Othello (1604)‎ revisited : Shakespeare’s characters and Elizabethan foreign policy

Abstract EN

This article attempts to historicize Shakespeare’s characterization in one of the most staged plays in the world, viz., Othello, The Moor of Venice (1603) The analysis is conducted along the lines of Nabil Matar’s study of the role of Barbary in the making of Early Modern Britain in his Britain and Barbary (2006).

Matar’s argument is brought to bear on Shakespeare’s characters by showing that Shakespeare’s shaping of the two characters, Othello and Iago, is informed by the foreign policy of Elizabeth I at the time of the writing of the play.

Our contention is that Othello, the protagonist, and Iago, the antagonist, capture and represent Britain's attitude towards two rival powers in the Mediterranean, namely the Kingdoms of Morocco and Spain.

If we have every right to see Othello, as Matar suggests, as a distant kin of al-Mansur, King of Morocco, Iago can, therefore, only be seen as a distant relative of King Philip II of Spain.