Includes bibliographical references (pages 383-399) and index.
About the series -- About this volume -- List of illustrations -- Introduction -- An Othello pre-text: Cinthio, from Gli Hecatommithi -- Part one: William Shakespeare, Othello, the Moor of Venice -- Edited by David Bevington -- Part two: Cultural contexts -- Race and religion -- Othello's sword and English sexuality -- Blackness and Moors -- Peter Martyr, from the decades of the New World or West India -- George Best, from a true discourse of the late voyages of discovery -- Queen Elizabeth I, licensing Casper Van Senden to deport Negroes -- John Leo Africanus, from a geographical history of Africa -- Lady and the Blackamoor -- Ottoman empire and "turning Turk" -- Richard Knolles, from the general history of the Turks -- Giles Fletcher the elder, from policy of the Turkish empire -- Church of England, prayer for the preservation of those christians and their countries that are now invaded by the Turk -- Christianity -- Nicholas Udall, from respublica -- White devil -- Geneva bible, verses on the white devil -- Martin Luther, from a commentary upon the epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians -- Cultural geography -- Early modern Mediterranean -- Myth of Venice -- Dedicatory poems, from the commonwealth and government of Venice -- Fynes Moryson, from an itinerary -- Venice: Virgin/whore -- Thomas Coryate, from coryats crudities -- Cyprus: Birthplace of love -- Richard Knolles, from the general history of the Turks -- James VI and I, from the Lepanto -- Aleppo -- Jan Huyghen Van Linschoten, from his discourse of voyages into the East and West Indies -- Africa and barbary -- John Leo Africanus, from a geographical history of Africa -- Marriage and the household -- Baldassare Castiglione, from the book of the courtier -- Juan Luis Vives, from instruction of a christian woman -- William Whately, from a bride-bush: or, a wedding sermon -- Ste. B, from counsel to the husband: to the wife instruction -- Hannah Woolley, from the gentlewoman's companion; or, a guide to the female sex -- Martin Parker, from the married man's lesson: or, a dissuasion from jealousy -- From the cuckhold's haven -- Masculinity and military life -- Robert Barret, from the theory and practice of modern wars -- Thomas Proctor, from of the knowledge and conduct of wars -- Thomas and Leonard Digges, from an arithmetical military treatise, named stratioticos -- Thomas Styward, from the pathway to martial discipline -- John Taylor, from a valorous and perilous sea-fight fought with three Turkish ships -- Passions -- Thomas Wright, from the passions of the mind in general -- Pierre de la Primaudaye, from the French academy -- Love and jealousy -- Thomas Buoni, from problems of beauty and all human affections -- Benedetto Varchi, from the blazon of jealousy -- Robert Burton, from anatomy of melancholy -- Francis Bacon, from the essays or counsels, civil and moral -- Encounters with Othello -- Critical encounters -- Thomas Rymer, from a short view of tragedy -- Charlotte Ramsey Lennox, from Shakespeare illustrated -- William Winter, from othello: as presented by Edwin Booth -- Staging women -- Thomas Jordan, from the nursery of novelties in a variety of poetry -- Paula Vogel, from Desdemona: a play about a handkerchief -- Blackface minstrelsy -- Desdemonum: Ethiopian burlesque, in three scenes -- Thomas Dartmouth rice, from Otello: Burlesque opera -- Postcolonial encounters -- Tayeb Salih, from season of migration to the North -- Derek Walcott, goats and monkeys -- Bibliography -- Index