Product Description

Though this great tragedy of unsurpassed intensity and emotion is played out against Renaissance splendor, its story of the doomed marriage of a Venetian senator’s daughter, Desdemona, to a Moorish general, Othello, is especially relevant to modern audiences. The differences in race and background create an initial tension that allows the horrifyingly envious villain Iago methodically to promote the “green-eyed monster” jealousy, until, in one of the most deeply moving scenes in theatrical history, the noble Moor destroys the woman he loves–only to discover too late that she was innocent.

Each Edition Includes:
• Comprehensive explanatory notes
• Vivid introductions and the most up-to-date scholarship
• Clear, modernized spelling and punctuation, enabling contemporary readers to understand the Elizabethan English
• Completely updated, detailed bibliographies and performance histories
• An interpretive essay on film adaptations of the play, along with an extensive filmography


From the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1782171 in Books
• Published on: 1996-09-03
• Released on: 1996-09-03
• Format: Audiobook
• Original language: English
• Binding: Audio Cassette

From Amazon.co.uk
If anything, Othello has increased its stature as one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies ever since it was first written, between 1603 and 1604, due to the victimisation suffered by its tragic hero, Othello, as a result of his skin colour. Othello is a "noble Moor", a North African Muslim who has converted to Christianity and is deemed one of the Venetian state's most reliable soldiers. However, his ensign Iago harbours an obscure hatred against his general, and when Othello secretly marries the beautiful daughter of the Venetian senator Brabanzio, Iago begins his subtle campaign of vilification, which will inevitably lead to the deaths of more than just Othello and Desdemona.

An extraordinary play, both for its dramatic economy and power as well as its remarkable language, from Othello's bombastic "traveller's history" to Desdemona's elegiac "willow song", the play raises uncomfortable questions about ongoing questions of not only racial identity but also sexuality, as Othello and Desdemona's sexual relationship becomes the voyeuristic site of Iago's attempt to destroy them. Particularly fascinated with the question of what it means to "see", Othello also contains one of the greatest tragic death scenes in all of Shakespeare, with Othello's final identification with "a malignant and a turbaned Turk". --Jerry Brotton

From School Library Journal

Gr 10 Up-Naxos AudioBooks' top-drawer Classic Drama Series blissfully continues with this exquisite rendition of Othello starring Hugh Quarshie, Anton Lesser, Emma Fielding, and a full cast of professional English actors with extensive credits in the Royal National Theatre, BBC Radio Drama Company, and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Shakespeare's most domestic tragedy is an exceedingly complex journey through jealousy, self-doubt, inadequacies, and societal acceptance. Passed over for military promotion, Iago, perhaps Shakespeare's most nefarious character, manipulates Othello's downfall, culminating in the murder of his beloved wife, Desdemona, and Othello's subsequent suicide. Under David Timson's stewardship as director, the story is beautifully and simply told, embellished only with intermittent brassy flourishes of classical music and a dramatic echo effect and throbbing heart beat to underscore Othello's chaotic descent and rage. While the entire cast is excellent, the trio of Quarshie (Othello), Lesser (Iago), and Fielding (Desdemona) are outstanding. An outline of each individual cassette, complete synopsis, full notes regarding the text, and cast biographies are included in a compact 24-page supplemental booklet. For all collections.-Barry X. Miller, Austin Public Library, TX

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

American Teacher
A legitimate way to take the 'toil and trouble' out of reading Shakespeare.

Customer Reviews

Bloody Farce It Is
"Bloody farce" was the indictment of "Othello" made by the dramatist Thomas Rymer, one of Shakespeare's contemporaries. He was right. Perhaps he was right because "Othello" in his time had not yet fully enjoyed the fake aura of a "master play" that it has boasted ever since. "Othello" features the shortcomings and mannerisms of "Hamlet", but without the benefit of the (sporadic) linguistic inventiveness that Shakespeare evinced in the other play (another of those wrongfully praised). In "Othello", though, what we mostly see is an utterly improbable set of characters acting out in an affected, theatrical manner - even while pretending to deal with issues of real life, portraying genuine psychologies. Yes, there is lots of jealousy in this world, and murders do happen - but for anyone to fly off the handle the way Othello does in this play, one has to be supplied with much better and much more extensive corroborative psychologic evidence than what is offered to us in "Othello"! Instead, what we see is basically someone growing insane on the basis of getting to know bits and peaces of ludicrously circumstancial evidence, plus, thanks to a puppet cartoon character named Yago, some innuendoes and probings that are anything but devious or subtle. Yago's behaviour and aims are so obvious and laughable that one would think one was reading a comedy if everything wasn't presented to us in a deadly serious manner, clothed in the solemn literary forms of a tragedy. As a reader or viewer, you simply never get to enjoy "Othello": instead, you spend your time working hard to swallow the improbabilities that the author presumes to present to us as having anything to do with life or human emotions. Similarly, the character of Desdemona is yet another prop on the stage; she serves to provide Shakespeare with more flesh to be disposed of at the end of the play. As in the similarly flawed "Hamlet", there remains an artificially contrived heap of corpses left as the curtain falls down -yet as poetry, "Hamlet" still held some interest and therefore was to a degree palatable; by contrast, "Othello", even as poetry considered separately from the drama, is unexciting and drab. To summarize, "Othello" is a wash-out. The present writer recognizes the right of the previous reviewers to find "Othello" worthwhile; but in the same way contrary readings should also be allowed to be voiced. If the present review could contribute ever so slightly to tarnish the impeccable image that "Othello" enjoys in most readers' minds; or if it at least prevented "Othello" from being listed in Amazon files with an absurd gross rating of five or even four and a half stars - then the present writer would feel vindicated; as well as recompensed for the hours he lost perusing "Othello"!

Shameful marketing
Can't complain about the price, but the cover illustration is wrong (wrong publisher), there are no 'notes, 'sources', 'index' and too many more to mention, and the book is 92 pages, not 469+ (as according to 'Click to look...' nor 112 as stated in the product description section). Why do you show me the 2006 Oxford University Press edition if that's not what you're selling me? The fact that you mention you're showing me another edition of the book does not make this any less misleading.

Takes the entire text and dramatizes the presentation
This full-cast dramatic recording of a classic Shakespeare takes the entire text and dramatizes the presentation, which results in a package capturing the excitement of both live play and written word. Audio listeners will enjoy the results; especially the pairing with classical music.