Essays by Black Writers. Ed. Mythili Kaul. Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1997, pp.151-166.

Othello. The Folger Library. Wright, Louis B. and Virginia A. Lamar, Eds. New York: Washington Square Press, 1957.

Ribner, Irving. Patterns in Shakespearian Tragedy. London: Methuen, 1960.

Shakespearean Criticism. Mark Scott, Ed. Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research Company Book Tower, 1987.

Singh, Sarup. Family Relationships in Shakespeare and the Restoration Comedy of Manners. Dehli: Oxford University Press, 1983.

Speaight, Robert. Shakespeare on The Stage. Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown and Company, 1973.

Spivack, Bernard. Shakespeare and the Allegory of Evil. New York: Columbia University Press, 1958.

Sundelson, David. Shakespeare's Restoration of the Father. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1983.

Vaughn, Virginia Mason. Othello: A Contextual History. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1999.

Wilson, Harold S. On the Design of Shakespearian Tragedy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1957.

Further Study

Adamson, W. D. "Unpinned or Undone? Desdemona's Critics and the Problem of Sexual Innocence," in Shakespeare Studies XIII (1980): 169-86. Asserts that Shakespeare has drawn Desdemona as "legally innocent of adultery, morally innocent of idly considering it, and psychologically innocent of even being capable of it."

Auden, W. H. "The Joker in the Pack," in his The Dyer's Hand and Other Essays, pp. 246-72. New York: Random House, 1948. Compares Iago to a practical joker who himself has no personal feelings or values, but contemptuously uses the very real desires of other people to gull and manipulate them. Auden also claims that Othello prizes his marriage to Desdemona not for any great love he holds for her, but rather because it signals to him, mistakenly, that he has fully integrated into Venetian society.

Dash, Irene G. "A Woman Tamed: Othello," in her Wooing, Wedding, and Power: Women in Shakespeare's Plays, pp. 103-30. New York: Columbia University Press, 1981. Contends that Othello demonstrates "the cost to husband and wife … of attempting to conform to stereotyped ideals of marriage."

Gregson, J. M. "Othello," in his Public and Private Man in Shakespeare, pp. 156-76. London: Croom Helm, 1983. Maintains that the characters Othello and Hamlet are opposites, and argues that the true tragedy of Othello is the Moor's inability to separate his public conduct as military leader from his private judgments as husband.

Grudin, Robert. "Contrariety as Structure: The Later tragedies," in his Mighty Opposites: Shakespeare and Renaissance Contrariety, pp. 119-79. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979. Finds that Desdemona's "type of lamblike femininity" is compelling to Othello but not to Shakespeare and thus the dramatist demonstrates that her passive helplessness is implicitly ironic, for it "sharpens the impulse to aggression in others." The ambiguities of her virtue are comparable, Grudin maintains, to the complexities of Iago's wickedness.

Hallstead, R. N. "Idolatrous Love: A New Approach to Othello," in Shakespeare Quarterly XIX, No. 2 (Spring 1968): 107-24. Argues that after the consummation of Othello and Desdemona's marriage in Cyprus, the Moor's love for his wife becomes so excessive that it is theologically idolatrous. Asserting that Othello is a "morality play in a completely realistic framework," Hallstead contends that the Moor is shown renouncing Christianity when he swears a pagan vow with Iago at the close of Act III, scene iii, but the critic also discovers in the final scene of the drama a clear pattern of Christian penance, concluding that Shakespeare has portrayed the "return of Othello's Christianity."

Hyman, Stanley Edgar. Iago: Some Approaches to the Illusion of His Motivation. New York: Atheneum, 1970, 180 p. Assesses Iago's motives from five different critical perspectives, alternately questioning whether the ensign should be viewed as "a stage villain, or Satan, or an artist, or a latent homosexual, or a Machiavel." A pluralistic approach to this issue, Hyman argues, demonstrates the "tension, paradox, and irony" in Shakespeare's portrayal of Iago, while a single line of inquiry can only produce one perspective that is "inevitably reductive and partial."

Kott, Jan. "The Two Paradoxes of Othello," in his Shakespeare Our Contemporary, translated by Boleslaw Taborski, pp. 99-125. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1964. Maintains that the struggle between Othello and Iago is a dramatic representation of a "dispute on the nature of the world" and an enquiry into the purpose of human existence. Kott focuses specifically on two paradoxical events in the play: Iago's own victimization by the evil he himself sets in motion and Desdemona's delight in the erotic aspects of love, which leads Othello to believe her capable of betraying him.

Morris, Harry. "Othello: No Amount of Prayer Can Possibly Matter," in his Last Things in Shakespeare, pp. 76-114. Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1985. Interprets Othello as a Christian allegory about damnation.

Murry, John Middleton. "Desdemona's Handkerchief," in his Shakespeare, pp. 311-21. London: Jonathan Cape, 1936. Argues that Desdemona's loss of the handkerchief symbolizes the perfection of her love for Othello, for she became heedless of it only "when Othello was sick and her concern for the man she loved drove out all concern for the token of their love."

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, pp. 211-39, edited by Carolyn Ruth Swift Lenz, Gayle Greene, and Carol Thomas Neely. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1980. Analysis of the kinship of the women in Othello and the heroines in Shakespeare's comedies which emphasizes their similar capacities to initiate courtship, tolerate men's fancies, and balance romantic idealism with a realistic view of sexuality.

Nelson, T. G. A. and Charles Haines, in "Othello's Unconsummated Marriage." Essays in Criticism XXXIII, No. 1 (January 1983): 1-18. Maintains that Othello's anger and passion in Acts III and IV is the result of his frustrated desire.

Rice, Julian C. "Desdemona Unpinned: Universal Guilt in Othello," in Shakespeare Studies VII (1974): 209-26. Argues that although Desdemona is apparently the most virtuous of women, she shares with Othello and all the other characters in the drama the frailties, imperfections, and moral vulnerability that are inherent in human nature. Rice maintains that Desdemona is partially responsible for her own murder through her "overconfidence in the power of virtue to triumph."

Rosenberg, Marvin. The Masks of Othello: The Search for the Identity of Othello, Iago, and Desdemona by Three Centuries of Actors and Critics. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961,313 p. An overview of the interpretations of the drama's main characters by actors from the Restoration to the mid-twentieth century. Seeking to synthesize the commentary of literary critics with the interpretations offered by leading performers, Rosenberg emphasizes the essential humanity of the play's three central figures.

Sen Gupta, S. C. "Symbolism in Othello," in his Aspects of Shakespearian Tragedy, pp. 88-113. Calcutta: Oxford University Press, 1972. Asserts that Othello and Iago "represent the eternal conflict—both internal and external—between the forces of Love and Hate, of Good and Evil, and the realization that the conflict cannot be resolved is part of the tragedy of human life."

Wain, John, ed. Shakespeare: Othello. London: Macmillan, 1971, 244 p. A collection of essays by prominent critics on various topics concerning Othello.