Shakespeare, 'Othello' and Domestic Tragedy

Often
set in domestic environments and built around protagonists of more modest
status than traditional tragic subjects, 'domestic tragedy' was a genre that
flourished on the Renaissance stage from 1580-1620. Shakespeare, Othello, and Domestic Tragedy
is the first book to examine Shakespeare's relationship to the genre by way of
the King's and Chamberlain's Men's ownership and production of many of the
domestic tragedies, and of the genre's extensive influence on Shakespeare's own
tragedy, Othello. Drawing in part upon recent scholarship that
identifies Shakespeare as a co-author of Arden
of Faversham, Sean Benson demonstrates the extensive-even uncanny-ties
between Othello and the domestic
tragedies. Benson argues that just as Hamlet employs and adapts the
conventions of revenge tragedy, so Othello can only be fully understood
in terms of its exploitation of the tropes and conventions of domestic tragedy.
This book explores not only the contexts and workings of this popular sub-genre
of Renaissance drama but also Othello's secure place within it as the
quintessential example of the form.