The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 17.0657 Thursday, 13 July 2006
[1] From: V. K. Ingram <
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Date: Wednesday, 12 Jul 2006 19:08:45 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 17.0649 Shakespeare and Islam
[2] From: Larry Weiss <
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Date: Wednesday, 12 Jul 2006 19:51:12 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 17.0649 Shakespeare and Islam
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: V. K. Ingram <
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Date: Wednesday, 12 Jul 2006 19:08:45 -0400
Subject: 17.0649 Shakespeare and Islam
Comment: Re: SHK 17.0649 Shakespeare and Islam
Cary DiPietro wrote:
>If
>the method of conquest and conversion employed by the " barbarous Turks"
>are [were?] as frightening and threatening to the safety of the rest of
>the world and her citizens [as they are today?], this and other factors
>must have fueled a passionate interest in Islam...This must have been
>the dilemma Shakespeare and even other writers such as the Elizabethan
>and Jacobean dramatists had to face... Islam, which is linked with the
>rise and dominance of the Ottoman Empire at that period must have
>sparked a global interest, especially when that part of the world
>remained threatened by this unfamiliar enemy.'
Your thinking is so 'modern' it is surprising you quote the post-moderns
so well. Try seeing Titus through other than the Eurocentric
'meta-narrative.' Or, just for an exercise, suppose that there were a
Muslim equivalent of the Bnai Brith, consider what they would have to
say about Titus, Othello and any other 'Moor' such as the one in the
Merchant of Venice.
V K Ingram (AKA V. K. Inman)
See also: Steven F. Kruger _The Spectral Jew_ 2006 and Dorothee
Metlitzki _The Matter of Araby in Medieval England_ 1977.
Much of what you are thinking about has already been discussed. Try
interacting with what has already been suggested.
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Larry Weiss <
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Date: Wednesday, 12 Jul 2006 19:51:12 -0400
Subject: 17.0649 Shakespeare and Islam
Comment: Re: SHK 17.0649 Shakespeare and Islam
>I find it hard not to see the rich texture of classical allusion in
>Aaron's language, his 'barbaric' predilection for violence and
>his opportunistic Machiavellianism as also indicative of early
>modern English literary representations of the 'infidel' Moors.
Everyone in Titus, with the sole exception of the Christian clown, is an
infidel by Elizabethan standards; and almost everyone (villain and hero
alike) is barbaric and extraordinarily violent. It is hard to draw a
conclusion that Shakespeare (or Peele) was dramatizing a popular
prejudice against moors without also concluding that he must have also
been making use of a common prejudice against Romans or Goths. Of
course, nothing in the play can say anything about Islam. Aaron (while
a moor), could not have been a Muslim since that religion was not
established for another two or three centuries.
By the way, I rather enjoyed the Titus at the Globe.
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