Anthology Leads: Kate McPherson and Kate Moncrief.
Released with Early Modern England Encyclopedia 1.0a
Intellectual copyright in this entry is held by
Early Modern England Encyclopedia
By Shalom Reimer, inspired by
Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines
This document uses Canadian English spelling
In William Shakespeare’s
As Ian Smith has argued, these techniques portrayed blackness as a kind of object or thing that is presented for the speculation of the audience
(Smith in Bogaev 1). The key object of the play, Othello’s handkerchief, is also black in color. The black handkerchief, as Smith suggests, could also represent the black body
and the idea of race contingent on the thingness of black textile
(4). The black man’s literal embodiment is reduced to textiles on the early modern stage. Using these early modern performance practices, race became something to be put on and taken off in order to impersonate someone else.
Other White actors who portrayed Othello in blackface or other makeup styles up to the early 19th century include:
Blackface contributed to early modern race-making through comic traditions of blackface widespread in Europe. Terms like England put colour at the heart of identity
. For instance, a well-known emblem book (a sort of illustrated moral guidebook) from the 16th century featured the popular saying, To wash an Ethiope is a labour in vain
, which arises from Jeremiah 13:23, which asks Can the Ethiopian change his skinne? Or the leopard his spots?
. Robert Hornback states that the Ethiope was then understood to be proverbially associated with the
(193). With this known racist history, the oppressive nature of this theatrical tradition becomes apparent.unteachable
due to stereotypical black foolishness
By the 19th century, blackface had become inseparably tied to enslavement and portrayed the systematic inferiority embodied by that status. Smith suggests that it is this type of objectification that is coincident with the economy of chattel slavery and denied personhood
(172). When engaging with blackface, racism is undoubtedly intertwined, which has now made the practice unacceptable in modern theatrical spheres. As Ayanna Thompson notes, these performance traditions have deep implications for acting today. All applications of blackface, whether on opera stages or television screens, objectify blackness, denigrate black identities—and render the making of black-created stories that much more difficult
.
As much as race and racism are enacted through hair, makeup and embodied performance, they are also enacted through speech and language. Iago’s speech in Othello is frequently hateful and filled with racial judgements, but characters with good qualities also exhibit racism, for instance when Emilia calls Othello, the blacker devil
(5.2.129), matching his skin and identity to the darkness of the devil. Emilia’s image can also be found in 16th century religious drama, where, as Kim F. Hall reports, regional mystery plays showed black-painted demons springing from hell to torment (white) humans
(182).
Shakespeare counters some of this racial discrimination through Othello’s speech and actions. Othello uses sophisticated language and is a great warrior who has been elevated by the Venetian state to a position of great authority, whereas Shakespeare portrays Iago as jealous and petty man, willing to act on immoral or evil impulses. Shakespeare counters racial assumptions of Blackness by giving Othello eloquent speech and high status.