The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 17.0681 Thursday, 20 July 2006
[1] From: John Finnis <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Wednesday, 19 Jul 2006 17:16:29 +0100
Subj: Re: SHK 17.0675 Shakespeare and Islam
[2] From: V. K. Inman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Wednesday, 19 Jul 2006 18:01:22 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 17.0675 Shakespeare and Islam
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: John Finnis <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Wednesday, 19 Jul 2006 17:16:29 +0100
Subject: 17.0675 Shakespeare and Islam
Comment: Re: SHK 17.0675 Shakespeare and Islam
Larry Weiss finds religious anachronism rare in Shakespeare. But what
about right under our noses, in Titus Andronicus itself? Start the list
with the "ruinous monastery" and the "popish tricks and ceremonies"
(V.1.21, 76). Elizabethans will doubtless have sensed allusions to
Roman Catholicism, Reformation or Counter-Reformation martyrdom and
other anachronisms, not later than I.1.145, and found this hypothesis
well reinforced by the time they met the truly blatant in V.1 -- what
Jonathan Bate in the 1995 Arden edition of Titus (p. 19) calls
"purposeful anachronism" (though we may debate and refine Bate's
suggestions about the precise purpose in question).
John Finnis
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: V. K. Inman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Wednesday, 19 Jul 2006 18:01:22 -0400
Subject: 17.0675 Shakespeare and Islam
Comment: Re: SHK 17.0675 Shakespeare and Islam
Cary DiPietro writes:
>in Titus Andronicus, Aaron, by virtue of being a Moor, is
>necessarily an Orientalized other and therefore potentially anticipates
>in a proto-colonial context similar contemporary constructions of an
>Orient in the same or related geographical regions (well, this is
>another crux). Such constructions, Elizabethan or contemporary, serve
>in addition to narrative and theatrical ends, necessarily political
>ends, choose to interpret or ignore them how you will.
Here is an important study, if you follow this line: Moors do not exist!
There is no ethnic or religious group which identifies itself as 'Moor.'
The whole depiction of a 'Moor' is therefore a fabrication based on
positing a group of people known as "Moors" and Aaron is a character
representing that alleged race. Now I think that most of us could
recall several productions of Shakespeare in which Moors are black, even
if a white actor has to color himself for the role e.g. Olivier and the
British actor who is more known for his role as the Enterprise captain,
but whose name escapes me, both wore black makeup to play Moors in
Shakespeare. Why? Very few North Africans are black. Arabs tend to be
olive skinned and the Amazight (formerly called Berbers) who conquered
Spain are very light and sometimes blond. So what is a Moor? Are modern
portrayals of Moors as blacks in Shakespeare consistent Shakespeare's
concept of Moors? And how did this idea that Moors are black come about?
I would appreciate some thoughts along these lines.
V. K. Inman
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