Setting

• Setting and place take a central and symbolic role in Othello like in many of Shakespeare’s other plays.
• Shakespeare’s plays often took place in foreign countries such as France and Italy, inspired by Britain’s naval expansion and exploration at the time.
• There are two very different settings:

  • Venice in Italy.
  • Cyprus.
• Both represent hugely different ‘worlds’ and the shift in the setting in the play is reflected in shifts in plot, action and characterisation.
• Venice was a hugely influential commercial seaport in Italy in the sixteenth century.
• It took an active role in much of the Italian Renaissance literature, music, and architecture of the time.
• Venice was also symbolic of political factionalism, intrigue and moral corruption, even though Venetian society was generally orderly, civilised and formal as suggested in the first Act of Othello.
• Often, playwrights used Venice as a setting to represent cultural sophistication.