PDF Othello No Fear Shakespeare SparkNotes Books

Product details Paperback 320 pages Publisher SparkNotes; Study Guide ed. edition (July 3, 2003) Language English ISBN-10 9781586638528 ISBN-13 978-1586638528 ASIN 1586638521

Othello No Fear Shakespeare SparkNotes Books Reviews

• This is probably the worst book I've ever received. Characters are not marked. There is no formatting. It is just a wall of text. Don't buy this. Get a different copy of this play.
• I absolutely love having this resource for my classroom! Any recording by Arkangel is true to the Shakespearean script which is often difficult to find since many are simply adaptations. The actors' voices and sound effects help both the struggling and seasoned student follow along and grow to appreciate the beauty that is a Shakespearean drama. I wish I could find other recordings.
• I was assigned "Othello Texts and Contexts" for a class on race in Shakespeare. I'd read "Othello" before, but I really felt that this edition deepened my understanding of the play. The Cinthio story that inspired Shakespeare to write "Othello" is included, there are many informative essays and first-hand sources. These are divided into chapters such as "Race and Religion" and "Marriage and the Household" that make it easy to find the information you're looking for. In addition to essays on attitudes during Shakespeare's day, there's a section entitled "Encounters with Othello" that focuses on interpretations of "Othello" throughout history. Included in this section are exerpts from fiction, artistic representations, poetry, and even scripts for controversial Black face performances. The introduction also has some interesting arguments about color blind casting of the play, including Patrick Stewart's "photo negative" performance from 1997. The essays and sources included are relavent and understandable. I also appreciated the guideline questions that preface them.
  
  "Othello" is one of Shakespeare's greatest works. It combines themes of race, alienation, and loyalty and betrayal, asking more questions than it gives answers. "Othello Texts and Contexts," can give any reader insights into the play, and to the cultures that have performed it. Great for students and Shakespeare enthusiasts.
• Having read a number of Shakespeare tragedies while in high school, I was well aware that in any of them a whole bunch of people are going to die . I'm not quite sure how but I had somehow missed Othello in my Shakespeare reading days, but of course one usually has an idea of what it is about even without reading it.
  
  So the question remains, if I knew what it was about and how it was going to end, why should I bother to read it? Would the experience, be worth the effort expended, I wondered and finally after four decades, I decided that it would indeed. While knowing that Othello will be convinced by the evil Iago to kill his faithful wife, Desdemona, the experience of reading Othello is enjoyable for its lush language, and very human story.
  
  Iago is perhaps king of evil manipulators. We've all met some, I think and hopefully the experience has taught us to be cautious of those with a silken tongue, but poor Othello, although a general, is a bit of a gullible fool. The reader watches in awe as Iago weaves his web around Othello, to bring about his downfall. Warning Othello of the nature of jealousy, in an effort to further fan the flames Iago says
  
  "O, beware, my lord, of jealousy!
  It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
  The meat it feeds on."
  
  To tempt Cassio into drinking more Iago replies
  
  "Come, come, good wine is a good familiar creature, if it be well used."
  
  After reading Othello, I believe it was well worth it and would encourage others to do so as well.
• After having graduated from college 19 years ago, I was a little intimidated about reading Shakespeare again. However, the Folger Library makes reading Shakespeare much easier to follow (& more fun)! The words that appear as "foreign" to the modern English reader are briefly explained on the left side of each page -- which makes the text easier to follow. I only wish they had these words in bold, because I ended up highlighting the words that are referenced. Because of this, however, I don't have to read a synopsis of each act or scene before delving into the actual text!
  
  Othello is such an interesting play that I find it hard to put it down! I definitely plan on reading more Shakespeare's plays from the Folger Library!!!
• "Put up your bright swords, or the dew will rust them!"
  
  "Oh thou weed, that smellst so sweet that the senses ache at thee...I'll smell it on the tree..."
  
  Paul Robeson not only has the most wonderful voice, but is a superb actor as well. His deep, flexible, expressive tones seem to be going exactly where they are inclined to go, instead of where a man writing over 400 years ago, in what we call "Shakespearian English" (closer to ours than middle English--but not quite there) dictated. Uta Hagen ("and I remain behind, a moth of peace...Let me go with him!") is also perfect.
  
  When I first got the 33 1/3 RPM record (as close to 1950 as possible), I loved Jose Ferrer as Iago, with his India-rubber ball voice, best of all. He is great, but sometimes I find his scenes with Othello so insinuating (after he has begun to feed Othello his "poison" Othello "Well then--I do believe-- Desdemona's honest." Iago "Long live she so! And long live you to [very insinuating] think so." One sometimes wonders at Othello's gullibility [which is of course part of his character..but still...]} Iago floats over his "motive-hunting of motiveless malignancy" to perfection. Everything moves toward its inevitable conclusion, with Iago pushing, pulling, tacking, fashioning "the net/ that shall enmesh them all."
  
  I was too young to see this performance (8 in 1943); it's one of many things I wish I could go back in time for.
  
  If you can enjoy listening to a Shakespeare play, instead of watching it--do yourself a good turn, and get this one!
• Of all the things I expected to read about from Shakespeare, from love to politics, racism was not one of those. Yet here it is, a story that could have been written for modern times minus the dense and artful use of the English language. Can't believe I never got around to this one, or seen a play about it.