This series of unabridged Shakespeare titles is based on the premise that students can reach a clear understanding of their work only through a close and careful reading of the text. The commentary facing each page of the text has been designed to suggest a critical interpretation of the play.

This series of unabridged Shakespeare titles is based on the premise that students can reach a clear understanding of their work only through a close and careful reading of the text. The commentary facing each page of the text has been designed to suggest a critical interpretation of the play.

In Othello, Shakespeare creates a powerful drama of a marriage that begins with fascination (between the exotic Moor Othello and the Venetian lady Desdemona), with elopement, and with intense mutual devotion and that ends precipitately with jealous rage and violent deaths. He sets this story in the romantic world of the Mediterranean, moving the action from Venice to the island of Cyprus and giving it an even more exotic coloring with stories of Othello's African past. Shakespeare builds so many differences into his hero and heroine—differences of race, of age, of cultural background—that one should not, perhaps, be surprised that the marriage ends disastrously. But most people who see or read the play feel that the love that the play presents between Othello and Desdemona is so strong that it would have overcome all these differences were it not for the words and actions of Othello's standard-bearer, Iago, who hates Othello and sets out to destroy him by destroying his love for Desdemona.

As Othello succumbs to Iago's insinuations that Desdemona is unfaithful, fascination—which dominates the early acts of the play—turns to horror, especially for the audience. We are confronted by spectacles of a generous and trusting Othello in the grip of Iago's schemes; of an innocent Desdemona, who has given herself up entirely to her love for Othello only to be subjected to his horrifying verbal and physical assaults, the outcome of Othello's mistaken convictions about her faithlessness.

This unabridged, unexpurgated edition has been prepared in the belief that the student can reach a clear understanding of the play only through close and careful reading of the text. To this end, the commentary facing each page of text. To this end, the commentary facing each page of text has been designed so that, while providing semantic glosses and suggesting critical interpretation of the play, it is not fully comprehensible without a prior reading of the text to which it refers. Teachers and students should bear in mind that there are almost as many divergent interpretations of each play as there are critics of the play, and that they need therefore have no qualms about departing from the reading offered in this edition. We have, throughout, been concerned about our series as a teaching instrument; one that would give as much background material as practicable so that the teacher and student would be assisted with the complex ramifications of Shakespeare's plays.