The Jew and the Moor Shakespeare’s Racial Vision

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1、The Jew and the Moor: Shakespeares Racial Vision犹太人与摩尔人：莎翁的种族见识 摘要:种族非莎剧最重要主题之一，但莎翁于五剧本中透过十一人物呈现其种族见识。犹太人与摩尔人代表两种最基本的种族主义：在以基督教和白人为中心的莎剧世界里，宗教和肤色成为种族歧视的主因。本论文谈到莎剧中各项种族的傲慢与偏见，探究种族主义的相关因素，归纳莎翁对种族问题的看法，最后提出莎翁心灵所见的灵象：羞锁客(Shylock) 摔不掉种族意识的锁，而奥赛罗永远被种族主义的手巾绑住而喊叫：噢！地狱啰!(Ot, hell,O!)。从莎剧中，我们可以看出：莎翁看到种族各异，但主张

2、种族间应有自由、平等、博爱，所以他是人道主义者，其宏大的心灵带来的是不偏不倚的种族见识。Abstract:Race was never Shakespeares central theme, but Shakespeares comprehensive soul has created an impressive racial vision. Five of his plays have touched on racial problems and his racial personae are above ten. The Jew and the Moor are two most prom

3、inent figurers representing two basic types of racism in Shakespeare. Racialism can be distinguished from racism. Intrinsic racism and extrinsic racism are due to racial pride and racial prejudice, respectively. Shakespeares world was a white-centered Christendom. Skin color and religion were thus t

4、he elemental features (of nature and nurture) that induced racism, Venice or Italy being Shakespeares convenient locale for dramatizing his racial actions and reactions. In this paper, instances of racial pride and prejudice in Shakespeare are presented, the causes of racism are investigated, Shakes

5、peares views of race and racism are discussed, and his racial vision is delineated. The conclusion is: Shakespeare recognizes the existence of racial differences but he is not a racist. Shakespeare is in fact an impartial, humanitarian dramatist preaching interracial liberty, equality, and fraternit

6、y. In his vision there is always a Shylock locked up shyly in his racial ideology, accompanied by an Othello crying “Ot, hell, O!” for villainous misuse of racial consciousness. The playwrights comprehensive soul wants every one of us to shy away the racial “bond” that cuts our hearts and discard th

7、e racial “handkerchief” that brings us tragedies instead of curing our headaches.I. Comprehensive Soul It is well known that John Dryden, in his “An Essay of Dramatic Poesy,” makes Neander praise Shakespeare as “the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehen

8、sive soul” (247). But what exactly did the term “comprehensive soul” mean to Neander or Dryden? The statement that immediately follows the praise is: “All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them, not laboriously, but luckily; when he describes anything, you more than see it,

9、 you feel it too” (247). This statement seems to explain that what made Shakespeares soul comprehensive was his ability to grasp “all the images of nature” and render them “luckily” and touchingly. Except this apparent explanation Dryden or Neander provides no further explication in this famous essa

10、y. In an editorial of 1998, Christopher Flannery says: “When Dryden speaks of Shakespeares comprehensive soul, he means that Shakespeares genius plumbs the deepest depths and scales the loftiest heights of human nature and encompasses the broadest reaches of the human condition.” Thus, he goes on to

11、 say, “Shakespeares themes include virtually every interesting aspect of human life.” However, the Shakespearean themes he mentions are such as “love, revenge, beauty, ambition, virtue, vice, justice, free will, providence, chance, fate, friendship, loyalty, betrayal; the interplay among passions, r

12、eason and will; truth and illusion, men and women, mortality and immortality; the vast variety of human characters and societies.”1 Somehow, he has failed to mention the theme of race. Race is, of course, part of nature, and each human race has always had its distinctive “image(s)” formed and known

13、in various “societies.” Nevertheless, race was indeed not so important an issue in Shakespeares England as to become a central theme of his drama. According to Michael D. Bristol, at the end of the 16th century “racism was not yet organized as a large-scale system of oppressive social and economic a

14、rrangements, though it certainly existed as a widely shared set of feelings and attitudes” (181). The Merchant of Venice may be a play most obviously touching on the tension of Jews in a Christian society, and thus one can argue as to whether the play is anti-Semitic or not. Yet, as the title sugges

15、ts, the play is mainly about “the merchant of Venice,” that is, Antonio, who embodies friendship or love of the highest degree, against usury or any mercenary form of profit that is often associated with merchants. Although the play is “otherwise called The Iewe of Venyce,”2 and it is certainly Shyl

16、ocks tragedy and often performed as such,3 most people still regard it as a comedy for Bassanio and Portia or as a tragic-comedy for Antonio. If the play, as C. L. Barber suggests, is to dramatize “the conflict between the mechanisms of wealth and the masterful, social use of it” (179), the emphasis

17、 is placed first and foremost on wealth as a personal, rather than racial, matter, for wealth is primarily ones personal, rather than racial, belongings. Othello is another of Shakespeares plays that has the greatest potential to develop into a “problem play” about race. In its source tale, as Susan

18、 Snyder points out, Cinthio does not dwell much on the theme of skin color, but Shakespeare dwells on it a great deal in the play (31). And as Stephen Greenblatt puts it, “blackness is the indelible witness to Othellos permanent status as an outsider” (45). Yet, as it is, the tragedy is primarily ab

19、out jealousy,4 and Othellos tragic fate lies more in his personality (e.g. his rashness or gullibility) than in his racial situation: there is no racism detrimental enough to hinder him directly through racial hatred in his military or matrimonial life. The racial problem raised in the play is, at m

20、ost, but a problem subordinate to the problem of villainy, which makes use of others personal traits as well as racial prejudices existing in a society. Three of Shakespeares other plays, namely Titus Andronicus, Antony and Cleopatra, and The Tempest, also have characters other than “the white race”

21、: Aaron the blackamoor, Cleopatra the Egyptian, and the Indian-like Caliban.5 But who would think of these plays primarily in terms of racism? Aaron is but a convenient agent to bring forth Shakespeares revenge theme, Cleopatra a type of love overpowering political and military power, and Caliban an

22、 example depicting the master/servant relationship or the nature/nurture contrast. In none of these plays, as in neither The Merchant of Venice nor Othello, does the theme of race ever really come to the fore to bedim other possible themes. Although race was never Shakespeares central theme, race an

23、d racism actually never escaped the playwrights notice. In fact, as will be discussed in this essay, Shakespeares comprehensive soul has made him comprehend a lot of things related to the problem of race, his comprehensiveness has become an impartial attitude toward races, and his soul has created a

24、 racial vision bespeaking his comprehensiveness most impressively.II. Racial Personae We have mentioned five characters (Aaron, Shylock, Othello, Cleopatra, and Caliban) from five plays (Titus Andronicus, The Merchant of Venice, Othello, Antony and Cleopatra, and The Tempest) as Shakespeares dramati

25、s personae that may have something to do with race and racism. But the five characters do not exhaust Shakespeares racial personae. In The Merchant of Venice, at least, we have two other Jews (Shylocks daughter Jessica and his friend Tubal) and one or two Moors (the Prince of Morocco and the Moor me

26、ntioned in passing whom Launcelot Gobbo made big with child), who either directly or indirectly help make up Shakespeares racial vision. If we count also Aarons black baby by Tamora and Calibans hag mother Sycorax (who is also not presented but mentioned in the play), then Shakespeares racial person

27、ae may be said to be above ten. Of the eleven racial personae, only four are female (Jessica, Cleopatra, Sycorax, and Launcelots Moor), but they are enough to connect race with gender. Among the eleven characters, again, we find three Jews (Shylock, Jessica, and Tubal), five Moors (Aaron and his bab

28、y, the Prince of Morocco, Launcelots woman, and Othello), one Egyptian (Cleopatra), and two Algerians (Caliban and his mother Sycorax, since she is said to be from Argier). Up to Shakespeares time, as we know, any race that was non-Greek, non-Roman, or non-Christian was thought to be barbarous. So,

29、all of the characters would have been considered barbarous if none of them had converted to Christianity (like Jessica and Othello) or had been born of nobility (like Cleopatra or the Prince of Morocco). Anyway, in Shakespeares vision race is also linked to religion and class, besides gender. In anc

30、ient times, the Moslem region west of Egypt in north Africa was called Barbary. It was the place where Moors (a Moslem people of mixed Arab and Berber descent) used to live.6 The English word “Moors,” it is said, is related to the Spanish Moros and the French Maures and derived from the Latin maurus

31、 and the Greek mauros, which means “dark,” and the word originally referred to “the dark ones” inhabiting northern Africa because they were darker in complexion than the Europeans. Later, in the 15th century, when black slaves were brought back from west Africa, “black Moors” or “blackamoors” was th

32、e word used to distinguish the negroes from the “Moors” of northern Africa, though people often failed to make the distinction and kept calling all Africans “Moors” no matter whether they were black or merely swarthy, from north or west Africa.7 In Shakespeares drama, Aaron is identified as a blacka

33、moor but Othello is said to be a swarthy Moor. To Shakespeare, “a Moor was not clearly distinguished from a black” (Asimov 609). And I am of opinion that no matter whether Othello is brown or black, this particular Moor is enough to become a racial topic though critics including Coleridge and A. C.

34、Bradley have strongly argued for the necessity of making Othello a swarthy Moor rather than a blackamoor.8 Racism is indeed often based on visible morphological characteristics such as skin color, hair type, and facial features. In Shakespeares plays, as in any society or natural environment, skin c

35、olor is the most conspicuous and hence important characteristic used to identify a Moor or a foreigner, or to tell a white man from a barbarian. In Titus Andronicus, the black Aaron is compared to a “swart Cimmerian” (TA, 2.3.72); in The Merchant of Venice, the Prince of Morocco asks Portia not to d

36、islike him “for my complexion” which is like the “shadowed livery of the burnished sun” (MV, 2.1.1-2); in Othello, Othello is said to have a “sooty bosom” and is likened to “an old black ram” (OT, 1.2.70 & 1.1.88); and in Antony and Cleopatra, Philo mentions Cleopatras “tawny front” (A&C, 1.1.6). To

37、 be sure, Othello is also said to have thick lips while Caliban is characterized as a deformed monster rather than a colored person, yet to Shakespeares Elizabethans the Moors, the Egyptians, or the Algeriansall those African people were distinctly colored people. Besides skin color, however, religi

38、on was another important characteristic for Shakespeares Europeans to discriminate between themselves and aliens. It happened that Moors were usually Moslems. It followed, therefore, that Moslems were associated with colored people and a foreign race in Europe. But Moslemism was not the only religio

39、n to suggest religious difference to Christians. Judaism was another religion that made the Europeans differ from Jews. To be sure, no religion is ever conspicuously written on anyones face: Moslemism or Judaism is a cultural manifestation, not a physical appearance. Yet, even though a white cannot

40、easily tell himself apart from a Jew (who is not as colored as a Moor), he can observe a Jews practice of Judaism and then find the needed difference to form his racialism. It is for this reason, perhaps, that in The Merchant of Venice the Christians as well as Shylock apparently equate the Jews rel

41、igion to his race and his nation. So far we have established the fact that in Shakespeare the Jew and the Moor are the two prominent figures bearing on problems of race, owing to their nurture (religious practice) and/or nature (such physical appearance as skin color). But racialism or racism is not

42、 just a matter of the “racial personae.” It is to even much greater a degree a matter of those who live with the “dark-skinned people” or with the “non-Christian unbelievers.” In his “Race and Racism,” Tzvetan Todorov says, “Racism is a matter of behavior, usually a manifestation of hatred or contem

43、pt for individuals who have well-defined physical characteristics different from our own” (64). This statement does not apply very well to the case of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, for Shylock is not identified in the play as a person with any particular skin color, hair type, or facial feature

44、, but as a person with Jewish belief and Jewish behavior. So, through Shylock Shakespeare seems to suggest that racism does not necessarily arise from “well-defined physical characteristics” only: there are cases in which racism comes from different social conduct (e.g. Shylocks Jewish usury). Yet,

45、Todorovs statement still holds true in that the Christians as well as Shylock do reveal their racism in their behavior, in their hatred or contempt for individuals who have nurture or nature different from their own. Accordingly, when we discuss any particular case of racism, we should take into con

46、sideration both sides: the side that has the visible differences and the side that sees or makes the differences, that is, the side of “the other” and the side of “the self.” And, more often than not, we may find that the former side is the minority while the latter side is the majority in the socie

47、ty in which they live together. In Shakespeares plays, for instance, Venice is where the Jews and the Moors appear and live with the native Venetians or Italians, but the Jews and the Moors are the minority side of “the other” that has the visible differences, whereas the whites or the Christians ar

48、e the majority side of “the self” that sees and makes the differences. That is why W. H. Auden can say: “Shylock is a Jew living in a predominantly Christian society, just as Othello is a Negro living in a predominantly white society” (232). Since it takes both sides to consider any racism, any list

49、 of racial personae should contain not only those characters who are the minority others with visible differences but also those characters who are the majority selves seeing or making the differences. Consequently, Shakespeares racial personae theoretically comprise not only the eleven characters w

50、e have just mentioned above; they should comprise all the dramatis personae in the five plays concerned, at least all the characters, white or colored, Christian or non-Christian, who have demonstrated more or less their racial consciousness: for example, Demetrius and Chiron as well as Aaron, Anton

51、io and Portia as well as Shylock and Jessica, Branbantio and Iago as well as Othello, Philo and Octavius as well as Cleopatra, and Prospero and Miranda as well as Caliban. Among the racial personae, however, two figures are undoubtedly most important: namely, Shylock and Othello. They are so importa

52、nt not just because they, through their racial actions and reactions, represent the two basic types of racism (racism owing to nurture and racism owing to nature), but also because their names, as will be clarified below, have special significance in the light of racialism or racism. In Shakespeare,

53、 character-naming is indeed “not an entirely random matter”: Shakespeares characters often “allude to, or play on, the names of themselves or others”9 By giving the Jew and the Moor each “a local habitation and a name” (to quote a phrase from The Midsummer Nights Dream), Shakespeare, as we shall see

54、, has not just made concrete two racial stories, but also made meaningful his imaginative understanding of racial problems.10 III. Pride and Prejudice There is a tendency for scholars to differentiate racialism from racism. Todorov, for instance, refers to racialism as a belief in the existence of r

55、aces, i.e., “human groupings whose members possess common physical characteristics,” just like animal species (64-65). Such a belief is a scientific one, and hence neutral in attitude without any racial prejudice. However, racialism often becomes racism, a belief not just in inherent biological diff

56、erences among various human races but also in the superiority of some races to others and thus the justification for hating or despising or even eliminating other races.11 For Todorov, “the form of racism that is rooted in racialism produces particularly catastrophic results” (64), as Nazism is that

57、 form of racism. Kwame Antony Appiah also uses “racialism” to denote the idea of recognizing the existence of races with certain common traits and tendencies, or inheritable characteristics called “race essence.” But Appiah assumes that from the basic racialism two types of racism may develop in tim

58、e. The first type is “extrinsic racism,” which believes that “the racial essence entails certain morally relevant qualities,” and thus, “members of different races differ in respects that warrant the different treatment, respectssuch as honesty or courage or intelligencethat are uncontroversially he

59、ld . to be acceptable as a basis for treating people differently” (5). It is through this racism that one believes negroes simply lack intellectual capacities and Jews are avaricious, and they should be treated accordingly. The second type of racism is “intrinsic racism.” It believes that “each race

60、 has a different moral status, quite independent of the moral characteristics entailed by its racial essence” (6). Thus, intrinsic racism will nurse “race feeling” or “feeling of community,” which is much like “family feeling,” and preach for racial solidarity just as Pan-Africanism or Zionism has d

61、one, while extrinsic racism will only result in racial hatred or even oppression (11-12). Shakespeare was no theorist and he had no scholarly expertise on racialism or racism. Nevertheless, Shakespeare has in his drama shown his comprehensive knowledge of racial problems. As a matter of fact, Shakes

62、peares plays have witnessed two basic types of racialism: one (represented by the Jew) is the type seeing differences or “otherness” in nurture (including religious belief and behavior), and the other (represented by the Moor) is the type seeing differences or “otherness” in nature (mainly such phys

63、ical appearance as skin color). Based on these two types of racialism, Shakespeares plays then enact a wide variety of racism. Shakespeare never dichotomized racism into intrinsic and extrinsic racism. But his wide variety of racism can be classified, too, into two sorts, much like Appiahs assortmen

64、t. In plain terms, the two categories may be called “racism of pride” and “racism of prejudice,” corresponding to Appiahs “intrinsic racism” and “extrinsic racism” respectively. It is only natural that one should love ones own race. But one cannot love ones own race without taking pride in one or mo

65、re characteristics of ones own race, just as a giraffe cannot love its own species without taking pride in, say, its long neck. It may be remembered that, in The Merchant of Venice, Jessica says: Alack, what heinous sin is it in me To be ashamed to be my fathers child! But though I am a daughter to his blood I am not to his manners. (MV, 2.3.16-19)Jessica cannot take pride in her fathers manners and