How Othello drew on Metamorphoses
A documented line of influence: William Shakespeare demonstrably engaged Ovid’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
Metamorphoses
Ovid · 8
Ancient RomeThe influenced
Othello
William Shakespeare · c. 1603
ShakespeareRelevance
4/10
On Othello’s page
- Behind Othello's "Pontic sea" vow — the tide that never turns back — stands Ovid's Medea, the figure of a will hardened past any return
- Shakespeare read the Metamorphoses in Golding's English; its logic of a self metamorphosed by passion runs straight into Othello's unmaking
On Metamorphoses’s page
- The classical text Shakespeare quarried most — and its vengeful Medea surfaces in his blackest tragedy
- Othello's irreversible "Pontic sea" oath and his transformation under Iago draw on Ovid's poem of change, where one passion remakes a soul beyond recall