Desdemona (Othello)
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| Desdemona | |
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| Creator | William Shakespeare |
| Play | Othello |
| Date | c.1601-1604 |
| Source | "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio (1565) |
| Family and Associates | Othello, husband Brabantio, father Emilia, attendant and confidante |
| Role | Othello's wife and murder victim • Brabantio's daughter • Cassio's intercessor |
| Quote | Sing willow, willow, willow (4.3) |
| Interpreters | Margaret Hughes Sarah Siddons Anna Mowatt Helen Faucit Ellen Terry Peggy Ashcroft Uta Hagen Suzanne Cloutier Maggie Smith |
Desdemona is a character in Shakespeare's Othello (c.1601-1604).
Shakespeare's Desdemona is a Venetian beauty who enrages and disappoints her father, a Venetian senator, when she elopes with a man several years her senior and not of her race. When her husband is deployed to Cyprus in the service of the Venetian Republic, Desdemona accompanies him. There, her husband is manipulated into believing she is an adultress, and, in the last act, she is murdered by her estranged spouse.
The role has attracted notable actresses through the centuries and has the distinction of being the role performed by Margaret Hughes, the first actress to appear on an English public stage.
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[edit] Source
Othello has its source in the 1565 tale, "Un Capitano Moro" in Gli Hecatommithi by Giovanni Battista Giraldi Cinthio. While no English translation of Cinthio was available in print during Shakespeare's lifetime, it is possible that Shakespeare knew both the Italian original, Gabriel Chappuy's 1584 French translation, and an English translation in manuscript. Cinthio's tale may have been based on an actual incident occurring in Venice about 1508.[1]
The only named character in Cinthio's story is "Disdemona", which means "unfortunate" in Greek; the other characters are identified only as the Moor, the ensign, the ensign's wife, and the squadron leader. In the original, the ensign lusts after Disdemona and is spurred to revenge when she rejects him. Unlike Shakespeare's Othello, the Moor in Cinthio's story never repents the murder of his wife. Both he and the ensign escape immediate prosecution but are killed much later. Cinthio also drew a moral (which he placed in the mouth of the lady) that European women are unwise to marry the temperamental males of other nations.[2]
While Shakespeare followed Cinthio's tale very closely in composing Othello, he deviated significantly in some details. He invented Desdemona's father, Brabantio, and her dissolute Venetian admirer, Roderigo. He invented the entire first act in which Iago arouses Brabantio's prejudices against Othello, and Desdemona defends her choice of husband before the Doge.
Shakespeare considerably expanded the role of Cinthio's ensign's wife. In Cinthio, she is simply Disdemona's companion but in Shakespeare she becomes Desdemona's attendant and confidante. In Cinthio, the ensign filches Desdemona's handkerchief from a sash at her waist; his wife is not involved in the mischief as is Shakespeare's Emilia. Later, Cinthio's ensign's wife learns of her husband's villainy in the handkerchief deception but feels constrained to remain silent.[1] Unlike Shakespeare's Emilia, Cintho's ensign's wife lives to tell what she knows of Disdemona's death long after her husband and the Moor are dead.
Disdemona's death in Cinthio is strikingly different from Desdemona's death in Shakespeare. The poet's gentle scene between Desdemona and Emilia while preparing for bed does not exist in Cinthio, and Cinthio's murder of Disdemona is accomplished when the Moor commissions his ensign to bludgeon Disdemona to death with a sand-filled stocking. The two murderers then place her lifeless body upon her bed, smash her skull, and cause the cracked ceiling of the room to collapse upon her, giving the impression that the lady's skull was smashed by falling rafters.[1]
[edit] Role in Othello
In the play's first act, Desdemona has eloped with Othello, a Moor in the service of the Venetian Republic. Before the Duke of Venice, his councilmen, and her father, she proclaims her love for Othello and defends her choice. Her father reluctantly accepts the union, but warns Othello that she will some day deceive him. When Othello is sent to Cyprus in the line of duty, Desdemona accompanies him with his ensign's wife, Emilia attending her.
In act 2, Othello's lieutenant, Cassio is disgraced in a brawl, and falls from Othello's favor. Iago suggests to Cassio that he importune Desdemona to intercede for him, which he does. Meanwhile, Iago persuades Othello that Desdemona has formed an illicit relationship with Cassio. When Emilia finds a handkerchief belonging to Desdemona, her husband appropriates it and forbids Emilia to disclose its whereabouts to Desdemona. Iago plants the article in Cassio's room. Eventually, Othello sees Cassio with the handkerchief and accepts it as confirmation of Desdemona's infidelity.
Desdemona is concerned over the loss of the handkerchief but maintains that its loss will not cause Othello to grow angry. Emilia is more cynical, especially after Othello violently asks to see it. Desdemona is confused over her husband's behaviour, which culminates in his striking her in public and calling her a whore.
Desdemona is deeply upset by her husband's attacks but continues to assert her love. In the final act, Othello tells her that he knows she has been unfaithful, and is going to kill her. Despite Desdemona's claims of innocence, Othello refuses to believe her, and when he tells her that Cassio has been killed, Desdemona cries out. Othello becomes enraged and suffocates Desdemona, ignoring her pleas for mercy. When her maid Emilia rushes into the room, Desdemona rises weakly to defend Othello, then dies.
[edit] Analysis
In 1985, Shirley Nelson Garner examined Othello and three other Shakespearean plays (Much Ado about Nothing, Cymbeline, and The Winter's Tale) and noted a pattern in which the male protagonists suspect their guiltless wives or lovers of infidelity upon the flimsiest of hints. The protagonists then begin to plot to cause their partners' humiliation, and when the partners are either dead or thought to be dead, the grieving protagonists repent. Garner contended that such conduct reflected a male fear of heterosexual relationships and that as the protagonists loosed their ties with their wives and lovers they reaffirmed their relationships with other males. Garner suggested males have an unconscious need for betrayal and cultivate fantasies in which their partners will forgive them no matter how brutishly they conduct themselves.[citation needed]
[edit] Cuts in performance
Desdemona's banter with Iago and Emilia at their arrival in Cyprus (2.1.100ff) has been traditionally regarded as distasteful and cut on moral and artistic grounds, being deemed unworthy of a noble tragedy such as Othello and out of character for Desdemona. Today, however, the passage's purpose is sometimes viewed as a depiction of Desdemona's awareness of the way of the world, and her persistence in pursuing the exchanges as a characteristic innocent overconfidence displayed elsewhere in the play (3.3.41-83, 3.4.90ff).[citation needed]
[edit] Performance history
Desdemona's first interpreter was most certainly a boy actor with a singing voice. Speculation indicates that the play's date of composition, traditionally accepted as 1603-1604, is actually 1601-1602 and thus contemporary with Twelfth Night. It is believed Shakespeare's company lost a talented boy singer at the date of Twelfth Night when the song, "Come Away, Death", was transferred from Viola to Feste. The absence of Desdemona's "Willow Song" in the Othello quarto of 1622 is cited as another piece of evidence supporting the speculation that Othello dates to the period of Twelfth Night and the company's loss of a talented boy actor and singer.[citation needed]
On December 8, 1660, Thomas Killigrew's new King's Company acted Othello at their Vere Street theatre, with Margaret Hughes as Desdemona — possibly the first time a professional actress appeared on a public stage in England. She certainly played Desdemona in the performance of Othello seen by Samuel Pepys on February 6, 1669.
Pepys was present for a performance of Othello at the Cockpit on October 11, 1660, noting in his diary: "a pretty lady that sat by me called out to see Desdemona smothered."[1]
In the eighteenth century, the play was sometimes cut to heighten the tragic nobility of the protagonist. Bell's acting version, for example, omitted several moments including Desdemona's conversation with Emilia before her death—a death which is accomplished in Bells' version by stabbing rather than suffocation.[1]
In the nineteenth century, behind-the-scenes events in the lives of the play's performers garnered for Othello a shocking and sensational reputation. Charles Kean, for example, suffered a bitter divorce in 1825, and, in 1833, collapsed following a performance of the play, dying shortly thereafter. Edwin Forrest filed for divorce on the grounds of adultery only to be found guilty himself and ordered to pay alimony. Ira Aldridge, an American black actor who appeared in the role, married a white woman. Such events cultivated the play's shocking and sensational reputation, and Tommaso Salvini's savage and sensual performance only enhanced it. In his rendition, Desdemona's death was an especially violent affair. Further cultivating the drama's reputation were the performances of Sarah Siddons, Anna Mowatt, and Ellen Terry who all played the melodramatic role of womanly innocence traduced and overwhelmed to the hilt.[1]
In 1839, Samuel Phelps and William Charles Macready alternated in the roles of Othello and Iago at the Haymarket Theatre with Helen Faucit in the role of Desdemona. In 1881, Ellen Terry performed the role at London's Lyceum Theatre with Edwin Booth and Henry Irving alternating in the roles of Othello and Iago. The production was a great artistic and financial success.[1]
In the twentieth century, Peggy Ashcroft played the character opposite Paul Robeson in London's Savoy Theatre in 1930, and Uta Hagen appeared in the role opposite Robeson in Margaret Webster's production at the Schubert Theatre in New York City in 1943.[1]
In cinema, Suzanne Cloutier played Desdemona opposite Orson Welles in a version that won the Palme D'Or at the 1952 Cannes Film Festival. In a 1966 film which holds the record for the most Academy Award nominations given to a Shakespeare film, Maggie Smith played the character opposite Laurence Olivier. Smith and co-stars Olivier, Frank Finlay (Iago), and Joyce Redman (Emilia) all received acting nominations. Irène Jacob played the character in a 1995 film opposite Laurence Fishburne. In O (2001), Julia Stiles played a character based on Desdemona in a version of the play set in a contemporary high school.
Desdemona is a character in José Limón's ballet The Moor's Pavane (1949) and in operas by Rossini (1816) and Verdi (1887).
[edit] References
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