Heinemann Advanced Shakespeare: Othello

This text focuses on preparing students for A-Level. It has notes, end-of-act activities, tips from an A-Level Chief Examiner and space for students’ own annotations.

“Othello” is the definitive play on the theme of jealousy. In this remorseless tragedy, first performed in 1604, William Shakespeare’s most malevolent villain, Iago, aide to Othello, plants the seed of the green-eyed monster in the mind of his master, incubating it with vile insinuations until it devours the great man and the lives of those he loves. Iago believes he has been unfairly treated by the Moor, who is completely unaware of it, so both are carried through the drama on tides of delusion. This is what places “Othello “among Shakespeare’s masterpieces-driven by the spiteful impulses to which all of us are at some time susceptible, the course of life can go horribly awry.

QUOTES FROM OTHELLO
“O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-ey’d monster, which doth mock The meat it feeds on.”
“For she had eyes and chose me.”