Othello [Paperback]

Is there any other character in all of literature who is as calculatingly evil as Shakespeare's Iago? His jealousy over being passed over in favor of Cassio engenders a revengeful scheme that turns jealousy into a weapon used to destroy the noble Othello. Here innocence and trust is contrasted with pure manipulation and evil in what is one of Shakespeare's most revealing tragedies. The characters act exactly as they would be expected to based on the overriding quality that they represent. Othello is wonderful Shakespearean drama that ranks among his greatest works.

The Folger Library editions are my favorite. Each page has a facing page that explains obscure terms and helps as a handy reference to make reading the plays pleasurable and educational. These paperback editions of Shakespeare's works are a great value and fit in your pocket.

"Othello" is Shakespeare's most painful yet poetic and melodious play. In the foreground is the theme of ontological emptiness, the feeling of having been passed over or no longer existing in the place where one's identity has been defined and stored up. Having been passed over by his war-god Othello, Iago's sense of injured merit expresses itself not only in a calculating and violent plan for revenge but in a vast insecurity about his own "place." He thus imagines both Othello and Cassio with his wife, while the latter is targeted for termination because, he tells us, "he hath a daily beauty in his life that makes mine ugly." Much is made of Iago's supposed "motiveless malignity" but we are told in the very first scene that his hatred arises from having been passed over in promotion. What makes us wonder is not so much his motive but why it means so much to him. Othello is one of Shakespeare's grandest characters. His initial attributes of nobility and innate goodness, his sense command and authority and his trusting nature makes his fall perhaps the most painful of all dramatic reversals. The noble Moor is an alien in Venice, suspected because of his race, unsteadily accepted into his adopted society due to his capable and proven soldiership, who finds an anchor in his love for Desdemona. When the scheming Iago begins to play upon Othello's doubts, Desdemona's suspected sexual impurity is experienced by him as a complete annihilation of his identity which he had projected unto Desdemona (he even refers to her as "my fair warrior"). When he feels that she is no longer loyal to him his psychic wounding is like that of Iago's - "Othello's occupation's gone!" and "chaos has come again!" Iago and Othello can not be fully understood without reference to each other. They both suffer from the same malady. The following may be one of the central passages in the play:

Had it pleased heaven
To try me with affliction; had they rain'd
All kinds of sores and shames on my bare head.
Steep'd me in poverty to the very lips,
Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes,
I should have found in some place of my soul
A drop of patience: but, alas, to make me
A fixed figure for the time of scorn
To point his slow unmoving finger at!
Yet could I bear that too; well, very well:
But there, where I have garner'd up my heart,
Where either I must live, or bear no life;
The fountain from the which my current runs,
Or else dries up; to be discarded thence!
Or keep it as a cistern for foul toads
To knot and gender in! Turn thy complexion there,
Patience, thou young and rose-lipp'd cherubin,--
Ay, there, look grim as hell!

Act IV, Scene II, lines 57 - 74

This projection of identity into others has ramifications for how women are viewed in the play, as well. While Cassio experiences no hesitation in referring to his lover Bianca as a whore (she denies this to Emilia) he later refuses to engage with Iago in any lewd talk concerning Desdemona. He is loyally committed to one of the woman but not the other. Graham Bradshaw argues that Desdemona dies a virgin. I think this likely (she asks Emilia to place her wedding sheets on the bed the night that she dies). When Othello commits suicide, in his famous final soliloquy, he executes himself as an enemy of the state in a startling attempt to re-instate himself into the society which his supposed cuckolding has alienated him from. "Othello" ranks with "Macbeth" as the play containing Shakespeare's greatest poetry. I cannot read it without bringing to mind Paul Robeson's booming voice, mellifluous delivery and his powerful presence. It ranks alongside "King Lear" and "Macbeth" as one of the greatest treasures of dramatic literature.

Two stars instead of one just because the play itself is a masterpiece. The first time I attempted reading Othello several years ago, it was this version. I had to read it for Academic Team, so I HAD to read it. And I suffered. The Folger format is tedious (and archaic language needs no help feeling tedious) -- there are notes, yes, but they are on pages opposing the text. It felt like a stilted read, like I was getting nowhere, because you have to go 'backwards' (to the previous page) instead of 'forward' (to a footnote) to find out what anything means. The notes are decent, just enough to get by, but not nearly as in-depth as I wanted. The text was visually unappealing as well, not spaced or indented well for easy reading. Maybe that all sounds picky, but it's important to me. I bought another version -- Othello (Arden Shakespeare: Third Series) -- to get me through the Academic Team season, and I found its notes to be much more comprehensive and the printing much more aesthetically pleasing. I would only suggest Folger if you've already read the play and want to compare notes/definitions. Folger would have kept me from discovering what has since become my favorite play. Period.

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