Description
Book SynopsisThis volume is a broad-ranging guide to Othello, providing an introduction to the contexts of the play, the range of critical responses to the play and the play in performance.
Table of ContentsSeries Editor's Preface Acknowledgements List of Illustrations Introduction 1. Contexts Contextual Overview Chronology Contemporary Documents: Giraldi Cinthio, Gli Hecatommithi (1566) Leo Africanus (John Leo) The History and Description of Africa, trans. John Pory (1600) Fynes Moryson An Itinery Containing His Ten Yeeres Travell (1617) Thomas Coryat Coryat's Crudities (1611) Christopher Marlowe The Jew of Malta (c. 1590) Robert Greene Selimus, Emporer of the Turks (1594) William Shakespeare Titus Andronicus (c.1594) 2. Interpretations Critical History Early Reception: Thomas Rymer, from A Short View of Tragedy (1693) Samuel Johnson, from The Plays of Shakespeare (1765) Samuel Taylor Coleridge, from 'Notes on the Tragedies' (published 1836-9) from Table Talk (1835) Edward Dowden, from Shakespeare: A Critical Study of His Mind and Art (1875) A. C. Bradley, from Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth (1904) Twentieth-Century Criticism: G. Wilson Knight The Othello Music E. E. Stoll 'Iago' (1940) William Empson Honest in Othello (1951) F. R. Leavis, from Diabolic Intellect and the Noble Hero (1952) Marvin Rosenberg from The Masks of Othello (1961) G. K. Hunter, Othello and Colour Prejudice (1967) Terry Eagleton Nothing (1986) Karen Newman 'And wash the Ethiop white': femininity and the monstrous in Othello (1987) David McPherson Othello and the Myth of Venice (1990) Lisa Jardine 'Why should he call her a whore?': Defamation and Desdemona's case (1990) Andrew Hadfield The 'gross clasps of a lascivious Moor': The Domestic and Exotic Contexts of Othello (1998) The Work in Performance: Virginia Mason Vaughan Othello on the English Stage 1604-1754 Sir Richard Steele The Tatler, no. 167 (2 May 1710) William Hazlitt 'Mr Macready's Othello' (13 October 1816) Virginina Mason Vaughan 'Paul Robeson's Othello' (1930, 1943) Patricia Tatspaugh 'Orson Welles Othello' (1952) Stanley Wells 'Trevor Nunn's Othello' (1989) 3. Key Passages Introduction Key Passages: Act 1, scene 1, lines 81-80, Act 1, scene 3, lines 1-294, Act 2, scene 3, lines 255-357, Act 3, scene 3, lines 90-281, Act 3, scene 3, lines 333-482, Act 4, scene 1, lines 60-142, Act 4, scene 2, lines 30-92, Act 5, scene 2, lines 257-369 Further Reading Editions and Text Collections of Essays Background Reading Critical Interpretations Stage History Index
