Book Description

The work from which the plot and story of Shakspere's 'Othello' are taken, belongs to that class of Italian novels which arose out of the popularity of Boccaccio's Decamerone, and was fostered by the taste prevalent in Italy during the fifteenth and sixtcenth centuries. Although occasionally we meet with a tale of merit or interest, and a certain charm in style and language, these but partially atone for a coarse licentiousness, a reflection of the times, which, notwithstanding that it received the seal and license of the Inquisitor, who proclaims them consonos sanctæ Ecclesiœ et ab Apostolica Fide non abhorrere, offend the moral sense of a purer age. This story of the Moor of Venice may be taken as a favourable specimen of the better class: it is contained in a collection of a hundred tales, entitled, 'Gli Hecatommithi,' by Giovan Battista Giraldi Cinthio,—a work which has been rescued from oblivion simply by the accident of its having furnished the muse of Shakspere with the plot and incidents of his 'Othello.' The author was a nobleman of Ferrara, and a professor of philosophy in that city: it is somewhat amusing to read the terms in which he speaks of the composition of his work, in connection with his "grave studies of philosophy,"—"by the light of which, the fount and origin of laudable habits, and of all honest discipline, and likewise of every virtue, I have sought to perfect my work, which is wholly directed, with much variety of examples, to censure vicious actions and to praise honest ones,—to make men fly from vice and embrace virtue." What could the reader expect after this proem, (which is found totidem verbis in all the books of this school,) but a work of untarnished purity and morality?—all I can say is, he would be disappointed.