Honest Iago and the Lusty Moor: the Humanistic Drama of Honestas/Voluptas in a Shakespearean Context

Abstract

The following reading of Othello derives from my background in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Latin and Italian literature. My work has focused on the theme of pleasure and folly, from Valla and early fifteenth-century Italian humanism to Erasmus, Boiardo, and Ariosto, the Innamorato and the Orlando Furioso.¹ I have also been interested in Italian theatre from the humanistic university farces in Latin to the commedia dell’arte and Machiavelli’s Mandragola.