Editions
Bantam Classics editions contain excerpts from Shakespeare's sources as well as well-edited texts of the play.
Brown, John Russell, ed. Shakespeare in Performance: An Introduction through Six Major Plays. NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976. Plays, including Othello, have pictures from different productions and comments on how actors should play the motivation.
The First Folio of Shakespeare, 1623. Prepared and introduced by Doug Moston. New York: Applause, 1995. A facsimile of the first collection of Shakespeare's plays, overseen by his colleagues Hemmings and Condell.
Folger Shakespeare Library editions contain a summary of each scene along with annotations. Washington Square Press. Selected bibliography. Quotations in this hypertext stack are based on the Folger Library edition text.
Signet Classics editions contain text, essays including sources and theater history. Selected bibliography.
Variorum text. Contains text, sources, notes on critical commentary, notes on editing. Originally published in 1886, edited by Horace Howard Furness. Reissued by American Scholar Publications in 1965.
Bergeron, David M. and Geraldo U. deSousa. Shakespeare: A Study and Research Guide. 3rd edition, revised. Lawrence, KS: U of Kansas P, 1995. Introduction to critical approaches and scholarly resources, with a section on writing and documenting a term paper.
Berman, Ronald. A Reader's Guide to Shakespeqare's Plays: A Discursive Bibliography. Rev. Ed. Glenview, IL: Scott Foresman, 1973. Essays on major critical opinion, play by play.
Blake, Norman. Shakespeare's Language: An Introduction. NY: St. Martin's Press, 1983. A general introduction to Elizabethan English, giving possible meanings for problematic constructions.
Boyce, Charles. Shakespeare A to Z. NY: Laurel, Dell, 1990. Reference book with entries on plays (scene-by-scene summary, commentary, sources and theatrical history), characters, actors, historical people. For the general reader. Selected bibliography.
Bullough, Geoffrey. Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare, 8 vols. NY: Columbia UP, 1957-1975.
Gurr, Andrew. The Shakespearean Stage: 1574-1642. Third edition. Cambridge, England: Cambridge UP, 1992. An authoritative text about the companies, the players, their playhouses and audiences.
Hill, Errol. Shakespeare in Sable: A History of Black Shakespearean Actors. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1984. About actors and productions with all-black or mixed casts.
Kay, Dennis. Shakespeare. 1992. Recent, readable biography of Shakespeare and his times.
Modern Language Association annual bibliography. Now searchable on CD-ROM (in the reference section of the library).
Papp, Joseph and Elizabeth Kirkland. Shakespeare Alive! NY: Bantam, 1988. A lively introduction to Elizabethan thought, Shakespeare's sources and theatre and stage history of Shakespearean production.
Rothwell, Kenneth S. and Annabelle Henkin Melzer. Shakespeare on Screen : An International Filmography and Videography. London: Mansell, 1990. Exhaustive list of screen materials, organized by play and date of production. Includes critical reception, names of personnel in production, information about distributors.
Shakespeare Quarterly. Annual bibliography that is exhaustive on articles, productions, editions, translations of Shakespeare. Annotated entries.
Spevack, Marvin. The Harvard Concordance to Shakespeare. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1973. Lists all the words in Shakespeare's works with reference to plays. (6 vol. version gives words play by play and character by character)
Wells, Stanley, ed. Shakespeare: A Bibliographical Guide. New edition. NY: Oxford UP, 1990.
Productions
Burge, Stuart, director. Shakespeare's Othello. Film, 1965. National Theater production with Laurence Olivier as Othello, Frank Finlay as Iago, Maggie Smith as Desdemona, and Derik Jacobi as Cassio.
Melton, Franklin, director. Shakespeare's Othello. Bard Productions, video, 1985, starring William Marshall as Othello, Ron Moody as Iago and Jenny Agutter as Desdemona.
Miller, Jonathan, director. Shakespeare's Othello. BBC/Time-Life TV video, 1981, starring Anthony Hopkins as Othello, Bob Hoskins as Iago, and Penelope Wilton as Desdemona.
Nunn, Trevor, director. Shakespeare's Othello. Video of television production of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Available from Films for the Humanities, 1995, starring Willard White as Othello, Ian McKellen as Iago, Imogen Stubbs as Desdemona and Zoe Wanamaker as Emilia.
Parker, Oliver, director. Shakespeare's Othello. Film 1995. Laurence Fishbourne as Iago and Kenneth Branagh as Iago.
Suzman, Janet, director. Shakespeare's Othello. Othello Productions and Focus Films; shown on Texaco Performing Arts Showcase on Bravo. Market Theater Company of Johannesburg, South Africa, starring John Kani as Othello, Richard Haddon Haines as Iago, Joanna Weinberg as Desdemona, Dorothy Gould as Emilia, Frantz Dobrowsky as Roderigo, and Neil McCarthy as Cassio. (Othello Productions and Focus Films)
Welles, Orson, director. Shakespeare's Othello. Film, black and white. Mogador-Films (Mercury), 1952. Starring Orson Welles as Othello, Micheal MacLiammoir as Iago and Suzanne Cloutier as Desdemona.
Yutkevich, Sergei, director. Shakespeare's Othello. Film, black and white. Mosfilm, 1955. Starring Sergei Bondarchuk as Othello, Andrei Popov as Iago and Irina Skobtseva as Desdemona.
Zeffirelli, Franco, director. Giuseppe Verdi's opera, Otello. Italian with subtitles. Video. Long Branch, NJ: Kultur, 1986.
Critical Works on Othello
Barnet, Sylvan. "Othello on Stage and Screen." In Othello, ed. Sylvan Barnet. NY: Signet Classics, 1986. A history of performances.
Bradley, A. C. Shakespearean Tragedy. NY: Meridian Books, 1955. Originally published in 1904.
Charlton, H. B. Shakespearian Tragedy. London: Cambridge UP, 1971. Othello as victim of cultural difference. Compares Shakespeare's play to his source in Cinthio's Hecatommithi.
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Coleridge's Shakespearean Criticism. Ed. T. M. Raysor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1930.
Eliot, T. S. "Shakespeare and the Stoicism of Seneca." In Selected Essays of T. S. Eliot. London: Faber and Faber, 1932. Othello is no stoic.
Goddard, Harold C. The Meaning of Shakespeare. 2 vols. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1951. II.69-106. Othello is torn between Iago and Desdemona.
Granville-Barker, Harley. Othello. Granville Barker's Prefaces to Shakespeare. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1993. Originally published in 1945. A director presents a detailed analysis of the characters and staging of the play.
Greene, Gayle. "'This That You Call Love': Sexual and Social Tragedy in Othello." In Shakespeare and Gender: A History. Eds. Deborah Barker and Ivo Kamps. London: Verso, 1995. The play deals with men's misunderstanding of women. Emilia and Bianca are foils for Desdemona. Othello and Desdemona cooperate in their destruction.
Heilman, Robert B. Magic in the Web: Action and Language in Othello. Lexington, KY: U of Kentucky, 1956. Sees the play as a contrast between Wit (rationalism) and Witchcraft (poetry).
Knight, G. Wilson. The Wheel of Fire. Fifth Revised edition. Cleveland: Meridian Books, 1957. Knight's essay, "The Othello Music," analyzes the poetic power of the play.
Mack, Maynard. Everybody's Shakespeare. "'Speak of Me as I Am': Othello." Lincoln: U Nebraska P, 1993. Pp. 129-49.
Neely, Carol Thomas. "Women and Men in Othello : 'What should such a fool/ Do with so good a woman?'" In The Woman's Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. Eds. Carolyn Ruth Swift Lenz, Gayle Greene and Carol Thomas Neely. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1983. Pp. 211-239. Reviews critical opinion. The play is like a "cankered comedy." The balance of realism and romanticism, lust and love, desire and illusion, love and friendship found in the comedies is lost. The men's folly, cuckoldry, promiscuity and cruelty are laughed to scorn in the comedies, but remain in Othello which ends without much change in the men.
Rosenberg, Marvin. The Masks of Othello. Newark: U of Delaware P, n.d. A summary of how actors and critics have seen Othello, Iago and Desdemona in four centuries of production.
Traversi, D. A. An Approach to Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1956. Traversi sees Othello as a simple, self-dramatizing character.
Wayne, Valerie. "Historical Differences: Misogyny and Othello." In The Matter of Difference: Materialist Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. Ed. Valerie Wayne. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1991. Pp. 153-179. Iago's misogyny represents a "residual" Medieval ideology, Emilia represents an emergent ideology when she sees women as being just like men, and Cassio (and originally Othello) represent a dominant ideology that ascribes virtue to women, but only when they are powerless.