Customer Reviews

Othello (Folger Shakespeare Library)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

I've been using the Folger library series for years now, and although the Norton Critical edition has its place, the Folger edition cannot be beat for clarity and accessibility. Pay the extra couple of bucks for the 5.5 x 8
paperback rather than the smaller mass market paperback. The paper quality and illustrations are far superior in the larger version.

The most beautiful aspect of the play is Iago's ingenious deception of Othello. In every phrase, Iago knows just what to say to swing his Moor closer to the belief in Desdemona's infidelity. The subtle strategist to his general (and the puppeteer to Roderigo and Cassio), Iago is in full glory practicing his art of insinuation.

Iago is the master of duplicity: "Divinity of hell! When devils will the blackest sins put on, they do suggest at first with heavenly shows". Here he echoes Banquo in Macbeth: "To win us to our harm, the instruments of darkness tell us truths, win us with honest trifles, to betray's in deepest consequence". However, while in Macbeth the devious instruments of darkness were netherworldly creatures, here Iago himself takes on devil's work. Treachery plays here the most insidious part: it lays the ground for murder.

Treachery itself takes its roots in hatred. While Richard III and Macbeth are murderers for their own advancement, Iago's guiding star in his hunt is hatred. His "I hate the Moor" at the end of the 1st act, breaking the flow of the soliloquy in which he derides Roderigo (and not unlike Richard III's "Ha!") is the essence of Iago in a line.

The reasons for his hatred are not as clear cut. Iago knows that his being cuckolded by Othello is a mere suspicion (but willfully decides that he does not want to know for sure and will act as if it were true). This is his private (false) excuse for hating Othello. His public one, or at least the one he presents to Roderigo, is having been passed over in the pecking order of military ranking. But he only gives this argument to Roderigo and never repeats it in any soliloquies. And we know how much Iago can be trusted when he speaks to someone else...

His take on Cassio is not much more lucid. Cassio is surely not married, and yet according to Iago, he is "a fellow almost damned in a fair wife" (whether this is one of Shakespearean slips where he forgot to give Cassio a wife or a mutation of "life" into "wife", the phrase is just too beautiful to disregard, even if it does not fit with the text). "He hath a daily beauty in his life that makes me ugly" complains Iago of Cassio. He also worries of having been cuckolded by the lieutenant. The former may signify Iago's fear of looking bad in the face of Cassio's promotion (although "daily" and especially "beauty" do not really fit, so the phrase could signify other things and overall seems obscure). The latter suspicion is just preposterous.
So it appears that Iago, whom in this play Shakespeare gave most artful language, is sometimes inconsequential and opaque. While it may not have been Shakespeare's intent, one could conclude from this that hatred may exist for Iago without any real reasons at all. Some people fall in love for no reason, Iago may have fallen in hatred for no reason. Maybe Iago's excuses for his actions are just his awkward attempts at justifying his inexplicable hatred?

In any case, with all his hatred and scheming, Iago is another spectacular Shakespearean villain endowed with inspired language. His art of intrigue ensures him a place among Shakespeare's leading characters (villains for the most part) and will entertain our enduring fascination with human nature's dark side...

What is more inticing than a story involving war-like patrons and scandal? This book has been absolutely entertaining and suspensful to read. It was stunning how many false stories, insinuations, and accussations the character "Iago" had set up from the beginning to the end. There were also so many other character types such as the pawn-like Roderigo, the seemingly calm yet furiously jealous Othello, the bleeding-heart of Desdemona, the honorable Cassio, and more! It was amazing how Iago had actually set up his false stories from the very beginning of the novel where he first employes Roderigo as his foolish pawn. The only factor of this book that was somewhat unsettling was how easily swayed Othello had gotten from Iago's insinuations. To a certain point, it almost seemed unrealistic. For example, towards the end of the play, when Iago retrieves the seemingly precious and invaluable handkercheif and uses it to make it seem that Cassio had recently been with Desdemona, that seems to be a little bit illogical. Just because Othello finds that Cassion has been holding the precious handkercheif doesn't abosuletly mean the Desdemona has been unfaithful. However, some could argue that the heavy pile of insinuations and false stories/accusations that Iago has placed on Othello could be seen as reason enough for Othello's furious rage and jealous behavior. All in all, though, this book has been quite pleasing. The amount of scandal (scandal as in the falsness of Iago) has been enough to please anyone looking for a suspensful tragedy to read.

This series of books produced by the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC is excellent for several reasons. The text of the play is presented on the right page and the appropriate translations into modern English or explanations of Renaissance references is explained on the facing left hand page. This allows the reader to understand more fully the main and subtle points of the play. This also provides and insight into contemporary 1600s life with the play's references to contemporary events or common knowledge of the times.

Also the books have chapters discussing each play, Shakespeare's theater of the those times, how the play fits into that world and hints on how it might be staged or presented. One of the stated purposes of this series is to provide enough understanding and clarity so that the reader can stage the play in their own head as they read. I think the books are very successful at this.

I always prefer to read the book before seeing the play: it is a great advantage to understand the dialogue and the references within the speeches. These books are excellent for the new reader of Shakespeare, whatever the age, or the reader more familiar with the bard's work

As for this play, there are issues with two similar but not identical versions of the play and the Folger people have melded the two together in a version that makes sense and they believe is the most accurate. The changes and combinations are dutifully noted; the scholarly work behind the decisions is described in the book and also in an online video at the Folger website. I watched three movie versions of Othello after reading this Folger edition: Kenneth Branaugh's, Orson Wells' and Laurence Olivier's versions; Olivier's is the best to my mind. It shows an Othello that is a more simple warrior which makes more believable Iago's ability to turn Othello, and the Iago is portrayed as a nasty but not too smart villain who is making it up as he goes along only to not pull it off in the end.

"Othello" is sort of a companion piece to "Macbeth" -- both are about noble, upstanding men who are destroyed by their own weaknesses. But where Macbeth was ruined by ambition, Othello's destruction comes from his jealousy and gullibility. And the play is really ruled by the nastiest, cruelest, most devious villain Shakespeare ever wrote.

That villain is Iago, a high-ranking soldier who has a grudge against the noble Moorish soldier Othello, who has just eloped with the beautiful Desdemona. Using a nobleman as his pawn, Iago first turns Desdemona's father against Othello, but the new soldier defends himself agains claims of witchcraft.

But Iago's true plan is far more devious, as he disgraces Othello's lieutenant Cassion and plants Desdemona's handkerchief in Cassio's room. Othello finds himself confronted by a chess game of lies, deceit and suspected infidelity, and his jealousy reaches a fever pitch that can only end in death.

Yeah, the real star of this play is undoubtedly Iago. This is the most repellent mixture of absolute malicious evil and crazy-smart intellect that anyone could write -- he is the person you love to hate, even as you admire how devilishly perfect he is at playing the chessmaster who whispers poison into your ear while playing your "friend." He doesn't quite think of EVERYTHING, but he comes close enough that you would NEVER want to deal with someone like this.

But this tragedy is also underscored by the depiction of Othello, a truly noble and loyal soldier who is turned into a deranged homicidal mess. It's somehow even more disturbing to see him deteriorate than it was to see Macbeth, because this guy was on top of the world in every way -- he was smart, eloquent, a brilliant soldier and a newlywed. And look what happens to him.

And Shakespeare deftly builds up this tragedy with a subtle, interconnecting web of lies and misdirections, with the tension building slowly until something has to blow. His writing is typically powerful, generating some quotable phrases ("It is the green-ey'd monster") and lots of cynical, dark dialogue ("Who would not make her husband a cuckold to make him a monarch?").

"Othello" is a strangely fascinating tragedy, with Shakespeare absorbing us again in the tale of a good man corrupted. Definitely a good, if harrowing play.

Othello in my opinion is one of those books that actualy can play out like a movie in your head. iagos ingenios mathodical planing and exectuion make for a thrilling and captivation story. along with the logical and beliveable manipulation of charichters like cassio

This book was delivered in a timely manner, for a reasonable price and in perfect condition. There is nothing more I could ask for.

"Othello" is Shakespeare's most painful and poetic 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 imagines both Othello and Cassio with his wife, while the latter is targeted for termination because "he hath a daily beauty in his life that makes mine ugly." The noble Moor is an alien in Venice, suspected because of his race, unsteadily accepted due to his capable and proven soldiership, who finds an anchor in his love for Desdemona. 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 each other. They both suffer from the same malady.

This projection of identity into others has ramifications for how women are viewed in the play. Cassio experiences no hesitation in referring to his lover Bianca as a whore (she denies this to Emilia) while simultaneously refusing to engage with Iago in any lewd talk about Desdemona. 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 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. I believe that the following is the central passage 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

"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.

I love the Folger Shakespeare editions. They contain essays on his life; his times; the play; the players; the theatre and always an essay on modern perspective. The left side of each page has all the notes pertaining to that page's dialogue. The annotations are always spot on and save a lot of time and page flipping versus all those publishers who put them at the back of the play.

Othello is a magnificient play of deceit, sex, betrayal and murder. Certainly one of his very best dramas, which is to say, one of the very best of all time. We, who speak English, are so very fortunate that we needn't read a translation. I detest the "Shakespeare made easy" editions as nothing more than a lowering of standards to the level of a H.S. dropout. People should read the original play, not some dumb-downed substitute.