notes on Othello's page
- Act III's summary is quite bare, but it misses a few details I find important.
- a few misspellings of the name Othello?
- the religious and philosophical section makes no mention of the term "moor" and doesn't connect it back to the theme of the "other"
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Othello is referred to as a "Barbary horse" (1.1.113) and a "lascivious Moor" (1.1.127). In 3.3 he denounces Desdemona's supposed sin as being "black as mine own face." Desdemona's physical whiteness is otherwise presented in opposition to Othello's dark skin: 5.2 "that whiter skin of hers than snow." Iago tells Brabantio that "an old black ram / is tupping your white ewe" (1.1.88). In Elizabethan discourse, the word "black" could suggest various concepts that extended beyond the physical color of skin, including a wide range of negative connotations. [22][23] The term "tupping," initially sexual, also implies that Desdemona and Othello are mutually under a shepherd's control. [1]