Arden Shakespeare Othello: Revised Edition

I had an Oxford Shakespeare copy of Romeo and Juliet for my gcse years and the little summaries of context surrounding old English words and phrases helps massively. It means you have room to take notes on connotations and make implicit annotations instead of writing loads about context in order to help your understanding of the play and not having any room for actual ideas. These copies of Shakespeare plays really help grasp the concept of the play very easily and give brilliant insights into context as well as including summaries of scenes to help consolidate info. I wish every book written pre 1800 was written in this form! So helpful!

It has three parts to it 1)literature guide which includes context, plot overview and character analysis. 2) the play with line by line translation and analysis/prompts within it. 3) study guide which has thematic questions, in-depth answers about quotes and everything and so much more. This guide is great and its a good size and the price is so worth it as it is more affordable the standard copies. I really recommend for A-level students (like myself) and people who really want to understand the play in-depth. It includes everything in the description.

I love these Cambridge School texts. They are well lead out with the text on the right hand page and various activities and ideas on the left with a glossary of difficult words and phrases. At the end of each act, there are further ideas for study and there are excellent sections on staging, context, themes and ideas at the back.I used this for both A level and GCSE. They are perfect for solid GCSE students B/C level, very strong KS3 students and A level students that struggle. For A level, I'd recommend a more academic style but these texts are good as a companion to one of those if you don't feel confident with Shakespeare.I think this text allows readers to access Shakespeare more easily and to see how it can be exciting and fun.

I assume most potential buyers will be people sitting their A Levels, so I decided to review this based on helpfulness.The text is great, because there are definitions of old, Shakespearean words and there is enough room to annotate the individual pages. I strongly recommend this version if you are STUDYING.I am not a fan of the story though; it is typical, predictable Shakespeare and relies on the controversy gimmick, instead of the actual storyline. The language is great and poetic too, and I generally feel people that read Shakespeare are doing it just for that, so the product is good.

The layout of the play is nice and clear with plenty of space for annotation if you are studying it as part of a college course; there are helpful summaries at the top of each page with terminology at the bottom to help understanding of content as well as activity suggestions on each page. It is both informative in terms of context of the play and also for critiques of the play for those of you who are studying English at A2 level. For an exam-revision tool I would definitely recommend but perhaps not for those who read it purely for entertainment as the suggestions of school activities can detract from the play.