SOURCE: Barthelemy, Anthony Gerard, ed. “Ethiops Washed White: Moors of the Nonvillainous Type.” In Critical Essays on Shakespeare's Othello, pp. 91-103. New York: G.K. Hall, 1994.

In the following essay, originally published in 1987, Barthelemy traces the transformation of Othello within the course of the play. The critic notes that although Othello begins as the antithesis of the stereotypical black characters presented on stage in the late 1500s and early 1600s, by the play's end Othello has tragically relapsed into “the stereotypical Moor.”

I kiss the instrument of their pleasures. 

—William Shakespeare, Othello

During the seventeenth century, a few black characters appeared on the stage who, against their nature and kind, demonstrated that virtue stood not completely out of their reach. However, like their female counterparts, these virtuous few are clearly derived from the more commonly represented stereotype of the villainous Moor and are, more accurately, versions of that...