Internet Shakespeare Editions

About this text

  • Title: Additional Notes on Othello
  • Author: Jessica Slights
  • ISBN:

    Copyright Jessica Slights. This text may be freely used for educational, non-profit purposes; for all other uses contact the Editor.
    Author: Jessica Slights
    Peer Reviewed

    Additional Notes on Othello

    TLN 2042: supervisor,

    Q1's supervisor is preferable here since F1 and Q2's supervision implies an additional layer of watching that makes nonsense of Iago's reply. Iago's strategic response to Othello's call for ocular proof (TLN 2003) is surely to emphasize the voyeuristic potential of the general's demand that he see (be supervisor of) his wife's ostensible infidelity. Supervision would have to be understood as the object of gape on, a grammatical pairing that shifts the focus of Othello's jealous gaze from Desdemona's supposed adultery itself to some unspecified watcher.