ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how audiences, authors and digital technologies might understand the relationship between Giraldi Cinthio, Ludovico Ariosto, and Robert Greene in Othello. It also considers what William Shakespeare's engagement with the two versions of Orlando Furioso might tell them about the workings of race in his play. The chapter suggests that the concept of contaminatio, in which an adaptation or translation of one text incorporates passages from other texts. It examines one particular moment when Ariosto's and Greene's works "contaminate" Shakespeare's adaptation of Cinthio, the account of how Othello and Desdemona fall in love, and asks why Shakespeare turns to Ariosto and Greene when he does. The chapter explores somewhat old proposition, suggested early on by critics who attended to Othello's race; critics such as G. K. Hunter and Ruth Cowhig. It argue that attention to contaminatio becomes essential for understanding both the play's interest in race mixing and its expansion of the limits of pity in tragedy.
