James Earl Jones Reads Othello at White House Poetry Jam

Not long after tak­ing office, Pres­i­dent Oba­ma host­ed the first White House poet­ry jam – an evening ded­i­cat­ed to the spo­ken word and bring­ing vers­es to life. Esper­an­za Spald­ing’s per­for­mance was a high point. And lat­er came James Earl Jones, arguably the best spe­cial effect in Star Wars, who recit­ed lines from Shake­speare instead of Dr. Seuss (since Jesse Jack­son already cov­ered that lit­er­ary ter­ri­to­ry back in 1991). The read­ing comes from Oth­el­lo. Specif­i­cal­ly, we’re wit­ness­ing Othello’s address to the Venet­ian sen­a­tors.

You can read Oth­el­lo, along with the rest of Shake­speare’s com­plete works, at MIT’s web­site for free. Or you can down­load the works as a free ebook via iTune­sU. We have more on that here…

via DIY Schol­ar