Okay, so thanks for coming to this lecture. The first in a series called Approaching Shakespeare,

and they're all on specific plays. The first one is on Othello. Next week I'm going to talk about

Henry V. In third week, I'm going to talk about measure for measure. In fourth week,

I'm going to talk about Macbeth. Anybody superstitious can stay at home that day. Fifth week, the winter's tale. In each of the lectures, I'm going to talk about Macbeth. Anybody superstitious can stay at home that day. Fifth week,

The Winter's Tale. In each of the lectures, I'm going to aim to approach a specific critical

question about the play, and in doing that to demonstrate different methodological approaches

and different kinds of material you might bring to bear on your Shakespeare work.

And my hope then is that the lectures will give you some kind of a toolkit for approaching

the other plays that I'm not talking about, and ways that you might push through the

sometimes overwhelming body of Shakespeare criticism. I'm actually not mostly, I think I've

stuck to this, I'm not mostly telling you or trying to tell you what to think about the play

or even particularly to give you my own readings, but rather to plot how you might put together

an argument about Shakespeare, about any Shakespeare play, and what kinds of evidence

you might use to do that.

I do hope some of you will come back to the subsequent lectures,

but the lectures will, as I said, all be on iTunes.

Hello, if you're listening to it on iTunes.

That's a weird kind of prelipsis moment.

And that's the evidence that really is a live lecture, small laugh.

So you can listen to it when it's more convenient to you, but it would be nice for me if some people do come to hear it live.

Okay, so let's start with Othello.

And the umbrella topic, the umbrella question on this play that I've chosen to focus on is the question, what is the significance to the play of Othello's race? What's the significance to the play of Othello's race? I'm going to start by thinking about the play's title page.

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