Wordsworth Classics: Othello

This is a basic text element.

Desdemonas love for Othello, the Moor, transcends racial prejudice; but the envious Iago conspires to devastate their lives. This novel renders racism, sexism, contested identities, and the savagery lurking within civilisation. Edited, Introduced and Annotated by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex. The Wordsworth Classics Shakespeare Series, with Henry V and The Merchant of Venice as its inaugral volumes, presents a newly-edited sequence of William Shakespeares works. The textual editing takes account of recent scholarship while giving the material a careful reappraisal. Othello has long been recognised as one of the most powerful of Shakespeares tragedies. This is an intense drama of love, deception, jealousy and destruction. Desdemonas love for Othello, the Moor, transcends racial prejudice; but the envious Iago conspires to devastate their lives. In its vivid rendering of racism, sexism, contested identities, and the savagery lurking within civilisation, Othello is arguably the most topical and accessible tragedy from Shakespeares major phase as a dramatist. Productions on stage and screen regularly renew its power to engross, impress and trouble the imagination.

This is a basic text element.