‘Speak of me as […]’: Refashioning geographies of monstrosity in Othello

Abstract

The connection between monstrosity, space, and power in Othello is explored through the notion of ‘geographies of monstrosity’. I argue that the play's spatial collocation of monsters and a-normativity echoes the Renaissance transition towards a more introjected perception of monstrosity, which does not occur when Othello is in a ‘central’ place (Venice), but when he moves to a frontier point (Cyprus) and refashions himself as the monstrous protagonist of tales to be circulated in Venice. As suggested, this emergence of an inner geography of monstrosity is strictly linked to the subversion of power politics.