The Meaning Of Othello

Moor is a word with dense associations. Two meanings, as the Oxford English Dictionary tells us, jostle: one is geographical, “the Moor is an inhabitant of North-Africa, Mauritania (present day Morocco). In the 8th century they conquered the Iberian peninsula, but were finally driven out of their last stronghold in Granada at the end of the 15th century.” The second meaning which is associated, is a more general designation: Moor meaning “a muslim of mixed Berber and Arab descent.” Of course, much ink has been spilled about whether Othello is an ethnically marked inhabitant of North-Africa, a noble Arab, or from Sub-Saharan Africa (as in the epithet “black” when Iago says “we will drink the health of black Othello”). This distinction is no