"OTHELLO must not be conceived as a negro, but a high and chivalrous Moorish chief. Shakespeare learned the spirit of the character from the Spanish poetry, which was prevalent in England in his time. Jealousy does not strike me as the point in his passion; I take it to be rather an agony that the creature, whom he had believed angelic, with whom he had garnered up his heart, and whom he could not help still loving, should be proved impure and worthless. It was the struggle not to love her. It was a moral indignation and regret that virtue should so fall :'But yet the pity of it, Iago!-O Iago! the pity of it, Iago!' In addition to this, his honour was concerned : Iago would not have succeeded but by hinting that his honour was compromised. There is no ferocity in Othello; his mind is majestic and composed. He deliberately determines to die; and speaks his last speech with a view of showing his attachment to the Venetian State, though it had superseded him. "Schiller has the material Sublime; to produce an effect, he sets you a whole town on fire, and throws infants with their mothers into the flames, or locks up a father in an old tower. But Shakespeare drops a handkerchief, and the same or greater effects follow. "Lear is the most tremendous effort of Shakespeare as a poet; Hamlet as a philosopher or meditator; and Othello is the union of the two. There is something gigantic and unformed in the former two; but in the latter, everything assumes its due place and proportion, and the whole mature powers of his mind are displayed in admirable equilibrium." Coleridge. h 6 My 20 EHW Preface. The Early Editions. The First Edition of Othello was a Quarto, published in 1622, with the following title-page : "THE Tragedy of Othello, | The Moore of Venice. | As it hath beene diverse times acted at the Globe, and at the BlackFriers, by his Maiesties Seruants. | Written by William Shakespeare. [Vignette] | LONDON, | Printed by N. O. for Thomas Walkley, and are to be sold at his | shop, at the Eagle and Child, in Brittans Bursse. | 1622." * In 1623 appeared the First Folio, containing Othello among the “Tragedies” (pp. 310-339); the text, however, was not derived from the same source as the First Quarto; an independent MS. must have been obtained. In addition to many improved readings, the play as printed in the Folio contained over one hundred and fifty verses omitted in the earlier edition, while, on the other hand, ten or fifteen lines in the Quarto were not represented in the folio version. Thomas Walkley had not resigned his inter* Prefixed to this First Quarto were the following lines : "The Stationer to the Reader. "To set forth a booke without an Epistle, were like to the old English prouerbe, A blew coat without a badge, & the Author being dead, I thought good to take that piece of worke vpon mee: To commend it, I will not, for that which is good, I hope euery man will commend, without intreaty: and I am the bolder, because the author's name is sufficient to vent his worke. Thus leauing euery one to the liberty of iudgement: I haue ventered to print this play, and leave it to the generall censure. Yours, Thomas Walkley." 170416 est in the play; it is clear from the Stationers' Register that it remained his property until March 1st, 1627 (i.e. 1628) when he assigned "ORTHELLO the More of Venice" unto Richard Hawkins, who issued the Second Quarto in 1630. A Third Quarto appeared in 1655; and later Quartos in 1681, 1687, 1695. The text of modern editions of the play is based on that of the First Folio, though it is not denied that we have in the First Quarto a genuine play-house copy; a notable difference, pointing to the Quarto text as the older, is its retention of oaths and asseverations, which are omitted or toned down in the Folio version. Date of Composition. This last point has an important bearing on the date of the play, for it proves that Othello was written before the Act of Parliament was issued in 1606 against the abuse of the name of God in plays. External and internal evidence seem in favour of 1604 as the birth-year of the tragedy, and this date has been generally accepted since the publication of the Variorum Shakespeare of 1821, wherein Malone's views in favour of that year were set forth (Malone had died nine years before the work appeared). After putting forward various theories, he added ::-"We know it was acted in 1604, and I have therefore placed it in that year." For twenty years scholars sought in vain to discover upon what evidence he knew this important fact, until at last about the year 1840 Peter Cunning. ham announced his discovery of certain Accounts of the Revels at Court, containing the following item : "By the King's 'Hallamas Day, being the first of Nov, * v. Shakespeare Society Publications, 1842. |