Shakespeare

In 1600 a Moorish ambassador for the King of Barbary came to Elizabeth’s court, and became an object of fascinated attention. There is ample reason for Shakespeare to have seen, and even spoken with, him. He played before him at court, during the Christmas season. The Moor sat for his portrait during this visit, too, and the image of this dignified if somewhat withdrawn figure must have impressed itself upon Shakespeare’s conception of Othello. At the age of forty-two he looks haunted, forever watchful. It is a mistake to consider Othello to be of African or West Indian origin, as is often the case in modern productions. He was of Moorish stock, olive-skinned, and Shakespeare portrays him as “black” for the purposes of theatrical emphasis and symbolism. In Shylock Shakespeare had created a character of some complexity; by the time he came upon Othello, he had become even more interested in the role and nature of the scapegoat. But it would be a mistake to assume that he had any overt humanitarian purpose. Instead he had a keen eye and ear for theatrical intrigue.

There are other contemporary matters that must be seen in the context of Othello, if only because they would have been known to every member of the audience who witnessed the first production. King James had a pronounced sympathy for the Spanish state; that is why Shakespeare and his fellows were entertaining the Ambassador Extraordinary in Somerset House. But there was also a well-attested story publicised throughout Europe that the previous king of Spain, Philip II, was an insanely jealous husband who had strangled his wife in her bed. What is more, he had become suspicious of her when she had inadvertently dropped her handkerchief. These parallels are too close to be coincidental. The fact that Cyprus becomes the scene of the tragic action of Othello is also explicable in these terms. Cyprus was once a Venetian protectorate but had been occupied by Turkish forces for more than thirty years, and thus posed a threat to Spanish as well as Venetian interests in the region. King James himself had written a poem upon the subject. So Shakespeare was deliberately reflecting the interests and preoccupations of the sovereign. During the present reign of Philip III, too, Spain was at odds with the republic of Venice. It would be too much to claim, as some commentators have done, that Othello “represents” Spain and that Desdemona “represents” Venice. Yet it is undoubtedly true that Shakespeare’s imagination, magnetised, as it were, around Spain, had drawn in everything. He had become, for the purposes of this play, a vessel for all things Spanish.

So it would be wrong to state that Shakespeare never wrote a play concerning contemporary life. Othello was a very modern drama, refracting all the circumstances of the period. Shakespeare also read some recently published translations that suited his purpose – among them A Geographical Historie of Africa and Pliny’s Historie of the World. He also read Sir Lewis Lewkenor’s The Commonwealth and Government of Venice. These books were published in 1600, 1601 and 1599 respectively, so we may plausibly imagine Shakespeare as a haunter of bookstalls, picking up any recently printed volumes as a spur to his creativity. The booksellers pointed out their recent acquisitions, and his noble patrons may have informed him of the latest fashionable volume. But there was a pattern to his reading. The evidence of Othello suggests that, when he had hit upon a theme, he opened those books that were directly relevant to it. He was searching for local “colour” but also for the circumstantial detail and the significant phrase.