C. S. Lewis's Lost Othello Manuscript and the Re-Presentations of Race

Abstract

This essay examines C. S. Lewis's recently discovered essay on Othello, taking Lewis's comments on race in Othello as the basis for exposing modern critical short-sidedness when dealing with this play. Specifically, Lewis's comments on Othello's blackness underscore the problems of considering the character of Othello according to modern paradigms of race. Lewis's essay is then used to explain the power behind Laurence Olivier's film version of Othello, an adaptation where Olivier plays Othello in blackface.