Desdemona Desdemona Desdemona () is a character in William Shakespeare's play "Othello" (c. 1601–1604). Shakespeare's Desdemona is a Venetian beauty who enrages and disappoints her father, a Venetian senator, when she elopes with Othello, a Moorish man several years her senior. When her husband is deployed to Cyprus in the service of the Republic of Venice, Desdemona accompanies him. There, her husband is manipulated by his ensign Iago into believing she is an adulteress, and, in the last act, she is murdered by her estranged spouse. The role has attracted notable actresses through the centuries and has the distinction of being
Emilia Lanier The character Emilia speaks some of the first feminist lines on an English stage and could thus be seen as a contemporary allegory for Emilia Lanier herself, while the musicians in both plays, Prior argues, are allegories for members of her family. For these and other reasons it has been argued by Prior and other scholars that Lanier co-authored these plays, especially the 1623 First Folio version of "Othello" which contains 163 key lines not present in the 1622 Quarto. In addition, Hudson believes that another "signature" exists in "Titus Andronicus" where there are an Aemilius and a Bassianus, each