The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.0652 Tuesday, 20 March 2001
[1] From: W. L. Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 16 Mar 2001 11:31:33 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 12.0635 Re: Othello in Aleppo
[2] From: Don Bloom <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 16 Mar 2001 13:58:59 -0600
Subj: Re: SHK 12.0635 Re: Othello in Aleppo
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: W. L. Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 16 Mar 2001 11:31:33 -0500
Subject: 12.0635 Re: Othello in Aleppo
Comment: Re: SHK 12.0635 Re: Othello in Aleppo
>If Othello in his Aleppo phase was a Moslem as Asimov suggests why would
>he refer to the Turk as a 'circumcised dog.'? Even after conversion to
>Christianity, as a lapsed Moslem would he not still retain the status of
>a circumcised?
Asks J. Birjepatil. Asimov would respond (I think) that Othello still
remembers when he called Christians "uncircumcized dogs." Now that he
is a Christian, Othello uses the opposite phrase for Moslems.
Yours, Bill Godshalk
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Don Bloom <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 16 Mar 2001 13:58:59 -0600
Subject: 12.0635 Re: Othello in Aleppo
Comment: Re: SHK 12.0635 Re: Othello in Aleppo
Good point about circumcision. Vasectomy may be reversible, but
circumcision was not, at least not that I know of.
Since Chaucer's Knight fought for the Turkish "lord of Palatye / Agayn
another hethen in Turkye" (GP 65), there would certainly be no reason
why Othello couldn't have been in Aleppo as a professional in the pay of
the Turks, especially since he was so clearly non-European. The question
is why he would grow furious at a Turk insulting a Venetian before his
professional alliance with Venice. I suspect either that Shakespeare
didn't notice the inconsistency, or that he assumed the audience would
write it off as the raving of a man in the extremity of grief and guilt
(as heretofore suggested).
don
