Othello on Othello. Although characters described as "moors" appear in two other Shakespeare plays ("Titus Andronicus" and "The Merchant of Venice"), such characters were a rarity in contemporary theatre, and it was unknown for them to take centre stage. There is no consensus over Othello's ethnic origin. E. A. J. Honigmann, the editor of the Arden Shakespeare edition, concluded that Othello's race is ambiguous. "Renaissance representations of the Moor were vague, varied, inconsistent, and contradictory. As critics have established, the term 'Moor' referred to dark-skinned people in general, used interchangeably with terms such as 'African', 'Somali', 'Ethiopian', 'Negro', 'Arab', 'Berber', and
Portraits of Shakespeare a portrait, and there is no written description of his physical appearance. However, it is thought that portraits of him did circulate during his lifetime because of a reference to one in the anonymous play "Return from Parnassus" (c. 1601), in which a character says "O sweet Mr Shakespeare! I'll have his picture in my study at the court." After his death, as Shakespeare's reputation grew, artists created portraits and narrative paintings depicting him, most of which were based on earlier images, but some of which were purely imaginative. He was also increasingly commemorated in Shakespeare memorial sculptures, initially in