Commentary

• Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth

  - A.C. Bradley, Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth (London: Macmillan, 1904)
  Excerpt: “In these lectures I propose to consider the four principal tragedies of Shakespeare from a single point of view. Nothing will be said of Shakespeare’s place in the history of either English literature or of the drama in general. No… More

• Magic in the Web: Language and Action in Othello

  - Robert Heilman, Magic in the Web: Language and Action in Othello (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 1956)
  Summary from the Publisher: In his earlier work on King Lear, Mr. Heilman combined a number of critical procedures to form a new and important approach to Shakespearian criticism. His study of Othello displays the maturity of insight and skill in analysis the… More

• Brothers and Others

  - W. H. Auden, “Brothers and Others,” in The Dyer’s Hand, 218–37
  Excerpt: In The Merchant of Venice and Othello Shakespeare depicts a very different kind of society. Venice does not produce anything itself, either raw materials or manufactured goods. Its existence depends upon the financial profits which can be made by… More

• Cosmopolitan Man and the Political Community: Othello

  - Allan Bloom, “Cosmopolitan Man and the Political Community: Othello,” in Shakespeare’s Politics, 35–74
  Excerpt: In the world of today, the existence of a common humanity has been established, negatively at least, by a common fear of a common extinction. Only rational beings fear thermonuclear annihilation; only rational beings can create such means of… More

• The Joker in the Pack

  - W. H. Auden, “The Joker in the Pack,” in The Dyer’s Hand, 246–72
  Excerpt: If any consideration of the Tragedy of Othello must primarily be occupied not with its official hero but with its villain. I cannot think of any other play in which only one character performs all personal actions – all the deeds are… More

• The Stranger in Shakespeare

  - Leslie Fiedler, The Stranger in Shakespeare (New York: Stein & Day, 1973)
  Summary from the Publisher: In this provocative book, originally published in 1972, Leslie Fiedler turns his critical eye on what he calls the “borderline figure” in Shakespeare’s plays and poems. Neither hero nor villain, this figure… More

• The Moor as Stranger

  - Leslie Fiedler, “The Moor as Stranger,” in The Stranger in Shakespeare, 139–98
  Excerpt: Othello is one of the oddest of Shakespeare’s plays and, therefore, one of the most difficult to interpret, not only because of its equivocal tone but also because of its anomalous structure, which, in fact, determines and explains that tone.… More

• Othello: The Erring Barbarian Among the Super-subtle Venetians

  - Paul A. Cantor, “Othello: The Erring Barbarian Among the Super-subtle Venetians,” Southwest Review, 75, no. 3 (1990): 296–319

• Turning Turk: English Theater and the Multicultural Mediterranean

  - Daniel Vitkus, Turning Turk: English Theater and the Multicultural Mediterranean (New York: Palgrave, 2003)
  Summary from the Publisher: Turning Turk looks at contact between the English and other cultures in the early modern Mediterranean, and analyzes the representation of that experience on the London stage. Vitkus’s book demonstrates that theEnglish… More