Abstract
This book explores how Shakespeare’s plays use ideas of blackness and specifically ideas about black women in order to make whiteness and white femininity visible and valuable. The introduction outlines some of the historical circumstances that worked to make black women invisible within the archive of the transatlantic slave trade beginning during Shakespeare’s lifetime, circumstances that would come to augment the habits of erasure already evident in his plays. After a brief review of the critical history of early modern race studies, the introduction discusses Toni Morrison’s 2012 Desdemona, which imagines the interactions of Othello’s female characters—ones who appear in the play as well as some who do not—in an effort to tell the parts of stories about race and women that Shakespeare leaves out. The introduction finishes with brief descriptions of each of the book’s chapters.
In the foreword to a reprinted edition of her novel Beloved (New York: Vintage International, 2004), Morrison describes what it was like to make fiction from the life of the escaped slave Margaret Garner, who, in 1856, tried to kill her children—succeeding in the case of her two-year-old daughter—rather than see them captured and returned to slavery: “To invite readers (and myself) into the repellant landscape (hidden, but not completely; deliberately buried, but not forgotten) was to pitch a tent in a cemetery inhabited by highly vocal ghosts” (xvii).
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Notes
- 1.
My thinking on this subject is, of course, indebted to Kim Hall’s Things of Darkness: Economies of Race and Gender in Early Modern England (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995), esp. 62–122.
- 2.
Dympna Callaghan made this point in her essay “‘Othello was a White Man’: Properties of Race on Shakespeare’s Stage,” in Terence Hawkes, ed., Alternative Shakespeares Vol. 2 (London: Routledge, 1996), 192–215.
- 3.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona, 2.6.26; Much Ado About Nothing, 5.4.38; As You Like It, 4.3.35–36; Pericles, 6.20–21; The Winter’s Tale, 4.4.361–362. The phrase from Pericles translates “Your light is my life.” Here and throughout this book, I take all Shakespeare citations from The Oxford Shakespeare, 2nd ed., gen. eds. Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005).
- 4.
Besides Hall, note 1 above, I am following Arthur Little, Jr., “Re-Historicizing Race, White Melancholia, and the Shakespearean Property,” SQ 67, no. 1 (2016), esp. 90–92.
- 5.
As formulated by Cheryl Harris, “Whiteness as Property,” Harvard Law Review 106, no. 8 (1993): 1710–1791.
- 6.
M. Lindsay Kaplan, “Jessica’s Mother: Medieval Constructions of Race and Gender in The Merchant of Venice,” SQ 58, no. 1 (2007): 1–30. Dennis Britton, Becoming Christian: Race, Reformation, and Early Modern English Romance (New York: Fordham University Press, 2014), 145–156, builds on Kaplan’s pioneering discussion by noting how Renaissance drama inflects its degrees of anxiety about miscegenation through the gender of the parties involved.
- 7.
Akhimie’s Shakespeare and the Cultivation of Difference: Race and Conduct in the Early Modern World (New York: Routledge, 2018), discusses Merchant (although not Lancelot Gobbo), 1–4. On how low status could be conceived in racial terms, see her 83–116.
- 8.
Sowandé Mustakeem, Slavery at Sea: Terror, Sex, and Sickness in the Middle Passage (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2017); Marisa Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016); Jennifer Morgan, Laboring Women: Reproduction and Gender in New World Slavery (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004).
- 9.
I take the term “flesh” from Hortense Spillers’ landmark essay, “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book,” Diacritics 17, no. 2 (1987): 64–81, which argues that understandings of black women’s formation as historical subjects come to us through knowledge of their commodification in slavery. On current black feminist re-citation of Spillers’ work, see Samantha Pinto, “Ungendering, Flesh, and Post-Spillers Epistemologies of Embodied and Emotional Justice,” Journal of Black Sexuality and Relationships 4, no. 1 (2017): 25–45.
- 10.
Deriving in part from the work of Spillers and Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982), modern theories of Afro-pessimism hold that blackness is not so much a matter of identity as it is an ontological state of subjective nullity in the face of the history of racism and white supremacy. Mathieu Chapman’s Anti-Black Racism in Early Modern English Drama: The Other “Other” (New York: Routledge, 2016), is the first book-length discussion to read Shakespeare through this critical method.
- 11.
Another inaugurating event could be G. K. Hunter’s “Othello and Colour Prejudice,” Proceedings of the British Academy 53 (1967): 139–163. Also see Jones’ The Elizabethan Image of Africa (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press for the Folger Shakespeare Library, 1971), and, for example, Anthony Barthelemy, Black Face, Maligned Race: The Representation of Blacks in English Drama from Shakespeare to Southerne (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 1987); Elliot H. Tokson, The Popular Image of the Black Man in English Drama, 1550–1688 (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982); Jack D’Amico, The Moor in English Renaissance Drama (Tampa: University of South Florida Press, 1991), and Peter Erickson, “Representation of Blacks and Blackness in the Renaissance,” Criticism 35, no. 4 (1993): 499–527.
- 12.
For example, Peter Erickson and Kim Hall, “‘A New Scholarly Song’: Rereading Early Modern Race,” SQ 67, no. 1 (2016): 1–13; Virginia Mason Vaughan, Picturing Blackness on English Stages,1500–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Peter Erickson, “Picturing Race: Early Modern Constructions of Racial Identity,” JEMCS 13, no. 1 (2013): 151–169; Sujata Iyengar, Shades of Difference: Mythologies of Skin Color in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); and Margo Hendricks, “Race: A Renaissance Category?,” in A Companion to English Renaissance Literature and Culture, ed. Michael Hattaway (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), 690–698. Race in Early Modern England: A Documentary Companion, ed. Ania Loomba and Jonathan Burton (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), compiles excerpts from period writings on racial, ethnic, and national difference.
- 13.
Besides Hall, note 1 above, such work includes Women,‘Race’ and Writing in the Early Modern World, ed. Margo Hendricks and Patricia Parker (New York: Routledge, 1994); Ania Loomba, Gender, Race, and Renaissance Drama (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992); Francesca Royster, Becoming Cleopatra: The Shifting Image of an Icon (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); Dympna Callaghan, Shakespeare Without Women: Representing Gender and Race on the Renaissance Stage (London: Routledge, 2000), which includes the Othello essay cited in note 2 above; Heidi Hutner, Colonial Women: Race and Culture in Stuart Drama (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001); and Arthur Little, Jr., Shakespeare Jungle Fever: National-Imperial Re-visions of Rape, Race, and Sacrifice (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000). All of these works helped focus my thinking in Women and Race in Early Modern Texts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
- 14.
Imtiaz Habib, Black Lives in the English Archives, 1500–1677: Imprints of the Invisible (Burlington: Ashgate, 2008); Miranda Kaufmann, Black Tudors: The Untold Story (London: Oneworld, 2017).
- 15.
John Pitcher, ed., The Winter’s Tale, 3rd ed. (London: The Arden Shakespeare, 2010), 322.
- 16.
In Shakespeare and the Problem of Adaptation (New York: Routledge, 2009).
- 17.
Jacques Derrida, trans., Eric Prenowitz, “Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression,” Diacritics 25, no. 2 (1995), 10.
- 18.
Desdemona (London: Oberon Books, 2012), 26. I’ll provide subsequent references parenthetically in my text.
- 19.
I am thinking especially of The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literature, ed. Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin (London: Routledge, 1989). On the degree to which teaching English literature, including Shakespeare, worked to enforce British imperial authority, see Loomba, Gender, Race, Renaissance Drama, 10–37; and Jyotsna Singh, “Different Shakespeares: The Bard in Colonial/Postcolonial India,” Theatre Journal 41, no. 4 (1989), 456–458.
- 20.
The Erotic Life of Racism (Durham: Duke University Press, 2012), 20, 10.
- 21.
Saidiya Hartman, “Venus in Two Acts,” Small Axe 26 (2008), 1.
- 22.
On audience as a factor in adaptation especially across media, see Linda Hutcheon with Siobhan O’Flynn, A Theory of Adaptation, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2013), 82–85.
References
Akhimie, Patricia. Shakespeare and the Cultivation of Difference: Race and Conduct in the Early Modern World. New York: Routledge, 2018.
Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin, eds. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literature. London: Routledge, 1989.
Barthelemy, Anthony. Black Face, Maligned Race: The Representation of Blacks in English Drama from Shakespeare to Southerne. Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 1987.
Britton, Dennis. Becoming Christian: Race, Reformation, and Early Modern English Romance. New York: Fordham University Press, 2014.
Callaghan, Dympna. “Othello Was a White Man: Properties of Race on Shakespeare’s Stage.” In Alternative Shakespeares 2, edited by Terence Hawkes, 192–215. London: Routledge, 1996.
Callaghan, Dympna. Shakespeare Without Women: Representing Gender and Race on the Renaissance Stage. London: Routledge, 2000.
Chapman, Mathieu. Anti-Black Racism in Early Modern English Drama: The Other “Other”. New York: Routledge, 2016.
D’Amico, Jack. The Moor in English Renaissance Drama. Tampa: University of South Florida Press, 1991.
Derrida, Jacques. “Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression.” Translated by Eric Prenowitz. Diacritics 25, no. 2 (1995): 9–63.
Erickson, Peter. “Picturing Race: Early Modern Constructions of Racial Identity.” JEMCS 13, no. 1 (2013): 151–169.
Erickson, Peter. “Representation of Blacks and Blackness in the Renaissance.” Criticism 35, no. 4 (1993): 499–527.
Erickson, Peter, and Kim Hall. “‘A New Scholarly Song’: Rereading Early Modern Race,” SQ 67, no. 1 (2016): 1–13.
Fuentes, Marisa. Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016.
Habib, Imtiaz. Black Lives in the English Archives, 1500–1677: Imprints of the Invisible. Burlington: Ashgate, 2008.
Hall, Kim. Things of Darkness: Economies of Race and Gender in Early Modern England. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995.
Harris, Cheryl. “Whiteness as Property.” Harvard Law Review 106, no. 8 (1993): 1710–1791.
Hartman, Saidiya. “Venus in Two Acts.” Small Axe 26 (2008): 1–14.
Hendricks, Margo. “Race: A Renaissance Category?”. In A Companion to English Renaissance Literature and Culture, edited by Michael Hattaway, 690–698. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003.
Hendricks, Margo, and Patricia Parker, eds. Women, ‘Race’ and Writing in the Early Modern World. New York: Routledge, 1994.
Holland, Sharon. The Erotic Life of Racism. Durham: Duke University Press, 2012.
Hunter, G. K. “Othello and Colour Prejudice.” Proceedings of the British Academy 53 (1967): 139–163.
Hutcheon, Linda with Siobhan O’Flynn. A Theory of Adaptation. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2013.
Hutner, Heidi. Colonial Women: Race and Culture in Stuart Drama. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Iyengar, Sujata. Shades of Difference: Mythologies of Skin Color in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Jones, Eldred. The Elizabethan Image of Africa. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press for the Folger Shakespeare Library, 1971.
Jones, Eldred. Othello’s Countrymen: The African in English Renaissance Drama. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965.
Kaplan, M. Lindsay. “Jessica’s Mother: Medieval Constructions of Race and Gender in The Merchant of Venice.” Shakespeare Quarterly 58, no. 1 (2007): 1–30.
Kaufmann, Miranda. Black Tudors: The Untold Story. London: Oneworld, 2017.
Kidnie, Margaret Jane. Shakespeare and the Problem of Adaptation. New York: Routledge, 2009.
Little, Arthur, Jr. “Re-Historicizing Race, White Melancholia, and the Shakespearean Property.” SQ 67, no. 1 (2016): 84–103.
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Mustakeem, Sowandé. Slavery at Sea: Terror, Sex, and Sickness in the Middle Passage. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2017.
Patterson, Orlando. Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982.
Pinto, Samantha. “Ungendering, Flesh, and Post-Spillers Epistemologies of Embodied and Emotional Justice.” Journal of Black Sexuality and Relationships 4, no. 1 (2017): 25–45.
Pitcher, John, ed. The Winter’s Tale. 3rd ed. London: The Arden Shakespeare, 2010.
Royster, Francesca. Becoming Cleopatra: The Shifting Image of an Icon. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
Singh, Jyotsna. “Different Shakespeares: The Bard in Colonial/Postcolonial India.” Theatre Journal 41, no. 4 (1989): 445–458.
Spillers, Hortense. “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book.” Diacritics 17, no. 2 (1987): 64–81.
Tokson, Elliot H. The Popular Image of the Black Man in English Drama, 1550–1688. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982.
Vaughan, Virginia Mason. Picturing Blackness on English Stages, 1500–1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Wells, Stanley, and Gary Taylor, gen. eds. The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005.
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Green MacDonald, J. (2020). Introduction: “A Cemetery Inhabited by Highly Vocal Ghosts”. In: Shakespearean Adaptation, Race and Memory in the New World. Palgrave Shakespeare Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50680-3_1
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