When Love was Betrayed- Shakespeare’s Othello and Literary Criticism

Abstract

Shakespeare’s Othello remains till date the most significant testament on the human nature. Bedazzled by the performance, Renaissance audience, just like the contemporary one, continued to grapple with the power-play of emotions exerted by Othello employing all their might to understand the final outcome, that of Desdemona’s and Othello’s death. Handkerchief then becomes the necessary embodiment of Desdemona’s chastity as well as the main catalyst for all the turbulence depicted in the play.
Keywords: New Criticism, New Historicism, Handkerchief, Drama of conversion, Ego