Othello, The Moor of Venice Overview: Sources & Statistics

• Category: Tragedy
• Period written: 1604
• First known performance: November 1, 1604 (Whitehall Palace, London)
• Number of lines: 3560
• Number of scenes: 15
• Total Characters: 24
• Prose/Verse: 19%/81%
• Folios: Folio 1 (1623, based on Q1), Folio 2 (1632), Folio 3 (1663-4), Folio 4 (1685)
• Quartos: Quarto 1 (1622), Quarto 2 (1630), Quarto 3 (1655), Quarto 4 (1681), Quarto 5 (1687), Quarto 6 (1695)
• Possible Sources: Gli Hecatommithi (G. B. Giraldi, 1566), Certane Tragicall Discourses (Bandello, 1567), The Generall Historie of the Turkes (Richard Knolles, 1603)

View list of sources used for the PlayShakespeare.com editions.

Humor and Absurdity in a Tragedy

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

Confounding “The Iago Epilogue” Initiates Rather than Ends the Conversation

A Morally Ambiguous Othello

Curio Theatre Company

• pdf Othello (Japanese)
• pdf Othello (Arabic)
• pdf Othello Q2 (1630)