Othello has long been recognised as one of the most powerful of Shakespeare's tragedies. This is an intense drama of love. deception, lealousy and destruction.Desdemona's love torOthello the Moor. transcends racial prejudice: but the envious lago conspires to devastate their lives. In its vivid rendering ot racism,sexism, contested identities, and the savagery lurking within civilisation, Othello is arguably the most topical and accessible tragedy from Shakespeare's major phase as a dramatist. Productions on stage and screen regularly renew its power to engross, impress and trouble the imagination.

Othello is one of Shakespeares greatest tragic dramas: gripping,intense, poignant, harrowing; powerfully eloquent and incisively intelligent. The passage of time has actually increased its cogency.In its treatment of racial prejudice, in its representations of gender and class conflict, and, above all, in its rendering of ascriptions of identity, this play seems vividly contemporary. As has been rightly said:Purely as a theatrical experience, Othello is as rich and satisfying as only the greatest drama can be. But like all great imaginative work, it speaks to us of our own world, even though it came out of a very different one ...

General Introduction

Introduction

Further Reading

Note on Shakespeare

Acknowledgements and Textual Matters

OTHELLO

Notes on OTHELLO

Glossary