"'The Catastrophe is a Nuptial': The Space of Masculine Desire in Othello, Cymbeline, and The Winter's Tale," in Shakespeare Survey: An Annual Survey of Shakespeare Studies and Production, Vol. 46, 1994, pp. 69-79.

In the essay below, Danson discusses male jealousy and sexual possessiveness in Othello, Cymbeline, and The Winter's Tale.

I want in this essay to listen to some of Shakespeare's jealous husbands as they discover the pathos and panic of male sexuality within a marital economy of masculine possessiveness. Since my attention to the suffering of men may seem perverse, let me begin by acknowledging the infinitely greater impositions of that economy on women. Petruccio's boast—'I will be master of what is mine own. / She is my goods, my chattels. She is my house, / My household-stuff, my field, my barn, / My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything' (3.3.101-4)—may conceal or reveal whatever lovable little ironies...