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Summary: black man as center of a shakespeare play
Review: it is unbeleivable that the great shakespeare would put as a center of one of his greatest plays,a black man in the army. this shows us that the racial issues that go on today were present years before us. I loved the simply because it gives us an idea how evil works and how close it can stand in our side. the only laim part is the ending were we cannot apreciate any sense of guilt by iago and no soul torturing by othello.
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Summary: The ultimate tale of jealousy
Review: Jealousy is perhaps the ugliest of emotions, an acid that corrodes the heart, a poison with which man harms his fellow man. Fortunately for us, Shakespeare specializes in ugly emotions, writing plays that exhibit man at his most shameful so we can elevate ourselves above the depths of human folly and watch the carnage with pleasure and awe.In "Othello," the "green-eyed monster" has afflicted Iago, a Venetian military officer, and the grand irony of the play is that he intentionally infects his commanding general, Othello, with it precisely by warning him against it (Act 3, Scene 3). Iago has two grievances against Othello: He was passed over for promotion to lieutenant in favor of the inexperienced Cassio, and he can't understand why the Senator's lily-white daughter Desdemona would fall for the black Moor. Not one to roll with the punches, he decides to take revenge, using his obsequious sidekick Roderigo and his ingenuous wife Emilia as gears in his transmission of hatred. The scheme Iago develops is clever in its design to destroy Othello and Cassio and cruel in its inclusion of the innocent Desdemona. He arranges (the normally temperate) Cassio to be caught by Othello in a drunken brawl and discharged from his office, and using a handkerchief that Othello had given Desdemona as a gift, he creates the incriminating illusion that she and Cassio are having an affair. Othello falls for it all, and the tragedy of the play is not that he acts on his jealous impulses but that he discovers his error after it's too late. It is a characteristic of Shakespeare that his villains are much more interesting and entertaining than his heroes; Iago is proof of this. He's the only character in the play who does any real thinking; the others are practically his puppets, responding unknowingly but obediently to his every little pull of a string. In this respect, this is Iago's play, but Othello claims the title because he -- his nobility -- is the target.
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Summary: This sucks
Review: Look, here it is. I know everyone says how great and everything Othello is and that this Shakespeare guy is like a genius. But what it comes down to is it is just like this white guy from Ireland who never went to Italy and stuff and like all his plays all take place there and stuff. I mean, did Shakespeare actually know someone named Romeo? But that's not the point. This whole play sucks. I didn't get involved at all and I couldn't relate to none of the characters. Plus when my teacher said that Othello is actually black, I, as a white person, took offense to it. So to all you out there in cyber space, just avoid this no matter what. And if you were like assigned it for class say that you won't tolerate racial prejudice. Or read the Cliff Notes, like I did.
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Summary: AN ASS THAT WILL NOT MEND HIS PACE WITH BEATING
Review: My one star is not directed toward OTHELLO, which is one of Shakespeare's greatest dramatic achievements, but is directed toward Ms. Sean Ares Hirsch, who is either one of the dumbest readers I know of or one of the most facetious (I pray the latter). She refers to this minor piece as "Shakespeare's slump" and elaborates by saying that the play's characters, minus Iago, are flat. Looking at the fairly impressive amount that Ms. Hirsch has read (possibly in the WORLD CLASSICS FOR CHILDREN series), it is unthinkable to conclude that she is actually as mentally challenged as she appears. She contradicts nearly 400 years of criticism in slighting OTHELLO, something that I recall a couple of well-known drug users in one of my high school English classes doing 25 years go. I must admit that I occasionally become concerned that Ms. Hirsch is actually being candid when reading her reviews, which are rather unimaginative and when grouped into three categories (works she doesn't like, works she likes fairly well, and works she loves) and then read, all begin to repeat themselves in trite groups of three. Yet, considering the fact that if Ms. Hirsch were to turn in one of her reviews (especially the ones on OTHELLO and TWELFTH NIGHT, which is, though AS YOU LIKE IT is a close second, probably Shakespeare's greatest comedy) to even a kindergarten teacher, she (Ms. Hirsch) would be thoroughly laughed at, I must conclude that these reviews are largely sarcastic-possibly clever parodies of those of the average construction-worker critic. OTHELLO is, as I am sure Ms. Hirsch actually believes, one of Shakespeare's greatest plays, though not, of course, quite matching LEAR or HAMLET. I would like to try my hand at one of Ms. Hirsch clever parodies. Don't judge me too harshly. Be kind. I am not as skilled as she is. Here we go: ............. Review of AS YOU LIKE IT: "My only complaint about this play is that Shakespeare overtly forced himself to include Rosalind, Jacques, Touchstone, Orlando, Duke Senior, and above all Phebe. Had he excluded the aforementioned figures from the action, he could have indeed much improved this so-called "problem play". Although this play lacks the hilarious tone of Webster's WHITE DEVIL or the superb construction of Carlos Williams's RED WHEELBARROW, it is a fine play. Duke Senior's defiant usurpation of the woodlands and Rosalind's atavistic reversion to conspicuous, though hardly narcissistically cogent, transvestitism do not effect the play's nefarious, wholly phallic destruction. The play's conclusion at the joyous feast of Hemline rectifies all wrongs and negates our suspicions concerning Shakespeare's sexual unrest or "rough and all-unable pen" (certainly a Freudian reference). If you read this, knowing not to expect a virile Bard, you may find it a very pleasant play." David Lawrence, D.D.T. (bookbasher@hotmail.com)
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Summary: Best Shakespeare yet
Review: Next to MacBeth, Othello is the best play Shakespeare has written. The way all of the imagery and motifs molded together was fascinating. The characterization of each character playing against one another was incredible.
I find it so amazing how a simple object, like the hankerchief, can represent so much; greed, love, fidelity. Shakespeare in the best at imagery and will never be replaced.
The story is of Othello, a black fighter and warrior winning the heart of his one true love, Desdemona. Through out the play, people treat Othello as a second class citizen based on his colour . . . something very rampid in the days of Shakespeare. Iago is insanly jelous of Othello. Iago's character (the most evil of all Shakespear's villians) was extremly sinister, from the time of deceiving Othello ot Cassio right until the very end. At the time Iago deceive's Cassio - due to a passing up of a job promotion - we realize how poignant this part is, and the astute nature of evil; one of nature's moast prominent human characteristics.
The play is a story of lies, blindness and evil. Every human suffers from blindness at some point in our life and Shakespeare executes that inevitablness perfectly. Othello is firstmost a solider and with that, he proves to set a most enduring tragedy upon himself, the people around him and his love.
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Summary: The very best Shakespere has to offer.
Review: Normally, I'd be the first to say that Shakespere is nothing more than an overrated, dead British guy who wrote a few good plays a long time ago. Then, I read Othello. It is a tragic tale of betrayal and lust, with the greatest villian the stage has to offer: IAGO. Iago, in a fit of jealosy after not being promoted by his General, who is Othello, and spreads nasty rumors about his wife and Michail Cassio. The rest is history. Shakespere uses his characters for everything they're worth. He manipulates and tosses in such great dialoge and deciet that there is no turning back. A great read, even for not Shakespere fans.
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Summary: this is not othello!
Review: One of my main concerns in looking at the reviews for this novel were that most of them reviewed not this version of the play, but were reviewing the actual play by shakespeare itself. While I considered it kind of funny that people would take the time to give a bad review to a play that has been considered one of the great treasures of English literature for centuries, I thought it was somewhat tragic that they would give a bad review based solely in some cases on what could only be called a synopsis of the original work. True, the author went through the trouble of changing the race of a couple of characters, and in effect ruined a lot of the drama of the original work, but largely this is simply a poorly written synopsis of a literary classic. The problem with all such watered down versions of the original works is that they are not the original work. The original work, while it may be hard to understand, is a work of art, anything that merely gives the gist of the action in the original play is going to necessarily lose a lot of the original language and the original art. This novel is no different. Read the original!
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Summary: Amazing
Review: Only Shakespeare, the great master of drama, could sculpt such a fabulous scheme. This play introduces one of the most tragic of characters, Othello. Othello is not the villain, but instead is a noble man who is entangled in a plot in which he knows nothing about and which eventually leads to the downfall of all those directly and indirectly involved. This is a masterful work of art that weaves both suspense and comic relief into one. Even "Macbeth" cannot compare to the tragedy found in "Othello." Othello is a tragic figure in that he is a good and honest man with a single fault that leads to his own destruction. He is too trusting and by trusting in everyone around him he leaves himself open to trickery. Because he himself would never lie and deceive he can never believe that others would lie to and deceive him. Iago, the villain is the perfect evil mastermind who controls the events surrounding his plot with great precision (and a little luck) until the final scenes of the play. I recommend this play to any drama fan and certainly to anyone interested in Shakespeare's great genius.
Rating: 
Summary: Good great book except English
Review: Othello has a great intricate plot and would keep you entertained if it weren't all written in old English. The English it's written in will make you pull your hair out.
Rating:
Summary: Good great book except English
Review: Othello has a great intricate plot and would keep you entertained if it weren't all written in old English. The English it's written in will make you pull your hair out.
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