Othello: Authoritative Text, Sources And Contexts, Criticism( Series - Norton Critical Editions )

This Norton Critical Edition of Othello— Shakespeare’s tragedy of good and evil, sex and violence, religious and ethnic conflict—is based on the First Folio text, printed in 1623. Additions and emendations adopted from the First Quarto (1622) appear in the Textual Notes following the play. The text is accompanied by detailed explanatory notes and by an introduction addressing the issues that complicate the textual situation for Shakespeare in general and this play in particular. "Sources and Contexts" reprints in its entirety Giraldi Cinthio’s sixteenth—century story, which Shakespeare used for the plot of Othello and for many of its details. An essay introduces historical material to help readers understand the play’s central topics—Moors, Turks, Venetians, and black Africans; Islam and Christianity marriage and domesticity; patriarchal authority and female sexuality. "Criticism" includes a general selection of interpretive responses to Othello, from its origins to the present, by Thomas Rymer, Charles Gildon, Samuel Johnson, Charles Lamb, William Hazlitt, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, A.C. Bradley, T.S. Eliot, Kenneth Burke, G.K. Hunter, Lynda E. Boose, Mark Rose James R. Siemon, Michael Neill, Patricia Parker, Michael D. Bristol, and Edward Pechter. An introductory essay traces continuities and discontinuities in this extensive critical tradition. The book ends with a Selected Bibliography, divided into compact sections that range from historical and critical topics to stage and movie productions, videos/DVDs, and other recent spinoff versions of the play. About Author: Edward Pechter is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Concordia University (Montreal) and Adjunct Professor of English at the University of Victoria, British Columbia.