ABSTRACT
The Quarto (1622) and Folio (1623) title of the play we now know simply as Othello was The Tragedy of Othello, the Moore of Venice. Scholars have searched for the elusive Love's Labors Won as the companion play to Love's Labor's Lost. We know Shakespeare loved sequels and prequels enough to produce three Henry VI plays which extend ultimately backwards and forwards to produce his ten play historical cycle on the English monarchy. Similarly, Shakespeare's plays can be divided into cycles: the Roman plays, the Greek comedies, the medieval romances. The interest provided in these textual clusters is the insight one play provides for the companion play or plays. In that context then, what does the earlier Comical History of the Merchant of Venice, also known as The Jew of Venice, tell us about the later Moor of Venice? Certainly the plays share a location, but what might considering them as a unit tell us about the fate of aliens in that foreign location, and is there a commonality between Jew and Moor in the Early Modern period that needs further investigation?
