THE NAME OF OTHELLO IS NOT THE NAME OF "OTHELLO"

An early modern play-title may not be authorial and may be one of several given to the same piece. This essay takes the play usually known simply as 'Othello' as a case-study by collecting and examining records of the play in performance and print, before the closing of the theatres, during the interregnum and in the quarter-century following the resumption of playing in 1660. For almost all of these seventy-five years, the use of the character Othello's name to title the play is predominantly a print phenomenon or a usage by writers encountering the play in print. Performance records begin in Shakespeare's lifetime, antedating printed forms. They consistently record a different title, emphasizing the character's race and location. The disparity between print and performance titles invites a reconsideration of seventeenth-century records of performance and audience experience of the play, offering Pepys's experience of the play as a sample.