Rating: 
Summary: Shakespeare at His Best!
Review: Othello is by without a doubt my favorite of the plethora of Shakespeare's tragedies. Although Othello himself is quite an intricate character, it was funny and almost ironic how the character that grabbed my observance the most was the villain Iago. Iago, being perhaps Shakespeare's most consummate villain, directly or indirectly seemed to control the minds and hearts of almost everyone he interacted with. Bravery, loyalty, ambition, honesty, and chivalry are all issues addressed within the play, and when combined with a great deal of power struggles, they can create an intense whirlwind of emotions and confusion running high. Othello, even being a powerful and bold general, is easily deceived by Iago as well as are many of the other characters who soon come to find out what it means to be struck by Iago's wrath. All of these things considered, one can easily find themselves engulfed with all sorts of emotions, and be filled with empathy and rage toward the diverse array of characters, maybe even find a little piece of themselves in each one of them. The play can be compared to many of Shakespeare's plays, both comedy and tragedy, in different ways. If you enjoyed the plot of Much Ado About Nothing, or Romeo and Juliet, then you can not go wrong by reading this play. Also, if you like strong women roles and always find yourself identifying easily with those characters in Shakespeare's plays, one of the female characters in Othello, Emelia will be quite a delight. For me, by the last page and last quote of this play, I was literally holding back the tears, and that impact is no exaggeration. If you have yet to read Othello, don't wait another second. Go right now to the nearest bookshelf, dust it off and I promise the pages will just seem to simply turn themselves. Enjoy!
Rating: 
Summary: Moor is less
Review: Othello is in many ways the most tragic of Shakespeare's heroes, because his ultimate destruction is so
much a function of his best qualities, as opposed to folks like Hamlet, Lear, and MacBeth, who are
destroyed by their worst. Othello is a noble warrior, but very much an innocent and far too trusting of
other men's counsel, and so he is easy prey for Iago, who in turn may be Shakespeare's greatest villain,
because he is so purely evil. Richard III, by contrast, while a force of malevolence, is also just more
interesting and intelligent than those around him. Iago has none of Richard's beguiling qualities, he is
little more than the sum of his own jealousies and hatreds. And so, when this noblest hero and this
most vile villain collide, the events that follow are tragic in the human sense, not merely in a dramatic
sense. We mourn the loss of a superior being, in Othello, not just the general destruction of life.Othello is also distinguished by just how trivial are the provocations that set events in motion. Iago
uses little more than a single prop, an embroidered kerchief, and his own treacherous words to bring
about a series of deaths and the fall of a great man. In this sense it is the most writerly of plays,
reflects most fully Shakespeare's own confidence that he can take such slender threads and weave a
compelling drama. One despairs of ever saying anything novel about Shakespeare, he's been written
about so much, but the thought occurs that Iago might represent Shakespeare himself. Consider that it
is Iago's tongue and a flimsy plot device of his contrivance that force the action of the drama and his
jealousy of the handsome and much-heralded leading man that provides the motive. Surely
Shakespeare, who so loved the device of the play within a play, might have relished the idea of a play
that's a simulacrum of his own profession? I like to think so. But in the final analysis, Othello does not capture us in the same way that some of the other tragedies
do. The main characters are so unambiguous that they lack a certain depth. The plot is so contrived
and so inevitable that it seems mechanical rather than natural. You can imagine a world in which
Hamlet exacts his revenge without hesitating or where Lear realizes he's acting like a fool, but you
can't imagine a world in which Iago allows Othello and Desdemona to live happily ever after. That's a
pretty serious weakness. GRADE : B+
Rating:
Summary: A Great Tragedy
Review: Othello is now one of my favorite Shakesperean plays, right behind Romeo and Juliet. The play contains many universal themes which could be applied to life today, such as jealousy and revenge. The book is sad at the end, but it is very well-written and is effective in evoking emotions in the reader. I recommend this book for anyone who has to read a Shakesperean play or for anyone who wants to read a good book.
Rating:
Summary: It's no tragedy to read this play.
Review: Othello is only the second play I have read by Shakespeare. I enjoy this play far better than Romeo and Juliet. Perhaps the reason for my enjoyment of this play stems from the satisfaction I got from choosing this play on my own rather than reading it as an all class assignment like that of Romeo and Juliet last year. More importantly however, are the all too human themes, notably jealousy, discussed in this play that grabs my attention. While my review is for the most part positive, there are some disappointments in this play. The character, Othello, is one of nobility and unswerving loyalty both to his profession and to his wife, Desdemona. This is what his character should rightly be, as Othello is an army officer of high rank. Yet, it seems that a few venomous words from Iago is all it takes to stir enough jealousy within Othello for him to readily murder the wife that he seemed to have so faithfully loved. Even at my youthful sixteen years, Othello's character seems faulty and either paints a false picture of nobility and loyalty or jealousy. Or maybe it is because of my age that I fail to realize that perhaps Shakespeare sought to express the power of jealousy in such a way that even a person of such high rank in the military can stumble quite easily at the first taste of jealousy. I just learned this year in English that, according courtly love, love does not come without jealousy. Maybe one can apply this to Othello in terms of his love for Desdemona. For him, love could have come with jealousy attached to it. Just as much as Othello loved Desdemona, he is just as full of jealousy if ever he were to hear of someone loving his Desdemona. Unfortunately, his handling of the situation was not very noble and I am nevertheless disappointed in this. Jealousy also affected Iago when Cassio was chosen instead of himself to be Othello's right-hand man. Iago was corrupt to begin with and jealousy heightened this corruption. Iago's character is also a mastery of irony and hypocrisy; either that or the other characters were too gullible. All, in all, Othello is an intriguing play that has raised many more questions than I am able to discuss here, be it time constraints or intelligence capacity constraints. Shakespeare has hooked my attention for many plays to come.
Rating:
Summary: Greatest Tragedy ever
Review: Othello is the greatest tragedy I have ever read! Usually, it is hard to relate Shakespearean stories to modern times, as in Hamlet. But Othello is both a story possible in the Renaissance, and the modern era. Normally, it would be a very difficult read as I learned in reading Romeo and Juliet. But in this edition there is a column explaining some words that are strange and/or using pictures. At the beginning and the end of the book there are lots of helpful tips in understanding the Shakespearean language. Though I still didn't understand with so much help there was a small summary explaining a chapter and the significance, which helped me a lot. Basically the story is of a black Moor, Othello and his lover, Desdemona, and how Iago turns love to hate. Iago is probably Shakespeare's best villain. How Iago manipulates Othello into destroying himself is very cunning. I personally think that instead of Romeo and Juliet, Othello should be taught in schools, and if you liked this as much as I did, then you'll love Hamlet.
Rating:
Summary: Very interesting characterizations
Review: Othello isn't my favorite Shakespeare play, but I found the characterizations in it extremely interesting. I think that Iago's wife, Emilia, is one of the most complex and fascinating female characters Shakespeare ever created, as she is torn between her husband and Desdemona throughout the play. It all comes down to the question--why did she give Iago the handkerchief?? Emilia is certainly worthy of more critical attention than she seems to receive these days.
Rating:
Summary: A TRUE TRAGEDY
Review: Othello relects the true meaning of a tragedy both in its content and its structure.Tragedy is 'a story of exceptional calamity produced by human actions, leading to the death of a man in high estate.'The downfall of Othello is caused by his own actions, rather than by his character, or rather the two work in unison to create the stage for his downfall.
This is what captured my attention when I read this play.It is very profound to realize the fact that Shakespeare uses Iago to set this stage on which Othello is a mere player.
I love the character of Iago. His total confidence, the superiority that he feels when psychoanalysing human nature, his rational thinking and intellectualism sways the reader to think: 'Wow, this is a compelling and sophisticated man we're dealing with here!'
However, my admiration of Iago does not in anyway undermine my love of Othello. His poetic and calm demeanor makes the reader feel the pity and terror for him when he falls from grace (catharsis). Yet, we are made to understand that the reason why he is made to appear a gullible and ignorant fool to some readers is that he does not have any knowledge of a delicate, domesticated life. Venetian women were foreign to him. This tragic flaw in Othello added to the circumstances used by Iago to destroy him.
The meaning, and hence the tragedy of the play is conveyed through the use of Shakespeare's language, style, literary devices and imagery. Without these dramatic effects, readers would never be able to enjoy the play as much, although the dialogue is at times difficult to decipher.
I thoroughly enjoyed Othello and it is my hope that more people find it enticing as I have. I would be delighted to contribute more of my reviews to that effect.
Rating: 
Summary: Honest black man gets tricked. Reminicent of the LAPD
Review: Perfect reading for anyone interested in the history of the worlds evils against the African-American. Othello is just a cool young brother who gets tricked into doing some awful stuff by a guy who is jealous of Othello. Read it....live it...love it
Rating:
Summary: Shakespeare's Othello is the Ultimate Tragedy
Review: Shakespeare's Othello is an interesting and dramatic tragedy. If you like imagery and irony, you will like Othello. Shakespeare uses the power of imagery skillfully to develop themes throughout the play. For example, recurring animal imagery is used to sharpen the contrast between people and beasts, showing how Iago and Othello begin to act more like beasts than human beings. Irony also adds much to the plot of Othello to make it interesting and exciting for the reader. Much of the irony used is dramatic irony because the reader knows of Iago's plot, while the characters in the play have no idea what is about to unfold. The relationship between men and women in Othello is another aspect of the play that makes it interesting to read. Iago's wife Emilia, for example, is very cynical towards men, probably from years of living with Iago. Othello and Desdemona's relationship is also intriguing. In the beginning of the play, Othello and Desdemona are seemingly deeply in love with each other. Othello, however, is rather easily convinced that his wife is cheating on him and becomes angry to the point where he cannot forgive Desdemona. He decides to kill her. As she is being murdered, Desdemona tries to protect her husband's innocence in her own murder. Another interesting aspect of the play which makes it stand out from other Shakespearean plays is the race of the main character. Othello is black and a Moor, or Muslim. This fact brings up issues to be explored in the play. Shakespeare shows the characters being separated not only by status and rank but also by their place of origin and their religion. Overall, Shakespeare's Othello is dramatic, well-written, and thoroughly explores how evil a human being can become.
Rating:
Summary: Great Edition of a Great Play
Review: Shakespeare's play, "Othello" is usually recognized as one of his "great" tragedy's (with Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth). It certainly has a quite exciting plot and great poetry. If you have not yet had an oportunity to read this great work, I recomend it strongly. It is still an intelligent treatment of race, family and civic duty, and sex. It also has one of the most interesting bad guys around - Iago. I read it in the Arden edition, edited by Honigmann. Honigmann argues that Othello has a strong claim at being Shakespeare's greatest tragedy and makes a strong case for the work. He has a good introduction that gives a quite balanced and clear overview on many topics regarding this play, from the "double" time method Shakespeare uses, overviews of the various characters, as well as a the stage history. Amazingly, he can be remarkably balanced, even when he is talking about his own views. While he is a decent writer, Shakespeare is better... In the text itself, he gives quite ample footnotes to help explain the language, why he picked particular readings, as well as where themes came from... Like all scholarly Shakespeare editions, the notes are in danger of overloading the text. This reader, however, recognizes the distance between myself and Shakespeare and so I find it comforting to be able to look at the notes when I have questions. At times his "longer notes" were awkward, but there is no easy way to handle this amount of material.
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