Background information

About William Shakespeare

The author of the play Othello is William Shakespeare, who is one of the most well-known playwrights of all time. Shakespeare was born in 1564 in the English town of Stratford-upon-Avon. He began his career in London around 1585 as an actor, playwright, and part-owner of a theatre company called the Lord Chamberlain’s Men.

Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets, around 39 plays, including collaborations, and three narrative poems. Some of his earlier plays were mostly comedies and historical dramas. He later wrote mostly tragedies. Some of his works include Hamlet, Macbeth, and Othello (tragedies), Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Much Ado About Nothing (comedies), and Richard III and Julius Caesar (historical dramas). Some of the plays can be classifi...