern staging directed by Sam Gold. A Daily Telegraph review called his villain chilling.

A. C. Bradley's Shakespearean Tragedy covers Othello, Hamlet, King Lear and which fourth play?

Macbeth completes the quartet in Bradley's 1904 book, published while he was Oxford's professor of poetry. He wrote that jealousy such as Othello's 'converts human nature into chaos'.

Which rock and roll pioneer played Iago in Catch My Soul, a 1968 rock musical version of Othello?

Jerry Lee Lewis was the villain of the original American production, produced by Jack Good. The title comes from a line Othello speaks about his love for Desdemona.

Which actress earned an Oscar nomination playing Desdemona in the 1965 British film of Othello?

Maggie Smith was nominated as Desdemona in a film that also gave Derek Jacobi and Michael Gambon their screen debuts. Gambon later joined her at Hogwarts as Dumbledore.

Which Nobel-winning novelist wrote the 2011 stage work Desdemona in answer to Shakespeare's Othello?

Toni Morrison wrote it after a disagreement with director Peter Sellars, who detested Shakespeare's play while she valued it. The musician Rokia Traoré was their collaborator.

Othello may have been written to please which new monarch, author of a poem on a sea battle?

James I had written a long poem on the Battle of Lepanto, a great Christian naval victory, and came to the English throne in 1603. Othello's sea war for Cyprus suited his tastes.

Which act by Othello and Desdemona, hours before the play opens, enrages her father?

A secret wedding has just taken place when the play begins, and Iago makes sure the bride's father hears of it in the crudest terms. The old man had often welcomed Othello as a guest.

What does Othello do to Desdemona in front of a visiting envoy from Venice?

He strikes her in public, and the envoy says nobody in Venice would believe it of the man the Senate thought unshakeable. Desdemona replies only that she has not deserved it.

After his disgrace on Cyprus, Othello's lieutenant cries three times that he has lost what?

His reputation, he says, was the immortal part of himself. Iago, who will later tell Othello that a good name is beyond price, shrugs it off here as an idle and false invention.

What happens to Othello's body in Act 4 as Iago's talk of the handkerchief finally overwhelms him?

He collapses in a fit, under the stage direction 'Falls in a trance', and Iago coolly tells a bystander it is epilepsy. The commanding soldier of Act 1 is visibly breaking.

Which way of killing Desdemona does Othello first ask for, before Iago talks him out of it?

Poison is what Othello demands that very night, afraid her beauty will weaken his resolve if he confronts her. Iago steers him towards her bed instead, and the 'justice' of it pleases him.

Desdemona drops the fateful handkerchief while trying to ease which complaint of Othello's?

A headache is his excuse for speaking faintly, moments after Iago has first stirred his suspicion. He pushes the cloth away as too little, and neither of them sees it fall.

Iago sneers that Othello's new lieutenant is a bookish 'arithmetician' from which Italian city?

Florence is the home of the man Iago mocks as a theorist who never set a squadron in the field. Iago himself, he says, had fought under Othello's eyes at Rhodes and Cyprus.

What does Iago's lovesick dupe vow to sell in Othello's first act to fund his pursuit of Desdemona?

All his land goes to fill the purse that Iago keeps telling him to stock with money. Left alone on stage, Iago admits that he always makes his fool his purse.

In Othello's last scene, what does a kinsman say has become of Desdemona's father?

He died of grief, and the kinsman is glad the old senator never lived to see this bedroom. Desdemona dies without ever hearing the news.

In the story Othello tells Desdemona about the handkerchief, who first gave it to his mother?

An Egyptian charmer who could almost read minds said it would keep his father faithful only while his mother kept it. Later Othello calls it simply a token his father gave her.

Iago claims that Othello's lieutenant, sharing a bed with him, gave himself away by doing what?

Talking in his sleep is Iago's invention: he says a toothache kept him awake to hear the man murmur to Desdemona. He then adds, slyly, that it was only a dream.

What does Othello's lieutenant want done with the handkerchief he finds planted in his room?

Have it copied, he tells his mistress, because he likes the needlework and expects the owner to come asking for it. She suspects it is a love token from another woman.

Which parting warning does Desdemona's father give Othello as the Senate hearing breaks up?

She may deceive him too, the old man warns, since she has already fooled her own father. Iago stores the line away and throws it back at Othello two acts later.

How does Othello punish his lieutenant on the spot after the night-watch disturbance on Cyprus?

Strips him of rank in one short sentence: Othello says he loves the man, but he will never again be an officer of his. The victim never suspects who arranged the whole scene.

In Othello's final scene, who kills the woman who reveals the truth about the handkerchief?

Her own husband, Iago, stabs her from behind and runs when she will not be silenced. She asks to be laid beside her mistress, having cleared Desdemona's name.

In his last speech, Othello recalls once striking down an enemy of Venice in which Syrian city?

Aleppo is where he says he seized a man who had struck a Venetian and insulted the state. The memory lets Othello cast himself one last time as the republic's loyal defender.

Which actor played Othello on Broadway in 1982 opposite Christopher Plummer's Tony-nominated Iago?

James Earl Jones led a cast that also had Dianne Wiest as Desdemona and Kelsey Grammer as the lieutenant. He had first played the part in his first acting season at a Michigan theatre.

Which actor played Othello opposite Bob Hoskins's Iago for BBC Television Shakespeare in 1981?

Anthony Hopkins played the part in dark make-up for director Jonathan Miller, who is said to have remarked that the play was about jealousy, not race.

Which tenor starred in Franco Zeffirelli's 1986 film Otello, the opera based on Othello?

Plácido Domingo sang the title role on film opposite Katia Ricciarelli's Desdemona. Lorin Maazel conducted the orchestra and chorus of La Scala for the soundtrack.

Before Othello, Shakespeare created the villainous Moor Aaron in which bloody Roman tragedy?

Titus Andronicus, thought to be Shakespeare's first tragedy, makes Aaron the secret lover of a captive queen. Othello reverses the pattern: the Moor is the hero and the schemer is a Venetian.

Which actress, often credited as England's first professional, played Desdemona in Othello in 1660?

Margaret Hughes took the role for Thomas Killigrew's company on 8 December 1660, when male actors still played Shakespeare's women. She later became the mistress of Prince Rupert of the Rhine.

Which American-born actor, hailed as the 'African Roscius', first appeared in a London Othello aged 17?

Ira Aldridge left New York for England in 1824 to escape discrimination, then toured Europe and received top honours from several heads of state. He died on tour in Poland and is buried in Łódź.

The 1951 film of Othello, shot over three years, won the top prize at which festival?

Cannes gave it the Grand Prix, forerunner of the Palme d'Or, in 1952, and it competed there under the Moroccan flag. It then waited more than three years for an American distributor.

Othello Castle, a harbour fortress named after the play, stands in which walled city of Cyprus?

Famagusta's citadel was built by the Lusignan kings and remodelled by Venice, whose lion of St Mark is carved above the main entrance. The modern name comes from a stage note in the play.

The name Desdemona, borne by Othello's wife, comes from a Greek word with which grim meaning?

Ill-fated translates the Greek dysdaimon. Othello seems to feel the meaning when, standing over her body, he calls her an 'ill-starr'd wench'.

Which Granada-born Moorish traveller wrote a geography book thought to be one of Shakespeare's sources for Othello?

Leo Africanus was raised in Fez, captured at sea by Spanish corsairs and baptised in St Peter's in 1520. His Geographical Historie of Africa reached English readers in 1600, shortly before the play.

Which former governor of Cyprus calls Othello a 'full soldier' and later disarms him in the final scene?

Montano had served under Othello before and is waiting by the shore when his ship comes in. In the last scene he takes away the sword Othello had drawn, then runs after the fleeing Iago.

To which Venetian lodging does Iago send the search party hunting Othello on the play's first night?

The Sagittary is where Othello and Desdemona are lodging, and he asks the Duke to send there for her so that she can speak for him. Iago has her father's armed search led straight to it.

Which servant of Othello dismisses the musicians hired to play outside his lodging in Act 3?

A clown appears twice in Act 3, first sending the musicians away with jokes about wind instruments, then punning on the word 'lie' when Desdemona asks where the lieutenant lodges.

Which Czech composer wrote a concert overture called Othello to end his trilogy Nature, Life and Love?

Antonín Dvořák completed it in 1892 as his Op. 93. Its companions in the trilogy are In Nature's Realm, standing for nature, and the Carnival Overture, standing for life.

Which organisation does the hero lead in a 2001 British TV film that resets Othello in the present?

The Metropolitan Police gets John Othello as its new Commissioner in Andrew Davies's script, promoted over his friend Ben Jago. Jago narrates the film himself.

Which actor won an Oscar for A Double Life, as a stage star whose Othello role takes over his mind?

Ronald Colman won Best Actor for the 1947 film noir, directed by George Cukor from a script by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin. His character begins to live out Othello's jealousy offstage.

Before he kills Desdemona, what does Othello urge her to do so that her soul will be spared?

Say her prayers, he insists, because he would not kill her unprepared spirit. He sees himself as a judge carrying out a sentence, and her denials only enrage him.

Which 1962 British film resets Othello in London's jazz scene, with Dave Brubeck playing himself?

All Night Long unfolds in a single evening at an anniversary party, with Patrick McGoohan among its stars. Brubeck and Mingus were in Britain during filming in 1961 and were recruited to take part.