Although other Shakespeare plays offer higher body counts, more gore, and more plentiful scenes of heartbreak, Othello packs an unusually powerful affective punch, stunning us with its depiction of the swiftness and thoroughness with which love can be converted to hatred, and forcing us to confront our complicity with social and political institutions that can put all of us—but especially the most vulnerable among us—at risk.
This edition features a variety of interleaved materials—from maps and manuscripts to illustrations and extended discussions of myth and politics—that provide a context for the social and cultural allusions in the play. Appendices offer excerpts from Shakespeare’s key sources and historical materials on marriage, jealousy, and the treatment of people of African descent in Renaissance England.
A collaboration between Broadview Press and the Internet Shakespeare Editions project at the University of Victoria, the editions developed for this series have been comprehensively annotated and draw on the authoritative texts newly edited for the ISE. This innovative series allows readers to access extensive and reliable online resources linked to the print edition.
Comments
“The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice has found here its ideal edition for our times. In addition to Jessica Slight’s unfussy and accessible text, the Broadview/Internet Shakespeare Edition offers an up-to-date selection of images, sources, analogs, and historical readings, many of them not seen before in connection with Othello. Race, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, household governance, and early modern psychology receive broad and deep attention, inviting readers to encounter Shakespeare’s play in strikingly contemporary terms.” — Bruce R. Smith, University of Southern California
