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Othello is a popular text for study by secondary students the world over. This edition includes illustrations, preliminary notes, reading lists (including websites) and classroom notes.
In Othello, Shakespeare creates powerful drama from a marriage between the exotic Moor Othello and the Venetian lady Desdemona that begins with elopement and mutual devotion and ends with jealous rage and death. Shakespeare builds many differences into his hero and heroine, including race, age, and cultural background. Yet most readers and audiences believe the couple's strong love would overcome these differences were it not for Iago, who sets out to destroy Othello. Iago's false insinuations about Desdemona's infidelity draw Othello into his schemes, and Desdemona is subjected to Othello's horrifying verbal and physical assaults. The authoritative edition of Othello from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers, is now available as an ebook. Features include: · The exact text of the printed book for easy cross-reference · Hundreds of hypertext links for instant navigation · Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play · Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play · Scene-by-scene plot summaries · A key to famous lines and phrases · An introduction to reading Shakespeare’s language · Illustrations from the Folger Shakespeare Library’s vast holdings of rare books · An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the pla
A collection of critical essays on the Shakespeare play, Othello, arranged in chronological order of publication.
This second edition of Othello updates the first (Bristol Classical Press, 1987), both chronologically and conceptually. It includes consideration of productions from the last seventeen years, and reconsiders earlier material in the light of more recent critical attitudes. Post-colonial and feminist studies have had an impact on the way Othello is perceived and interpreted. The question of blacked-up/black/colour-blind casting and the significance of white and/or black audiences in different political and racial contexts have recently become much more clearly articulated. In the process, Shakespeare himself has not escaped the charge of racism. Equally, the position of Desdemona has received more focussed attention, both as the forbidden object of desire within a racial framework, and as a woman in her own right. This edition takes account of these developments in criticism, in the theatre, on film, and in the adaptations which set out to interrogate Shakespeare's text.
The Complete Works: Modern Critical Edition is part of the landmark New Oxford Shakespeare—an entirely new consideration of all of Shakespeare's works, edited afresh from all the surviving original versions of his work, and drawing on the latest literary, textual, and theatrical scholarship. In one attractive volume, the Modern Critical Edition gives today's students and playgoers the very best resources they need to understand and enjoy all Shakespeare's works. The authoritative text is accompanied by extensive explanatory and performance notes, and innovative introductory materials which lead the reader into exploring questions about interpretation, textual variants, literary criticism, and performance, for themselves. The Modern Critical Edition presents the plays and poetry in the order in which Shakespeare wrote them, so that readers can follow the development of his imagination, his engagement with a rapidly evolving culture and theatre, and his relationship to his literary contemporaries. The New Oxford Shakespeare consists of four interconnected publications: the Modern Critical Edition (with modern spelling), the Critical Reference Edition (with original spelling), a companion volume on Authorship, and an online version integrating all of this material on OUP's high-powered scholarly editions platform. Together, they provide the perfect resource for the future of Shakespeare studies.
A post-modern take on one of the most famous love stories in western literature. In Charles Duncombe's new drama, Shakespeare's familiar characters are thrust into an alarming 21st century world of racial conflict, slippery genders, white privilege, career conflicts, and domestic turmoil. Othello, in the midst of an identity crisis, rejects his status as a servant of the Venetian State, hungers for political power, and experiments with the idea of self-identifying as white. Desdemona, a Lolita-like figure trapped in a caged bed, is no longer the long-suffering, endlessly patient, perfect wife of the original. She has a sharp tongue, a mind of her own, and a hunger for fame in her own right, yet underneath it all is still deeply in love with her "noble Moor." Egged on by a video-camera-wielding Iago, hovering like a punk-rock bird of prey, and his wife, the transgender Emilia, you know from the beginning that, just as in Shakespeare, this is a love story that is bound to end badly. Just how it does speaks to the confusions, frustrations, and aspirations of our own times.
Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, University of Marburg (Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, FB 10), course: Preparatory Seminar to the Shakespeare Excursion to London, 38 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: This paper expatiates on the topic of jealousy and revenge as it emanates from the play. Lily B. Campbell labels Othello “A Tragedy of Jealousy”.9 Certainly, for most recipients, Othello is about jealousy and, thus, “shocking, even horrible”.10 Harold Bloom announces that Othello’s “name in effect becomes jealousy” (Fernie 19). Critics characterise Othello as not smoothly jealous, inherently jealous, and too eagerly beguiled 1 For so that he becomes fervently resentful (cf. Davison 13). While Davison regards jealousy as a calamitous vigour in Othello, Mason grants the mastery of maleficence.11 I will verify my thesis that the envious Iago causes Othello’s jealousy which culminates in frantic reprisal. Hence, I retain that Iago’s malice and fake honesty annihilate Othello’s bond. To fathom the tragedy of Othello, it is indispensable to specify the cognitive theory of jealousy and envy which eventuates from psychology’s interest in anthropoid liaisons, and is primordial and reiterative in literature. Tales of cruel jealousy appealed to Elizabethans on account of the notion that women are impious and that the husband’s reputation is contingent on his wife’s celibacy. Shakespeare’s interest in jealousy stems from Elizabeth Cary’s (c. 1585-1639) closet drama Mariam (1603/1613). Traditionally, jealousy supervenes in comedy and is linked to sexual possessiveness.12 The theory of humours13 defines jealousy as “a species of envy, which is in turn a species of hatred” (Honigmann 33). Although jealousy has come to be used frequently for envy, both terms should be separated. While jealousy connotes what you own and do not fancy to be deprived of, envy is what you would like to retain but do not have. Spinoza specifies jealousy as “the hatred towards an object loved [...] with the envy of another”.14 In 2.1., I will discuss Othello as domestic and revenge tragedy. For Stanley Wells explains that Shakespeare fosters “the emotional response of his audiences”,15 in 2.2., I will convey Othello’s origin within Elizabethan theatre. In 3.1. and 3.2., I will scrutinize Iago’s vice tradition and motivation. This is vital for the temptation scene which I will analyse, in 3.3. For “the study and the stage” are “often separate” (Matteo 1), I will include the stage. In 4., I will reflect my results.
Othello's Secret uncovers the relationship between the play and the conflicts that have torn apart its Cypriot setting, providing a new and powerfully political reading. Exploring the domestic and military anxieties connected by Shakespeare, Christofides highlights the ways in which these issues resonate with current ideological and geographical divisions in Cyprus, divisions rooted in the 16th century struggles to control the island. Challenging the conventional view of Othello as a Venetian play, this book offers a fierce and personal example of how early modern literature can purposefully contribute to even the most complex geopolitical debates.
