48 Fun Facts About Othello

What phrase completes the play's full title, The Tragedy of Othello, ...?

The full title is The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice; it is often grouped with Hamlet, King Lear and Macbeth as one of Shakespeare's four major tragedies.

In which two places is Othello set?

Venice and Cyprus: Act 1 unfolds among the senate and streets of Venice, and from Act 2 the action moves to the garrison island of Cyprus.

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?

Othello chooses Cassio, a Florentine 'arithmetician' with more theory than field experience, as his lieutenant; Iago, passed over, resolves to destroy him.

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: Othello recounts how she listened to his tales of battles, captivity and travels; 'She loved me for the dangers I had passed.'

What happens to the Turkish fleet before the Venetians land on Cyprus?

A storm destroys it: a 'desperate tempest' wrecks the Turkish fleet at sea, so the Venetians land with no battle to fight.

How does Iago first bring about the new lieutenant's disgrace?

He gets him drunk and into a brawl: Iago plies the lieutenant with wine, has him provoked into a street fight, and Othello dismisses him after Montano is wounded.

Who finds the dropped handkerchief and hands it to Iago?

She is Desdemona's attendant and does not know what her husband plans to do with it.

What fruit is embroidered on the handkerchief?

Strawberries: Iago describes it as 'a handkerchief spotted with strawberries', and critics read the red fruit on white cloth as an emblem of the bride's virginity and the wedding sheets.

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: the Folio stage direction reads 'Smothers her', and Othello presses the pillow down on her in their bed after she denies any adultery.

What rank does Othello hold when the play opens?

Othello is the general: the senate entrusts him with the island's defence, and his officers address him throughout simply as 'the general'.

What does Iago vow once he is exposed?

His vow is to never speak again: 'Demand me nothing; what you know, you know. From this time forth I never will speak word.'

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 the plot?

Cinthio, the pen-name of Giovanni Battista Giraldi, published the tale in his Gli Hecatommithi in 1565; the same collection also supplied the story behind Measure for Measure.

How is the wife murdered in Shakespeare's source story?

The Moor and the Ensign then bring down the bedroom ceiling to make it look like an accident.

What is the latest year in which Othello could have been written, based on a recorded court performance?

The performance appears in the accounts of Sir Edmund Tilney, Master of the Revels; the King's Men played it at court on 1 November 1604.

In what year was Othello first published, as a quarto?

Othello was first published in 1622, a quarto printed for Thomas Walkley, the year before the First Folio collected it.

Roughly how many lines in the First Folio Othello are absent from the earlier quarto?

The Folio adds about 160 lines absent from the quarto, among them Othello's 'Pontic Sea' simile and the Willow Song scene.

How many quarto oaths are missing from the Folio, possibly because of the 1606 Act of Abuses?

There are more than a thousand other variations of wording, spelling and punctuation between the two texts.

How many lines does Iago speak, making his the larger of the play's two great roles?

Iago speaks 1,097 lines, the longest part in the play and one of the longest in all Shakespeare, ahead of Othello's own role.

Which word is used more than 40 times in the play, usually about Iago and with a double meaning?

'Honest' is used more than 40 times, mostly of 'honest Iago'; the word doubles as a patronising tag for a social inferior and a claim of truthfulness.

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

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in lecture notes of about 1818, called Iago's soliloquies 'the motive-hunting of a motiveless malignity' and insisted Shakespeare could not have meant Othello to be 'a veritable negro'.

Which critic suggested in 1693 that the play 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 is thought to have influenced Shakespeare's portrait of a Moor?

The ambassador of the King of Barbary, Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud, led a Moroccan embassy that spent about six months in London from August 1600, and Shakespeare's company performed at court during the stay.

Which actor originally played the title role for the King's Men?

Richard Burbage, the King's Men's leading tragedian, created the role; a funeral elegy of 1619 lists 'the grieved Moor' among his celebrated parts.

Who gave the first known professional performance of Othello by a black actor, in New York in 1822?

James Hewlett, star of New York's African Grove company, is the first black actor known to have played Othello professionally; Ira Aldridge followed him in London in 1825.

Which black actor's 1943 Broadway Othello, directed by Margaret Webster, was a theatrical landmark?

Paul Robeson's 1943 Othello ran 296 performances, a Broadway record for Shakespeare; José Ferrer was Iago, and Robeson had first played the part in London in 1930.

Which Russian director staged a 1930 Moscow Art Theatre Othello by letter while ill in France?

Konstantin Stanislavski directed the 1930 Moscow Art Theatre Othello from Nice, where he was convalescing after a heart attack, sending detailed production notes by post to his cast.

Which actor's 1965 film of his National Theatre Othello earned him an Oscar nomination alongside Maggie Smith, Frank Finlay and Joyce Redman?

Laurence Olivier's blackface Othello, filmed from the National Theatre staging, brought Oscar nominations for all four leads; he said he moved 'like a soft black leopard', and later critics have found the performance racist.

Whose Othello film, panned in 1955 as "The Boor of Venice", was hailed as a classic when restored in 1992?

Orson Welles shot his Othello in fits and starts between 1949 and 1951, taking acting jobs to fund each stretch; the 1992 restoration won it classic status.

Who played Iago opposite Laurence Fishburne in Oliver Parker's 1995 film?

Kenneth Branagh played Iago, delivering the soliloquies straight to camera, opposite Laurence Fishburne's Othello in Oliver Parker's 1995 film, which was marketed as an erotic thriller.

The 1995 film starring Laurence Fishburne was the first major-studio Othello to do what?

It cast an African American actor in the title role: Laurence Fishburne was the first black Othello in a major studio film, after low-budget versions with Yaphet Kotto and Ted Lange.

Which composer's 1887 opera Otello, with a libretto by Boito, is considered equal to the play?

Giuseppe Verdi's Otello, with Arrigo Boito's libretto, premiered at La Scala on 5 February 1887; only Falstaff followed it.

Which composer's 1816 Otello made Desdemona its focus and even spawned a version with a happy ending?

Rossini's Otello (Naples, 1816) centres on the heroine's plight rather than the Moor's jealousy, and a version with a happy ending was prepared for Rome in 1820.

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

Odin James, a basketball star played by Mekhi Phifer, is the Othello figure in O (2001), with Josh Hartnett's Hugo as the Iago counterpart.

Vishal Bhardwaj's Hindi film Omkara relocates the story to political violence in which Indian state?

Uttar Pradesh: Omkara (2006) turns Othello into Omkara Shukla, a political enforcer in the badlands of western Uttar Pradesh, with Saif Ali Khan as the Iago figure Langda Tyagi.

Which 1956 Western resets the story around the lieutenant character?

Jubal (1956), directed by Delmer Daves, makes Glenn Ford's drifter Jubal Troop the lieutenant figure, with Ernest Borgnine as the rancher whose jealousy Rod Steiger's Pinky inflames.

Which earlier Shakespeare comedy with a similar slander plot influenced Othello?

Much Ado About Nothing (c.1598) rehearses the plot in comic form: Don John's slander convinces Claudio that Hero is unfaithful, as Iago later convinces Othello.

Roughly how many hours does the action on Cyprus occupy, in the play's 'short' time scheme?

About 33 hours: from the landing on the island to the murder late the following night; John Wilson first set out this 'double time' in Blackwood's Magazine in 1849-50.

Which role gave the first professional acting appearance by a woman on the English stage in 1660?

Desdemona, in a Vere Street Theatre Othello on 8 December 1660, is the first role known to have been played professionally by a woman in England; Margaret Hughes is the traditional candidate.

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

Edmund Kean, from 1814, played Othello as a light-skinned 'tawny Moor' rather than in black makeup, beginning what was dubbed the Bronze Age of Othello.

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

Tommaso Salvini, on his tours of Britain and America in the 1880s, played Othello in Italian while the rest of the cast spoke English, most famously opposite Edwin Booth's Iago in 1886.

Which comedian played Othello for Northern Broadsides in 2009 in a change of direction?

Lenny Henry, until then known for comedy, played Othello for Barrie Rutter's Northern Broadsides in 2009, opening at the West Yorkshire Playhouse before a West End transfer.