Arden Shakespeare Series: Othello

Author(s): William Shakespeare

Other Shakespeare

In a period of ten years, Shakespeare wrote a series of tragedies that established him, by universal consent, in the front rank of the world's dramatists. Critics have praised either Hamlet or King Lear as the greatest of these; Ernst Honigmann, in the most significant edition of the play for a generation, asks: why not Othello? The third of the mature tragedies, it contains, as Honigmann persuasively demonstrates, perhaps the best plot, two of Shakespeare's most original characters, the most powerful scene in any of the plays and poetry second to none. Honigmann's cogent and closely argued introduction outlines the reasons both for a reluctance to recognize the greatness of Othello and for the case against the play. This edition sheds new light on the text of the play as we have come to know it, and on our knowledge of its early history. Honigmann examines the major critical issues, the play in performance and the relationship between reading it and seeing it. He also explores topics such as its date, sources and the conundrum of 'double time'.


Product Information

'Honigmann's extensive knowledge illuminates this play at every turn, making this the best edition of Othello now available.' Brian Vickers, Review of English Studies

E. A. J. Honigmann is the author of more than a dozen books on Shakespeare and his contemporaries, including "Shakespeare: Seven Tragedies: The Dramatist's Manipulation of Response," and "Myriad-Minded Shakespeare." He has taught as a lecturer at Glasgow University, as a Fellow of the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon (Birmingham University), as Joseph Cowen Professor of English Literature in the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and in Canada and the United States. His "The Texts of 'Othello' and Shakespearian Revision "is a companion volume to this Arden edition.

General Fields

  • : 9781903436455
  • : Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
  • : Arden Shakespeare
  • : 449.0
  • : October 1997
  • : 198mm X 129mm X 20mm
  • : United States
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : William Shakespeare
  • : Paperback
  • : 3rd Revised edition
  • : 822.33
  • : 432
  • : English literature: literary criticism; Shakespeare plays, texts; Shakespeare studies & criticism
  • : illustrations