Othello
Othello names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Othello with his barbaric innocence and regal magnificence of soul
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
with his barbaric innocence and regal magnificence of soul, must cease to live the moment he ceases to retain faith in the purity and goodness which were to him the highest and most real things upon earth. Or if he live, life must become to him a cruel agony. Shakespeare compels us to acknowledge that self-slaughter is a rapturous energy--that such prolonged agony is joy in comparison with the earthy life-in-death of such a soul as that of Iago. . . . To die as Othello dies is indeed grievous. But to live as Iago lives, devouring the dust and stinging--this is more appalling. . . . Othello dies "upon a kiss." He perceives his own calamitous error, and he recognizes Desdemona pure and loyal as she was. Goodness is justified of her child. It is evil which suffers defeat. It is Iago whose whole existence has been most blind, purposeless and miserable--a struggle against the virtuous powers of the world, by which at last he stands convicted and condemned.--Dowden.
Othello The Moor of Venice
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
The Moor of Venice, a tragedy by William Shakespeare, written about 1604, and published first in 1622. The plot is based on a story told by an Italian novelist. It is the simplest of the four great tragedies, of which the other three are Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear . Othello, the Moor, wins the love of Desdemona, daughter of Brabantio, and weds her against her father's wishes. Then Iago, the ancient of Othello, suggests to his master that Desdemona is unfaithful. Othello, as he believes, finds proof that this is true and murders his wife by smothering her in her bed. Then, learning that she is innocent, he stabs himself. The character of Othello is the center of interest in this play. While less interesting as a reading play than the other tragedies mentioned above, Othello has been more popular on the stage. Othello was one of Salvini's greatest roles, which he played at one time with Edwin Booth as Iago.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's in 1910 could praise Salvini's Othello opposite Edwin Booth's Iago without once mentioning that the Moor was, as a matter of course, played by a white actor in dark makeup. That convention has collapsed: Paul Robeson's Othello ran 296 performances on Broadway in 1943, Laurence Olivier's 1965 blacked-up film performance is now the standard example of what is no longer done, and the Metropolitan Opera abandoned dark makeup for Verdi's Otello in 2015. The play itself is unchanged, and the plot summary still holds, but race is now the central question of nearly every production and most criticism, where Dowden in the passage above saw only "barbaric innocence" and a contest of good against evil. The unnamed "Italian novelist" is identified as Giovanni Battista Giraldi Cinthio, whose tale appeared in the Hecatommithi of 1565.
Written for this edition, 2026.