Background+of+Othello

 Where in the world did Shakespeare come up with Othello?

If //Gli Hecatommithi// doesn't mean anything to you, don't feel bad. However, //Gli Hecatommithi// meant a lot to Shakespeare, because he based his famous tragedy Othello off of this Italian prose written by Giraldi Cinthio. Like Othello, this prose tale focused on lust, jealousy, and betrayal. Shakespeare spun the tale in his own direction adding many characters and introducing a racial theme not present in many other works at the time.  Shakespeare also took much of the plays context out of the battle between the West and the East at the time. He most likely took battle information from __The History of the Turks__ by Richard Knolle, a book published in 1603. Shakespeare might have taken Othello's African descent out of the conflicts between Christians and Muslims that had raged in the early part of the century. The setting of the Turkish and Roman conflict was true to the time as the nations battled in the later parts of the 16th century. 

I n a few other Shakespeare writings, such as Titus Andronicus and Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare uses a Moor as a character. A Moor, like Othello, was a person that had mixed Arabian and Berber ancestries. There were both white and black Moor's, so Othello being called a black Moor was a comment on the color of his skin and his background.

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