William Shakespeare - Othello: The Moor of Venice

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Michael Neill 2006

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First published 2006

First published as an Oxford Worlds Classics paperback 2006

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ISBN 019-812920-3 (Hbk.) 9780-19-812920-2
ISBN 019-281451-6 (Pbk.) 9780-19-281451-7

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OXFORD WORLDs CLASSICS

For over 100 years Oxford Worlds Classics have brought readers closer to the worlds great literature. Now with over 700 titlesfrom the 4,000-year-old myths of Mesopotamia to the twentieth centurys greatest novelsthe series makes available lesser-known as well as celebrated writing.

The pocket-sized hardbacks of the early years contained introductions by Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, Graham Greene, and other literary figures which enriched the experience of reading. Today the series is recognized for its fine scholarship and reliability in texts that span world literature, drama and poetry, religion, philosophy and politics. Each edition includes perceptive commentary and essential background information to meet the changing needs of readers.

OXFORD WORLDS CLASSICS

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Edited by
MICHAEL NEILL

THE OXFORD SHAKESPEARE

Currently available in paperback

The rest of the plays are forthcoming

OXFORD WORLDS CLASSICS

The Oxford Shakespeare offers new and authoritative editions of Shakespeares plays in which the early printings have been scrupulously re-examined and interpreted. An introductory essay provides all relevant background information together with an appraisal of critical views and of the plays effects in performance. The detailed commentaries pay particular attention to language and staging. Reprints of sources, music for songs, genealogical tables, maps, etc. are included where necessary; many of the volumes are illustrated, and all contain an index.

MICHAEL NEILL, the editor of Othello in the Oxford Shakespeare, is Professor of English at the University of Auckland. He has also edited Anthony and Cleopatra for the Oxford Shakespeare.

THE list of those who have helped me since I began work on this edition in 1997 has become a long one. I am indebted to the generosity of the Folger Shakespeare Library and of Trinity College, Cambridge, for visiting fellowships, to the New Zealand Marsden Foundation for a research award, and to the University of Auckland through grants of leave in 19978, 2002, and 2005. I received unstinting assistance from the staff of the libraries whose resources I have quarried, including the University of Auckland Library, the Auckland City Library, the Harvard Theatre Collection, the Library of Congress, the library of the Shakespeare Centre in Stratford-upon-Avon, the library of the London Theatre Museum, the archives of the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain, Cambridge University Library, and above all the Folger Shakespeare Library. My gratitude to the Folger includes the kindness of a long list of resident and visiting scholars, including Barbara Mowat, Gail Paster, Georgianna Ziegler, Peter Blayney, Leslie Thomson, Linda Levy Peck, the late Susan Snyder, Jeff Masten, Meredith Skura, Albert Braunmuller, and Linda Austern. I am especially indebted to Professor Austern for her excellent appendix on the music in the play.

Elsewhere, Edward Pechter, Patricia Parker, Anne Barton, Jean Howard, Janet Adelman, John Kerrigan, Jocelyn Harris, Jyotsna Singh, and Graham Bradshaw have done their best to inform my critical judgement, while Paul Werstine, Tom Berger, and Mac Jackson have offered invaluable textual expertise. With exceptional consideration, Ernst Honigmann ensured that I received an advance copy of his new Arden edition; Louise Noble shared the fruits of her research into early modern medicine; and Charles Edelman was equally helpful in military matters. I am grateful above all to my colleague Bruno Ferraro for his meticulous translation of the source novella from Giraldi Cinthios Hecatommithi.

I have learned a great deal from the insights of theatre professionals, among them Patrick Stewart, Lisa Harrow, and Bruce Purchase. I owe a particular debt to Jude Kelly and her cast from the Washington Shakespeare Company for allowing me to sit in on rehearsals for her photo-negative production; and to the staff of the Brooklyn Academy of Music who made certain that I received tickets for Sam Mendess National Theatre production when it reached Brooklyn.