With the exception of Hamlet, Othello is Shakespeare's most
controversial play. It is also his most shocking. Dr Johnson famously
described the ending as "not to be endured", and H.H. Furness, after
editing the Variorum edition of the play, confessed to wishing that
"this tragedy had never been written". No play in performance has
prompted more outbursts from onlookers: there are many recorded
instances of members of the audience actually trying to intervene to
prevent Othello murdering Desdemona. It is a more domestic tragedy than
Hamlet, King Lear or Macbeth, and it is the intimacy of its subject
matter which gives it its dramatic power. Othello is a faithful portrait
of life, wrote one anonymous Romantic critic. "Love and jealousy are
passions which all men, with few exceptions, have at some time felt."
Othello has also prompted more critical disputes than any other play
except Hamlet. How could the hero possibly believe his wife had been
unfaithful within a few days of their marriage? Is the marriage
consummated (as it is usually assumed to be)? Is Othello a noble hero or
is he really just a self-deluded egotist? And in this play about a
disastrous inter-racial marriage, how important is the whole issue of
race? Is the play itself racist? This book looks at what Othello is
really about and why it has such power to move us. It aims to offer a
clear, authoritative and fresh view of Othello, while taking account of
the many fascinating insights other critics have had into the play in
the four centuries since it was written.
