Is it correct to portray Shakespeares character Othello as having black skin?
Age old debate — Othello is referred to as a “Moor”, but for Elizabethan English people, this term could refer either to the Berbers (or Arabs) of North Africa, or to the people now called “black” (that is, people of sub-Saharan African descent). In his other plays, Shakespeare had previously depicted both a Berber Moor (in The Merchant of Venice) and a black Moor (in Titus Andronicus). In Othello, however, the references to the character’s physical features do not settle the question of which race Shakespeare envisioned.
