Renaissance Literature

MOVEMENT ORIGIN It could be argued that no other literary period in

history is as rich—or paradoxical—as the Renais-
sance. Many historians locate the Renaissance
c. 1450 from the mid-fifteenth until the early seventeenth
century. There are, however, a few writers from
other time periods whom historians and critics
commonly associate with the Renaissance. The
European Renaissance produced some of his-
tory’s greatest writers and works of literature,
yet many historians and critics disagree about
when it actually took place. Contemporary Ren-
aissance fairs and many movies set in Renaissance
times are often set in England. In reality, how-
ever, the Renaissance started in Italy, then spread
slowly east to other European countries, most
notably France, Spain, and finally, England.
The Renaissance (from the French word for
‘‘rebirth’’) refers to the emergence and new inter-
est in classical Greek and Roman texts and cul-
ture that took place between the Middle Ages
and the modern period. With the advent of the
printing press in 1440, the development of ver-
nacular languages, and the weakening influence
of the Catholic Church on daily life, among
other historic events, Renaissance writers and
scholars had new avenues for expressing their
views. Many Renaissance works survive into
the twenty-first century as some of the most
celebrated in history. Early writers such as
Desiderius Erasmus and Thomas More staged
direct attacks on the Church and society with
works such as Erasmus’s The Praise of Folly

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and More’s Utopia. These writers helped open Spain as heroes. However, economic times were
doors for later ones, including William Shake- tough, and Cervantes’s status as a hero soon
speare, who some critics consider the greatest waned. He turned to writing plays but with little
dramatist and poet of all time. success. He finally was able to secure a civic posi-
tion as a supplies manager, whereupon he was
blamed for the mismanagement of food and
jailed. Following these misfortunes, Cervantes
REPRESENTATIVE AUTHORS wrote his masterpiece El Ingenioso hidalgo Don
Quixote de La Mancha (translated as The History
Elizabeth Carey (1585–1639) of that Ingenious Gentleman: Don Quixote de La
Elizabeth Carey (sometimes spelled as Cary) was Mancha), commonly referred to simply as Don
born in Oxford, England, in 1585. She was a Quixote, which details the misadventures of a
voracious reader from a young age and had an madman. Cervantes died of edema on April 22,
aptitude for languages. She married Sir Henry 1616, in Madrid, Spain.
Carey in 1602 when she was only seventeen
years old, but her husband was soon gone to Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536)
fight in the war with Spain. In 1603, she moved Desiderius Erasmus was born October 27, 1466,
in with her husband’s family despite his absence. most likely in Rotterdam, Netherlands. He attended
Her mother-in-law forbade her to read, so Carey cathedral school, where he was first exposed to
wrote instead. The Tragedy of Mariam was com- Renaissance humanistic thought, and his desire for
pleted soon thereafter, by 1609 at the latest. Carey the intellectual life was born. He used his religious
also became interested in Catholicism during this education to access as many classics as he could
time, a dangerous pursuit in post-Reformation find. Unlike many Renaissance writers who fol-
England. She and her husband had eleven chil- lowed him, Erasmus wrote entirely in Latin, still
dren together, and, in 1622, Henry moved them considered at this time to be the language of the
all to Ireland where he had been appointed lord educated. Although he made plans to obtain a
deputy of that territory. Part of Henry’s duties degree in theology, these plans were constantly post-
was the prosecution of Irish Catholics. Carey left poned because of his intellectual pursuits, including
her husband in 1625 because of their religious several trips to England, where he met influential
differences and returned to England. English humanists such as Thomas More. Follow-
In 1626, Carey was disowned by her husband ing More’s lead, Erasmus eventually combined his
and made a house prisoner when it was discov- religious and intellectual interests into a new pro-
ered that she planned to convert to Catholicism. gram of reform, using his literary works to stage
All alone, Carey took up writing again, this time satirical attacks on the Church and society. Out of
to earn money. The following year, Henry was all of his works, Erasmus’s satire The Praise of Folly
forced to pay Carey’s debts, and the couple was had the greatest influence on later humanist writers,
reconciled in 1631. Henry died in 1633; Carey who mimicked Erasmus’s style in their own satirical
died in 1639. She is remembered and celebrated works. It should be noted that Erasmus, like other
as the first woman to write a play in English. humanist writers, wished to reform the Catholic
Church while keeping it unified. However, in his
Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) criticisms of the Church and his scholarly interpre-
Miguel de Cervantes (Saavedra), son of Rodrigo tation and translation of the Bible, Erasmus was
de Cervantes Saavedra and Leonor de Cortinas, one of many humanists who inadvertently helped to
was born on or about September 29, 1547, in instigate the Protestant Reformation and subse-
Alcalá de Henares, Spain. After studying under quent division of the Church. Erasmus died on
a humanist teacher in Madrid, Cervantes enlisted July 12, 1536, in Basel, Switzerland.
in the Spanish military and helped to defend
southern Europe from the invasion of the Otto- Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527)
man Turks. While involved in this effort, Cer- Niccolò Machiavelli was born on May 3, 1469, in
vantes suffered an injury that crippled his left Florence, Italy, to a middle-class family of civic
hand. On the way back home from the front, workers. He studied Latin from an early age
Cervantes and other Spanish soldiers were cap- and was drawn to the classics, particularly texts
tured by pirates and detained in northern Africa about the Roman Republic. He followed family
for five years, at which time they returned to tradition and entered the Florentine political

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The Gutenberg Bible (Ó Bettmann / Corbis)

scene during Italy’s politically unstable city-state that during his educational absences, Marlowe
period, when large cities such as Florence acted as was serving as a spy in the queen’s service, help-
independent republics. Within Florence, a num- ing to uncover and foil an insurrection plot by
ber of factions vied for power. In 1498, Machia- expatriate Roman Catholics. This life of intrigue
velli helped one of them overthrow the dominant and suspicion continued during Marlowe’s six
religious and political figure. Through a few other years in London, where he was imprisoned for
political posts he held over the next fourteen a short time as an accomplice to murder. During
years, Machiavelli gained influence, while observ- the six years he was in London, Marlowe wrote
ing the harsh realities of politics. After the Medici plays, the most famous of which is Dr. Faustus.
family returned to power in 1512 and exiled Marlowe died on May 30, 1593, but the circum-
Machiavelli to his country home, Machiavelli stances surrounding his death and the evidence
spent much of his time translating his political given in the inquest that followed it remained
experiences into two treatises, or explanatory matters of debate into the 2000s.
documents. The most infamous of these is The
Prince. Machiavelli died of illness June 21, 1527,
in Florence. Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, son of Pierre
Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593) Eyquem, was born on February 28, 1533, in Peri-
Christopher Marlowe, son of John and Cather- gueux, France. The Montaigne name was noble,
ine Marlowe, was born in February 1564 in Can- purchased by the author’s great-grandfather and
terbury, England. Although he embarked on a first used by the author. At the direction of Mon-
humanistic education, receiving his Bachelor of taigne’s father, the entire Eyquem household spoke
Arts degree from the University of Cambridge Latin in an effort to instill it into the young Mon-
while on scholarship, Marlowe was initially taigne. Montaigne studied and practiced law for
denied his Master of Arts degree due to his several years and served two terms as mayor of
absences during his studies. Marlowe’s activities Bordeaux. However, his major focus during his
were vouched for, however, by the court of adult life was writing. Despite his background in
Queen Elizabeth. Historical evidence suggests Latin, Montaigne wrote his major work, The

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Essays, in his native French. Montaigne died on William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

September 13, 1592, in Perigueux. Tradition holds that William Shakespeare, son of
John and Mary Arden Shakespeare, was born on
Sir Thomas More (1478–1535) April 23, 1564, in Stratford-upon-Avon, England,
The records for Sir Thomas More’s birth are not although the specific date of his birth has not been
exact, although historians surmise he was born verified. In fact, for a man who is regarded by
February 7, 1478, in London, England. More many critics as one of the most important writers
was the son of John More and Agnes Graunger in history, surprisingly little is known about
More. While in his early- to mid-twenties, More Shakespeare. Most of the details are derived
lived with monks and adopted their lifestyle. through speculation. Because his father was a
Like his friend Erasmus, More combined his man of some civic importance, it is assumed that
religious and intellectual pursuits into one Shakespeare received a well-rounded, humanistic
humanistic ideal that he pursued for the rest of education. Some scholars also take Shakespeare’s
his life. The ultimate expression of this ideal references to schools in his plays as proof of his
came with the publication of Utopia (1516). In own education. Given the enormous variety of
his adult life, More served Henry VIII and Par- experiences Shakespeare describes in his plays, it
liament, and in 1521 he was knighted. When is also assumed that he pursued or observed many
Henry declared himself head of the Church of vocations and activities. Not much else is known
England in 1531, however, More was forced to about Shakespeare until 1592, when he became
choose between his king and his Church. Faith- popular as an actor and writer in the London
ful to the Church until his last days, More theater scene. He wrote more than thirty plays,
resigned his chancellor position and three years including Hamlet, Macbeth, and Julius Cae-
later refused to swear an oath endorsing the sar. Tradition holds that Shakespeare died in
authority of Henry VIII over the Church of Stratford-upon-Avon, on April 23, 1616, exactly
England and nullifying that of the pope in Eng- fifty-two years after his birth.
land. More was sent to the Tower of London and
was beheaded July 6, 1535.

François Rabelais (1494–1553) REPRESENTATIVE WORKS

Details about François Rabelais’s life are incom-
plete, but it is believed that he was born in 1494 Don Quixote
in Chinon, France, into a wealthy family. Rabe- The two parts of Miguel de Cervantes’ The His-
lais embodied the spirit of the Renaissance, tory of That Ingenious Gentleman: Don Quixote
which encouraged the pursuit of multiple voca- de La Mancha, commonly referred to as simply
tions and interests. In his varied career, Rabelais Don Quixote, were published in 1605 and 1615,
worked as priest, physician, scholar, and writer. respectively. Both parts generally appear in one
He also served his brother, the governor of publication. The story details the misadventures
Italy’s Piedmont region, as an intermediary in of an old man who has gone mad from reading
the escalating conflicts between Catholics and too many chivalric romances, a form of medieval
Protestants. This was an ironic task, since Rabe- literature that was popular in Spain during Cer-
lais’s Gargantua and Pantagruel was condemned vantes’ lifetime. True to the form of chivalry, the
by the Sorbonne—the Catholic theological fac- old man idealizes everything he sees, to much
ulty at the University of Paris—as sympathetic humorous effect. At the end of the novel, Quix-
to the Lutheran cause, while the Calvinists (Prot- ote comes to his senses and denounces chivalric
estants) thought Rabelais’s books promoted ideals before he dies. The novel paints an accu-
atheism. Despite this animosity from religious rate picture of life in early seventeenth-century
groups, Rabelais’s books enjoyed a wide circu- Spain and struck a resonant chord with Cer-
lation, thanks to his protection from the French vantes’ public. Although Cervantes himself
crown. Most of Rabelais’s work was written in thought the work nothing more than a parody,
the French vernacular, which inspired other modern critics have noted the book’s Renais-
French writers to do the same. Rabelais’s writ- sance view of favoring realism over idealism
ings influenced other European humanists as and have credited the book with influencing the
well, most notably Cervantes. Rabelais died in development of the modern novel. In addition,
1553 in France. Cervantes’ novel spawned the term ‘‘quixotic’’

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experience—the dominant idea of Humanism.

This method is the only unifying factor in the
book. The essays lack chronological order and
sometimes contradict each other. In some cases,
the essays are about subjects that have nothing
MEDIA to do with the title, and in other cases, the author
switches topics within the essay. Although a few
ADAPTATIONS critics have attacked this lack of cohesiveness,
 Don Quixote was adapted as a television many have looked past the structure of the book
movie in 2000 by Hallmark Entertainment. to its idea of introspection and its use of a con-
It was directed by Peter Yates and starred versational tone that creates an intimate bond
John Lithgow as Don Quixote and Bob Hos- between author and reader. Montaigne’s in-
kins as Sancho Panza. The movie is available depth, critical examination of subjects both
through Turner Network Television (TNT). large and small emphasized the idea of extreme
skepticism popular in humanist thought, which
 Hamlet was adapted by Pilgrim Pictures as a
influenced later Renaissance writers, including
classic 1948 film, directed by and starring Lau-
Shakespeare.
rence Olivier in the title role. As of 2008, it was
available from Universal-International dis-
tributors. Several of Shakespeare’s plays, Hamlet
under the following titles, have been adapted William Shakespeare was first and foremost a
for film by Kenneth Branagh serving as humanist, and all of his plays distinctly capture
screenwriter and director: Love’s Labour’s this Renaissance spirit. In his first tragedy, Ham-
Lost (2000), Hamlet (1996), In the Bleak Mid- let, Shakespeare gives his title character an intro-
winter (1995, also known as A Midwinter’s spective intellect that is both humanist and
Tale), Much Ado about Nothing (1993), and modern. The play, published in 1600 or 1601,
Henry V (1989). Branagh also stars in the first details the internal struggle that Prince Hamlet
two and the last of these productions. faces in deciding whether to avenge his father’s
murder. Although his father’s ghost commands
 Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince was adapted
Hamlet to kill the murderer (Hamlet’s uncle),
to an audiocassette, titled Prince, and was Hamlet is not so easily swayed and thinks
published by Blackstone Audiobooks in 1997. through the problem for himself. In the process,
 Sir Thomas More’s Utopia was adapted to Hamlet considers many ideas about philosophy
audiocassette and was published by Black- and human experience, all the while experiencing
stone Audiobooks in December 1991. a spiritual crisis. The play resonated with Shake-
speare’s contemporary audience and has contin-
ued to affect audiences and critics into the
twenty-first century, many of whom note its psy-
chological depth.
(the pursuit of foolish ideals), which is still used
in the twenty-first century.
The Praise of Folly
Desiderius Erasmus published his satire The
The Essays Praise of Folly in 1511. Making use of the goddess
When Michel de Montaigne wrote his collection Folly, the book features biting commentary on
of inquiries known as The Essays, first published the injustices the author perceived in his world,
in 1580, he created the modern literary essay most notably examples of religious foolishness
form. However, the book itself—composed of such as the sale of indulgences (vouchers people
three books of 107 chapters of widely varying could buy to absolve themselves of sin). The work
length—is not organized into essays as recog- immediately angered conservative Church offi-
nized by modern readers. Rather, the term cials. In Renaissance fashion, Erasmus incorpo-
‘‘essays,’’ translated from the original French rates classical references throughout the work
title of the book, Les essais (meaning ‘‘tests’’ or and parodies the blind idealism of medieval
‘‘attempts’’), refers to the introspective, or self- times, a technique which influenced later human-
driven, experimental methods that Montaigne ist writers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centu-
used to explore the limits of his own human ries, including Cervantes. Erasmus’s various uses

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The Globe Theatre (Ó The Folger Shakespeare Library. Reproduced by permission of The Folger Shakespeare Library)

of the word ‘‘folly’’ have perplexed readers for Only in the nineteenth and twentieth centu-
over four centuries. ries was The Prince accurately translated and
reevaluated in its historical context. In this mod-
The Prince ern light, the intentions of the author have been
It can be argued that no other work in the history hotly debated. Some critics have conjectured
of literature has inspired more long-term, wide- that Machiavelli was simply reporting on behav-
spread distaste than Niccolò Machiavelli’s The iors that he observed, while others believe that
Prince, published in 1532, five years after the Machiavelli wrote the book as a satiric attack on
author’s death. Although Machiavelli intended tyranny. In any case, through works such as The
the work to be a handbook for political leaders, Prince, Machiavelli has been referred to as the
most readers in the sixteenth century were founder of empirical political science.
openly disgusted by the book’s cold discussion
and support of the unethical methods, such as The Tragedy of Mariam
murder, that successful leaders used to acquire Elizabeth Carey’s The Tragedy of Mariam is
and remain in power. At the time of its publica- celebrated as the first play written in English by
tion, the book was condemned as a manual for a woman. Carey wrote it between 1602 and 1604
tyranny, and many critics since that time have when she was a young woman, but it was not
had a similar response to the work. Largely due published until 1613. Her source was Antiquities
to the deliberate spread of mistranslations of The of the Jews, by Josephus, which recounts the
Prince, English Renaissance writers such as story of King Herod’s cruelty toward his wife
Shakespeare and Marlowe incorporated nega- Mariam. In Carey’s version, the events take
tive depictions of Machiavelli into some of place in a single day. Carey’s Mariam is a tragic
their works. The book even inspired the term figure torn between being a good wife and
‘‘Machiavellian’’ (meaning duplicitous), which despising her husband for the murder of her
remains in use into the twenty-first century. grandfather and brother. In the end, she speaks

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her mind and stands up to her husband’s ex-wife

Salome, which results in Mariam being con-
demned to death. Carey paints Mariam as a
martyr, a strong woman living with the corrup-
tion and sin of her husband’s household. Carey’s
TOPICS FOR
play is a closet drama, which means it is meant to FURTHER
be read aloud rather than performed on a stage.
STUDY
 Do some research on Aristotle’ Poetics and
Utopia then select a Shakespearean play with which
Thomas More’s Utopia, published in 1516, is one you are familiar and analyze it in light of
of the most influential works written during the some of the characteristics Aristotle explains,
Renaissance. The book has two parts. The first such as the unities, the nature of the hero, and
critiques the social and political problems More the idea of catharsis. Does Shakespeare’s
saw, while the second describes life in an ideal- play satisfy Aristotle’s esthetic or not?
istic fictional society called Utopia. Utopians
 Read about the Globe Theatre in Shake-
employ various communist methods to prevent
speare’s day and the recreation of that the-
problems experienced in sixteenth-century Eng-
ater in modern times. Write an essay that
land. In both parts, More himself is the narrator
explains how the Globe was arranged and in
and, as such, acts as the Renaissance skeptic for
what ways it uses ideas first employed in
the reader. In addition to criticizing his own
Ancient Greek drama and in what aspects
society, he also criticizes as absurd the methods
it departs from the ancient model.
that the utopians use, causing critics to debate
what More’s true beliefs were. The author never  Although the humanists did not intend this,
resolves the issues, leaving the book open-ended their writings helped to spark the Protes-
instead of trying to provide a clear solution. tant Reformation and Catholic Counter-
Critics have noted that this ambiguity invited Reformation. Research the particulars behind
his readers to join in the discussion on these each of these movements, and then compare
topics, a call heeded by other Renaissance the two views of religion. What is the same?
writers. What is different?

Individualism
THEMES Study of the classical languages and values
Antiquity moved Renaissance writers to incorporate the
The Renaissance was sparked by a return to a classical style into their own works and encour-
classical style of learning, which had largely been aged a more worldly view than that of Middle
ignored during the Middle Ages, when most writ- Age religious writings, so that writers and schol-
ers glorified the Catholic Church and its teach- ars began to look beyond the Church’s teachings
ings. As cities began to prosper, religious and to take matters into their own hands, includ-
corruption increased and the influence of the ing the interpretation of the scriptures. This dra-
Church waned; however, writers rediscovered matic shift in thought, from relying totally on the
the classics and began to incorporate them into wisdom of the Church to developing under-
their own works. ‘‘My father was neither the standing through scholarship, led to the intense
Chaos, nor Orcus, nor Saturn, nor Jupiter,’’ says examination and appreciation for the human
Erasmus’s personified Folly in The Praise of individual. This movement was called Human-
Folly, referring to four gods, who were figures ism. The glorification of humans and human
from the stories of the successions of the gods in experience eventually led to the idea that
Greek and Roman mythology. With the advent humans could achieve perfection in this life as
of the printing press in the 1450s, the age of mass- opposed to only in a divine paradise. Shake-
market print distribution began, and more writers speare’s Danish prince Hamlet echoes this senti-
were able to receive a classical education. ment in a famous passage from Hamlet: ‘‘What a

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piece of work is man! How noble in reason, how ways to do just about everything. In 1518, Bal-
infinite in faculties!’’ (Faculties in this sense dassare Castiglione wrote The Courtier, a man-
means ‘‘abilities.’’) Othello, from Shakespeare’s ual for courtly behavior. In 1530, Erasmus wrote
tragedy of the same name, was unable to rise to Manners for Children. In 1532, Guillaume Budé
this perfection. Millicent Bell argues that con- emphasized the importance of learning itself in
temporary beliefs about race dictated that he be The Right and Proper Institution of the Study of
characterized as a man who was seriously Learning, while in the same year, Machiavelli
flawed. Race determined his character despite wrote The Prince, his handbook for government
his evident honorable bearing. leaders.

Faith in Reason
With the resurgence in classical learning and the
focus on more secular, or nonreligious, human
STYLE
issues, scholars and writers embraced a spirit of
skepticism and began to place a greater impor- Vernacular
tance on reason. This belief was directly contrary The Renaissance began with resurgence in clas-
to Church teachings, which encouraged people sical learning, including the study and proper use
to have faith in the Church alone. However, it is of Latin. However, Latin was the language of
important to note that the humanists were not scholars, not the common people. As more peo-
against the Church. On the contrary, most ple became literate, many authors began to write
humanists believed their faith was strengthened in their vernacular, or native language, to reach
by reason, and when they used rational or skep- this wider audience. At the same time, many
tical arguments against the Church, it was in an writers attempted to demonstrate that their
attempt to inspire reform of the Church practi- native languages were just as good as Latin, as
ces. In addition to their application of reason to Rabelais did when he published his Gargantua
Church practices, humanists also used reason to and Pantagruel in his native French. In addition,
rebel against the unrealistic ideals popular in many writers produced works defending the
medieval literary works, most notably the chiv- decision to use vernacular, of which Joachim
alric romances. Cervantes’s Don Quixote du Bellay’s Defence and Illustration of the French
embodied this application. The old man in the Language is one of the most famous. ‘‘I do not,
story is so blinded by the idealism he has read however, consider our vulgar tongue, as it now
about in medieval romances that he can no lon- is, to be so vile, so abject as do these ambitious
ger see the truth, thinks he is a knight, and goes admirers of the Greek and Latin tongues,’’ says
seeking adventures. In one of the most famous Bellay, arguing against the prevailing belief that
examples from the story, Quixote attempts to only the classical languages could produce liter-
fight a number of windmills, which he mistakes ary greatness.
for giants. Says Quixote: ‘‘This is noble, right-
eous warfare, for it is wonderfully useful to God Irony
to have such an evil race wiped from the face of Irony is used in various ways. Two of these are
the earth.’’ verbal and situational. In its most basic sense,
verbal irony entails saying one thing when mean-
Education ing the opposite, often for a humorous effect.
Education was extremely important to Renais- Situational irony occurs in the contrast between
sance writers, and they pursued their own edu- what a given set of circumstances appear to be
cations with diligence. As literacy increased due and what in fact they are. For example, in Shake-
to the printing revolution and people other than speare’s Macbeth, the title character is given
scholars were able to read, writers also turned false confidence from a prophecy by three
their focus outward. Historian Norman Davies witches, stating that he cannot be killed by a
writes in Europe, ‘‘The humanists knew that to man born of a woman. At the end of the play,
create a New Man one had to start from school- Macbeth relies on this prophecy when he fights
boys and students.’’ From students, Renaissance Macduff. He is so sure of his success that he
writers turned to other specific sections of the taunts him, telling Macduff about the prophecy
public, toward whom they aimed a number of that he cannot be killed by a man of woman
educational publications detailing the proper born. However, as Macduff tells Macbeth:

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Despair thy charm; from the wool trade were creating widespread
And let the angel whom thou still hast serv’d poverty by stealing all of the common land people
Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother’s formerly used for agriculture, so that the land-
womb
Untimely ripp’d.
lords’ sheep could graze on it. As a result, many
of the new rural poor crowded into the cities,
Because Macduff was born by caesarian sec-
which led to other social ills such as disease and
tion rather than vaginally, he was not technically
crime. In the second part of the book, about uto-
‘‘born’’ of woman, and he can kill Macbeth,
pia itself, Hythloday demonstrates how the uto-
which he does.
pians do not have this problem because they
conserve their resources when making and using
Satire clothes: ‘‘They use linen cloth most because it
Satire is an attack or protest, created by portray- requires the least labour . . . . a Utopian is content
ing the object of the protest in an unfavorable with a single cloak, and generally wears it for two
manner and hoping to bring about change. In years.’’
Renaissance times, writers such as Erasmus and
his friend More responded to the social injustices
they saw with satirical attacks, as an example
from Erasmus’s The Praise of Folly demonstrates. MOVEMENT VARIATIONS
When speaking about Christians, who he says are
‘‘enslaved to blindness and ignorance,’’ Erasmus The Protorenaissance
writes that priests encourage this blindness Many historians and critics acknowledge a ‘‘pro-
because they have wisely foreseen ‘‘that the people torenaissance’’ that preceded and laid the
(like cows, which never give down their milk so groundwork for the actual Renaissance. While
well as when they are gently stroked), would part critics are in disagreement as to when this proto-
with less if they knew more.’’ Erasmus is saying renaissance began, the period lasted approxi-
that if people were more educated about the mately from the twelfth century (when many
Church and its injustices instead of just relying universities were built) to the first half of the
on the Church’s comforting assurances, people fifteenth century (up until the advent of the
would not be so willing to give their faith to the printing press). During this period, many influ-
Church. By referring to the process of duping the ential writers began to create the Renaissance
people into faith as milking a cow, Erasmus sets spirit that would influence later Renaissance
up a negative image in the readers’ minds and writers. The most notable of these are three Ital-
causes them to think about his argument. ian writers—Dante Alighieri, Francesco Pet-
rarch, and Giovanni Boccaccio—and English
Utopia poet Geoffrey Chaucer. When Dante wrote his
More’s Utopia inspired many imaginary societies Divine Comedy in Italian in the early fourteenth
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and is so century, he literally created and defined the writ-
famous that the word ‘‘utopia’’ came to signify ten version of Italian, paving the way for later
both any idealized place and the literary form Renaissance writers to develop their own vernac-
that depicts such a place. Renaissance utopian ulars. At around the same time, Petrarch not
works sought to inspire social change by creating only helped to track down and reproduce many
a new, imaginary, society that addressed problems of the great classical works later writers would
in a different way. Two related examples from study, he also helped popularize the use of the
Utopia illustrate how More did this. In the first sonnet, a type of lyrical poem that many Euro-
part of the book, More has his fictional character pean Renaissance writers used for centuries.
Raphael Hythloday talk to Cardinal Morton Giovanni Boccaccio also helped to recover
(chancellor to Henry VII) about some reforms he and translate ancient texts and, as historian Paul
proposes. Hythloday brings up a current problem, Johnson notes in his book The Renaissance: A
the wool trade. Says Hythloday, ‘‘Your sheep . . . Short History, ‘‘he produced a number of refer-
that commonly are so meek and eat so little; now, ence works, including two massive classical ency-
as I hear, they have become so greedy and fierce clopedias,’’ one on the topography of the ancient
that they devour men themselves.’’ This is not a world and one categorizing all of the ancient
literal eating of men, but a symbolic one. It points deities. Boccaccio also wrote The Decameron, a
to the fact that landlords who wished to get rich collection of one hundred tales some critics think

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influenced Geoffrey Chaucer. Chaucer’s work, or woman applies to someone who is a genius in
most notably The Canterbury Tales, published many, often highly dissimilar fields of study.
in 1400 after his death, helped to develop the
English vernacular, inspiring later English writers Commedia dell’arte
as Dante’s work had done in Italy. The Canter- Commedia dell’arte is an Italian term meaning
bury Tales, which tell the stories of several pil- ‘‘the comedy of guilds’’ or ‘‘the comedy of pro-
grims on their way to Canterbury, are also noted fessional actors.’’ This form of dramatic com-
for their humanistic depiction of late medieval edy was popular in Italy during the sixteenth
society. Johnson says of the pilgrims: ‘‘These century. Actors were assigned stock roles (such
men and women jump out from the pages, and as Pulcinella, the stupid servant, or Pantalone,
live on in the memory, in ways that not even the old merchant) and given a basic plot to
Dante could contrive.’’ follow, but all dialogue was improvised. The
roles were rigidly typed and the plots were for-
mulaic, usually revolving around young lovers
The American Renaissance who thwarted their elders and attained wealth
Ralph Waldo Emerson issued a ringing chal- and happiness. A rigid convention of the
lenge to the literary community of the young commedia dell’arte is the periodic intrusion of
American nation in his 1837 Harvard address, Harlequin, who interrupts the play with low
‘‘The American Scholar’’: if American writers buffoonery. Peppino de Filippo’s Metamorpho-
were ‘‘free and brave,’’ with words ‘‘loaded with ses of a Wandering Minstrel gave modern audi-
life,’’ they would usher in a ‘‘new age.’’ Emerson ences an idea of what commedia dell’arte may
looms over that age, whether as an inspiration to have been like. Various scenarios for commedia
reformers and artists of his generation and the dell’arte were compiled in Petraccone’s La com-
next or as a bugbear to those distrustful of social media dell’arte, storia, technica, scenari, pub-
and institutional change or literary innovation. lished in 1927.
Never wishing to lead a party or to be imitated
himself, he thought it his role (and that of the
scholar) to provoke others to discover their own
resources of genius and power. The rich literary HISTORICAL CONTEXT
production in New England during the next
quarter century—in many senses a response to From the mid-fifteenth to the early sixteenth cen-
Emerson’s provocation—constituted what came turies, Europe experienced many vital changes,
to be known as the American Renaissance. many of which were interconnected, and most of
which were built upon technical, social, and polit-
The Renaissance Man ical developments from the late Middle Ages. The
The ideal human in physical, mental, and moral most notable of these was the development of
condition came to be known as the Renaissance printing, which in turn influenced a number of
man. A Renaissance man is a person who pur- other events. In Germany, Johann Gutenberg’s
sues and excels at many vocations and diverse invention of the moveable-type printing press in
interests, following the humanist notion that 1450, which combined a number of existing tech-
man’s capacity to learn and improve is endless. nologies, quickly caught on in other European
This ideal was emphasized in the Renaissance countries. With the renewed interest in classical
education, which included study in several dif- literature and the increasing contributions to
ferent areas. A famous example from the time is Renaissance literature, book production rose
the Italian Leonardo da Vinci, who was accom- steadily. Johnson notes, ‘‘By 1500, after forty-
plished as a painter, sculptor, and scientist, who five years of the printed book, the total has
designed inventions such as a helicopter, speci- been calculated at nine million.’’ As vernacular
alized in human anatomy, and painted master- languages gained in popularity, the number of
pieces, such as the fresco The Last Supper and printed books increased even more.
the oil portrait titled Mona Lisa. Davies says, Meanwhile, an increasing number of people
Leonardo ‘‘possessed seemingly limitless talents were flocking to universities, which had been
to pursue his equally limitless curiosity.’’ In the created in the late Middle Ages to educate mem-
twenty-first century, the term Renaissance man bers of the clergy. However, as literacy increased

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COMPARE
&
CONTRAST
 1450s: German businessman Johann Guten- Today: After many transformations in Ital-
berg prints the first Bible (in Latin) from a ian government, city-states have been aban-
printing press. doned in favor of a democratic republic.
1510s: Martin Luther’s theses and other liter-  1450s: After fifty years, Italian sculptor Lor-
ature promoting reformation of the Catholic enzo Ghiberti completes his famous bronze
Church are quickly disseminated through doors for the northern and eastern portals of
printing presses. the baptistery of the cathedral of Florence,
Today: There continues to be a market for which depict scenes from the Bible in aston-
printed books, though literature is also ishing realism.
being published and distributed by elec-
tronic media. 1510s: Erasmus publishes The Praise of
Folly, a seminal humanist work that advo-
 1450s: After decades of bitter rivalry, the
cates interpreting the Bible with realistic,
Italian city-states form the ‘‘Italian League’’
scholarly methods to determine God’s true
and agree to protect each other from outside
attacks. intent instead of relying solely on church
tradition.
1510s: Machiavelli writes The Prince, an
instruction manual on how monarchs gain Today: Some people believe that if the orig-
and wield power. He addresses it to the Medici inal text of the Bible were fed into a com-
family, the unofficial rulers of the Florentine puter and analyzed for certain patterns,
republic. hidden messages would be revealed.

and people renewed their interest in classical Meanwhile, explorations outside Europe
education, universities began to offer more sec- were on the rise, and a whole new world was
ular curricula like law. Many Renaissance writ- being discovered. The successful navigation
ers were trained at these universities. around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope in the
The Renaissance was also a time of mobility, 1450s was one such voyage, while Christopher
both within Europe and abroad. As the Holy Columbus’s discovery of America in 1492 was
Roman Empire and the Roman Catholic another. The resulting expansion of the world
Church waned in power, Italy’s city-states and in the eyes of Europeans influenced Renais-
Europe’s monarchies increased in importance. sance writers like Rabelais, whose Gargantua
With this development, Rome was no longer and Pantagruel incorporates fantastical islands
the intellectual or cultural center of Europe, that can be reached by ocean travel, and
and Renaissance scholars began to travel else- features very odd beings: ‘‘We got sight of a
where, spreading their ideals in the process. The triangular island. . . . The people there . . . all of
most notable of these traveling scholars was them, men, women, and children, have their
Erasmus, whose visits to England in the late noses shaped like an ace of clubs.’’
fifteenth century introduced him to several
other influential humanists and helped him to In England, the Renaissance spirit of
develop the ideas that would make him famous. criticism increasingly focused on the Catholic
As Johnson notes, Erasmus came in 1498 to Church. In 1517, Martin Luther posted his
study at Oxford University in England because famous ninety-five theses to the door of his
‘‘it was no longer necessary to go as far as Italy.’’ church; these, with the aid of the printing press,

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were also widely distributed. One of the theses upon the Middle Ages as a semibarbaric period,
demonstrates the main point of his argument: they were out to bestow form, classical form, on
‘‘Thus those preachers of indulgences are in the literature and life of their age.’’
error who say that by the indulgences of the During the Renaissance, the new humanistic
pope a man is freed and saved from all punish- literature inspired both positive and negative
ment.’’ Although Luther, like the humanists who responses from readers and critics. Because
inspired him, had hoped his theses would inspire many Renaissance works criticized the Catholic
a reformation of the Church while keeping it Church, they were not received well by either the
whole, most historians agree that his symbolic Church or the Church’s supporters, who would
act launched the Protestant Reformation. From often ban or burn these works. On the other
this point on, parishioners gathered in two fac- hand, for those who were open to the new ideas
tions, Catholics and Protestants. In 1529, the Renaissance literature proposed, the works were
Catholic Church refused to acknowledge King received very well. So to a large extent, the recep-
Henry VIII’s divorce from his second wife, Cath- tion of a work depended on the predisposition of
erine of Aragon, who had failed to bear the king a the critic examining it. In addition, in many cases
male heir. Two years later, Henry retaliated by the writer and critic were the same, as in the
declaring himself the supreme head of the Church aforementioned examples of works promoting
of England. the use of vernacular language. Hall says about
The Protestant Reformation inspired the Cath- the Renaissance critics, ‘‘regardless of whether
olic Church’s response, the Counter-Reformation, their influence was good or bad they succeeded
in which the Church changed its tactics and started admirably in doing one thing. They established
to embrace some of the humanist aspects it had literary criticism as an independent form of
originally fought so hard against. During these literature.’’
two major movements, both Catholic and Protes- As scholars in later years have looked back
tant printers used their trade as a weapon, creating on the Renaissance, critics have tended to focus
propaganda literature they distributed to people in on one country. Says Jonathan Hart in his intro-
hopes of keeping or gaining their faith. duction to Reading the Renaissance, a collection
of essays examining the Renaissance as a whole,
‘‘Most often, scholars examine the national liter-
atures of the Renaissance in isolation.’’
Some of the most famous criticism has been
CRITICAL OVERVIEW
for one particular author, as in the famous ‘‘Pref-
The confusion over what constitutes the official ace to Shakespeare’’ by eighteenth-century
period of the Renaissance and its role in history writer and critic Samuel Johnson, in which he
dates back to 1858. Samuel Johnson says, ‘‘The notes, ‘‘Shakespeare is above all writers. . . . the
term ‘Renaissance’ was first prominently used by poet of nature; the poet that holds up to his
the French historian Jules Michelet.’’ Two years readers a faithful mirrour of manners and life.’’
later, Jacob Burckhardt immortalized the term Shakespeare has been, without fail, the single
in the publication of his The Civilization of the most studied writer of the Renaissance, in part
Renaissance, in which the period was viewed as because his works synthesize many of the
the beginning of the modern age. humanistic themes that Renaissance writers
employed, which still ring true with many critics
From that time until late in the twentieth
century, historians and critics alike envisioned and audiences in the twenty-first century.
the Renaissance as a transition period between
the Dark Ages—in which there was little or no
technical innovation or cultivation of the arts—
and the modern age. In fact, Renaissance critics CRITICISM
themselves were under a similar impression
about the importance of the time period. Critic Ryan D. Poquette
Vernon Hall sums it up in his book A Short Poquette has a bachelor’s degree in English and
History of Literary Criticism, when speaking specializes in writing about literature. In the fol-
about the literary critics of the time: ‘‘Looking lowing essay, Poquette discusses Doctor Faustus

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Anatomical chart created by Leonardo da Vinci (Ó Corbis)

as an example of two warring ideologies in Chris- primal good and evil forces like ‘‘God’’ and ‘‘The
topher Marlowe’s play of the same name. Devil.’’ Indeed, there is evidence in the text to
support both of these assumptions. The truth is,
Christopher Marlowe’s play, Doctor Faustus,
the play is both. Faustus, a product of the transi-
written in 1604 at the height of the Renaissance in
tional times in which he (and the playwright,
England, lends itself to countless interpretations.
Marlowe) lived, is a character so saturated in
Critics have read it as an extreme humanist play,
both medieval Christianity and Renaissance
focusing on Faustus’s decision to pursue knowl-
Humanism that he is incapable of committing to
edge at all costs, even damnation, a concept
either. In the end, this spells his ruin.
which he does not initially believe in. Others,
however, have read it as a medieval Christian As the play starts, Faustus has come to a
morality play, a type of cautionary tale that dem- decision. True to humanist fashion, he has set
onstrates the battle for a human soul between himself on a task of consuming all of the worldly

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WHAT FAUSTUS IS AT THIS POINT A HUMANIST TO

DO I STUDY THE EXTREME, FOR IF ONE CARRIES ALONG TO A

NEXT? SUPERLATIVE DEGREE THE IDEA OF BELIEVING IN

HUMAN POWER TO BETTER ONESELF, IT TURNS INTO

 Allan Atlas’s Renaissance Music: Music in
THE BELIEF THAT HUMANITY CAN SUPERSEDE GOD.’’
Western Europe, 1400–1600 (1998) is a com-
prehensive book about music during the fif-
teenth and sixteenth centuries in Europe.
 Craig Harbison’s The Mirror of the Artist:
Northern Renaissance Art in Its Historical This road is deliberately chosen by Faustus.
Context (1995) examines the origins of Ren- Having reached the limits of human knowledge,
aissance art in fifteenth- and sixteenth- he turns instead to the magic arts: ‘‘A sound
century Netherlands, France, and Germany. magician is a mighty god. / Here, Faustus, try
 Architecture of the Renaissance: From Bru- thy brains to gain a deity.’’ With this decision to
nelleschi to Palladio (1996), written by Ber- turn to magic to try to make himself a god, Faus-
trand Jestaz and translated by Caroline tus turns to the dark side, and the play takes a
Beamish, provides a good overview of the turn from skeptical Humanism to medieval mys-
architectural rebirth in fifteenth-century ticism. A true humanist, schooled in all of the
Italy, which was inspired by the columns, natural sciences, would not believe in magic.
rounded arches, and classical architecture This is one of the many paradoxes in the play.
of Greece and Rome.
After seeking out some magician friends,
 Florence was the key city for the arts during
Faustus acquires the skill to conjure. His first
the Italian Renaissance. Florence and the
major act is to call forth the devil, Mephistoph-
Renaissance: The Quattrocentro (1997), by
eles, which he does with the aid of some Chris-
Alain J. Lemaitre and Erich Lessing, exam-
tian implements, such as holy water. When the
ines the course of creative development in
devil appears for the first time, he is so hideous
architecture, sculpture, and paintings during
that he scares Faustus: ‘‘I charge thee to return
the Renaissance in Italy.
and change thy shape. / Thou art too ugly to
 Ingrid D. Rowland’s The Culture of the High attend on me.’’ Faustus forces Mephistopheles
Renaissance: Ancients and Moderns in Six- to come back in the shape of a ‘‘Franciscan
teenth-Century Rome (1998) employs an inter- friar,’’ which is more pleasing to him. Faustus
disciplinary approach to explore the cultural is willing to forsake himself and his religion, but
conditions that produced the Renaissance. only if the items he gets in return fit a certain
mold. As Roland M. Frye notes in his article
‘‘Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus: The Repudiation
of Humanity,’’ ‘‘From this point onward Faus-
tus’s hold upon reality steadily dissolves.’’
knowledge he can, and in doing so ‘‘thou hast
attained the end.’’ Faustus here begins his prac- Faustus’s delusions start with his failure to
tice of referring to himself as ‘‘thou’’ (the Ren- believe that Mephistopheles is actually in hell.
aissance version of ‘‘you’’) in addition to Mephistopheles explains that any existence that
referring to himself as ‘‘I.’’ He will continue to does not include the grace of God is a hell, and so
refer to himself as ‘‘thou’’ or ‘‘Doctor Faustus’’ Mephistopheles suffers whether he is in the
off and on throughout the play. By having Faus- earthly realm or the underworld. Faustus refuses
tus refer to himself as both an insider (‘‘I’’) and to believe the devil and forges ahead with his
outsider (‘‘thou’’ and ‘‘Doctor. Faustus’’), Mar- plan to surrender his soul to Lucifer in exchange
lowe underscores the division between fantasy for ‘‘four-and-twenty years’’ to have Mephis-
and reality on which Faustus will tread on the topheles as a servant to attend on Faustus and
road to his damnation. give him whatever power he needs.

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Still, Faustus falters before he actually goes devils. Mephistopheles hints at this when he
through with the process; pausing, he entertains says he will bring women ‘‘as beautiful’’ as Luci-
the thought of God, although he quickly scolds fer was, before his expulsion from heaven. Faus-
himself for such thoughts: ‘‘What boots it then to tus glosses over this and the other spells the devil
think of God or heaven? / Away with such vain demonstrates. Faustus is intent on his real wish,
fancies and despair!’’ Faustus even goes to the which is to ‘‘raise up spirits when I please.’’ His
other extreme, saying he will turn to Beelzebub wish to be able to raise the dead is reminiscent of
and ‘‘offer lukewarm blood of new-born babes.’’ Jesus’ raising of Lazarus, of which Faustus is
Again, the forces of rational Humanism and aware. Faustus is at this point a humanist to
medieval theology war with each other within the extreme, for if one carries along to a super-
Faustus, but this is the first time Faustus has lative degree the idea of believing in human
offered to murder for his cause. It is at this power to better oneself, it turns into the belief
point that other forces start fighting with each that humanity can supersede God.
other, namely a good angel and bad angel, who
come in to try to fight for Faustus’s soul. This is However, Faustus soon takes a turn back to
much in the style of a medieval morality play. his theological side. After reviewing Mephistoph-
The evil angel wins the battle by tempting Faus- eles’ spell book, he sees the error of his ways. He
tus with the power he so desperately craves. asks the devil to show him the heavens: ‘‘Now
would I have a book where I might see all char-
Faustus, enraptured with the idea of being acters and planets of the heavens, that I might
able to have Mephistopheles for his pet and to be know their motions and dispositions.’’ The devil
able to ‘‘raise up spirits’’ whenever he wishes, shows Faustus, who in the next scene realizes
makes the pact with Mephistopheles and Luci- that he is damned and curses Mephistopheles,
fer. It is only at this point that Faustus, confident ‘‘Because thou hast deprived me of those joys.’’
in his decision, decides to ask Mephistopheles
again about the nature of hell. Once again the Faustus now fights with himself more openly,
demon gives an answer similar to the first one, first praying to God to save him, then begging
saying that ‘‘All places shall be hell that is not Lucifer to forgive him for praying to God. He is a
heaven.’’ It is interesting that Faustus asks this man unhinged, and he alternately clings to one
question. He is confident he will not be damned ideology and then the other. In his more Christian
in hell and that in his rational mind he has gotten moments, he believes in God and hell but thinks
the better end of the bargain. He thinks he will he is past the point of saving. In his more human-
have twenty-four years of power and then get off istic moments, he asks incessant questions of
easy, and yet the first question he asks Mephis- Mephistopheles, trying to disprove the existence
topheles after officially pledging his soul to Luci- of God and hell so that he will not be damned.
fer is what hell is like. Yet once again, Faustus ‘‘Tell me who made the world,’’ Faustus asks
does not believe the devil’s answer, saying, the devil, who cannot say God’s name, and
‘‘Come, I think hell’s a fable.’’ If this is so, then so refuses. Instead Mephistopheles says: ‘‘Think
why does Faustus ask about hell? Is he so sure in thou on hell, Faustus, for thou art damned.’’ In
his mind that he is safe that he wishes to taunt the other words, not only should Faustus forget his
devil? Or is there a nagging doubt from his Chris- salvation, he should concentrate on the fact that
tian side that has prompted him to ask the ques- when his contract with Lucifer comes due, his life
tion? This is another instance where Faustus’s could be made very bad in hell.
contradictory beliefs introduce a paradox in Faustus decides to stick to his damnation
the play. and starts to enjoy his power. Or at least he
From this point on in the play, the nagging tries. Most of his attempts to use magic backfire,
doubts in Faustus’s mind increase in frequency. as in his attempt to play a trick on the pope,
He asks for a wife from Mephistopheles, and the which ends with he and Mephistopheles fleeing
devil brings him another devil in the guise of a before they are cursed: ‘‘Forward and backward,
woman. This is not what Faustus requested, and to curse Faustus to hell.’’ This is a hard lesson for
so he is offended. But Mephistopheles cannot Faustus. It is no accident that Marlowe chose to
give him a human wife. The devil can give him have his character try to provoke the pope, who
power, but it has its limits. Instead, if Faustus in the medieval Catholic religion is the direct
asks for human women, he will bring more servant of God. Here, Faustus has aligned

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Faustus for a ‘‘wife.’’ However, at this point,

Faustus is lost, and in his delusion, he sees
Helen, not the demon, whose ‘‘lips suck forth
my soul.’’
The play, which has taken a roller-coaster
ride through competing ideologies, ends on the
medieval note, as Faustus awaits his damnation,
trying one last time to repent by throwing away
the quest for knowledge that has damned him:
‘‘I’ll burn my books. Ah Mephistopheles!’’ Faus-
tus is carried off to hell, which is unfortunately
more real than his humanist side would have
wished.
Source: Ryan D. Poquette, Critical Essay on Renaissance
Literature, in Literary Movements for Students, The Gale
Group, 2003.

Millicent Bell
In the following essay, Bell discusses the racial
prejudices Othello tries to rise above—and is ulti-
mately overwhelmed by—in Shakespeare’s play.
Othello’s whole life seems to be shaped by a
society—like Shakespeare’s England—in which
self-transformation as well as the transforma-
tions effected by the forces of social change, or
A scene from the television movie adaptation of even by mere accident, operate to alter what one
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra is, shift one’s very selfhood from one template to
(AP Images) another. Before he became the hero who won the
regard of the Venetian state and the love of
Desdemona, he had been someone we can only
dimly imagine. Somehow, his career had begun
himself with evil and tries to win over good but by exile from an origin we never see directly. We
cannot. can merely suspect its vast difference from his
present condition. What he might have been as a
The rest of his attempts at magic are even
person of station in his native place we will never
worse, as they are squandered doing deeds for
know.
others, most of which do not fall in line with his
original plan of playing a commanding role over We do not even know without doubt that he
all of creation. ‘‘I am content to do whatsoever is a ‘‘blackamoor,’’ a Negro from sub-Saharan
your majesty shall command me,’’ says Faustus Africa, like ‘‘raven-coloured’’ Aaron the Moor
to the emperor, who has Faustus bring forth the in Titus Andronicus who is described as having a
spirit of Alexander the Great and his paramour. ‘‘fleece of wooly hair’’ and whose child is called a
‘‘thick-lipped slave.’’ Roderigo slurringly refers to
At the end of his twenty-four years, Faustus Othello as ‘‘the thick lips,’’ and he is called ‘‘black’’
has wasted all of his time and reflects on his throughout the play and says, himself, ‘‘Haply for
plight, being once again of the medieval mind: I am black.’’ But, perhaps, he is a ‘‘tawny Moor’’
‘‘What art thou, Faustus, but a man condemned from the Mediterranean rim, like the Prince of
to die?’’ In one last attempt to please some schol- Morocco in The Merchant of Venice, or a Berber
ars, Faustus has Mephistopheles bring forth the or ‘‘erring Barbarian,’’ as Iago puns, or the ‘‘Bar-
spirit of Helen of Troy. ‘‘Was this the face that bary horse’’ who has ‘‘covered’’ Desdemona, as
launched a thousand ships?’’ Of course, it is not. the same racist provocateur vulgarly tells Braban-
None of the spirits that the devil has conjured tio. Shakespeare does not remove all doubt, but
have been human, but rather demons, just like he seems willing to let us visualize ‘‘a veritable
the first demon Mephistopheles brought forth to negro,’’ to use Coleridge’s phrase for the Othello

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The curtain rises for good reason on a dis-

cussion about jobs and how one is qualified for
them. Iago’s declared envy of Cassio’s promo-
AT THE LAST, OTHELLO SURRENDERS HIMSELF tion is plausible, even though he expresses this
TO THE PRISON OF RACE HE THOUGHT HE HAD
resentment only in a single remark to Roderigo.
It serves to relate the play to a new seventeenth-
ESCAPED. HE IS NOT ABLE, IN THE END, TO CAST AWAY century social climate that gave rise to uncer-
THE ROLE AND CHARACTER WHICH SOCIETAL
tainty about personal identity—and gives a his-
torical meaning to the way Iago comes before us
CONVENTION PRESCRIBED TO HIM AT THE BEGINNING as the man who believes that one is only what
OF HIS CAREER IN THE WHITE COLONIAL WORLD.’’ one appears to be, what role one is able to per-
sonate successfully. Iago’s most significant state-
ment of this view is the skeptical declaration he
makes to Roderigo—‘‘’tis in ourselves that we
are thus, or thus. Our bodies are gardens, to
whose love for a white woman he found ‘‘some- which our wills are gardeners’’—which is almost
thing monstrous to conceive.’’ Elizabethans sincerely his own philosophy, though it hardly
might not have reacted as Coleridge would come serves the feckless Roderigo to whom it is
to do. Othello was played as a black man on the addressed. Iago calls Cassio, just appointed lieu-
stage in Shakespeare’s own day and for over a tenant, a mere classroom soldier, ‘‘a great arith-
century and a half after. And so again we feel that metician . . . /That never set a squadron in the
the part must be played today, though the nine- field/Nor the division of a battle knows/More
teenth and a good portion of the twentieth cen- than a spinster.’’ Practical field experience is a
tury were able only to tolerate a sort of light- legitimate requirement for the promotion Cassio
skinned Arab sheik to represent him. has gained—and something different from the
mere entitlement of class and even the textbook
But one way or another, his exact beginnings theory he has acquired. In contrast, Iago has
remain obscure to us. Though he has told Desde- served in battle, as he reminds Othello: ‘‘in the
mona as well as her father ‘‘the story of [his] life/ trade of war I have slain men.’’ Iago professes to
From year to year—the battles, sieges, fortunes/ believe in promotion for merit and resents the
That [he] passed . . . even from [his] boyish arbitrary advancement of the candidate, like
days’’—his summary to the signory of Venice is Cassio, who is part of an old boys’ network. He
vague, and the ‘‘travailous history’’ he offers of also claims the earned rights of seniority rather
wars and wanderings, of captures and escapes, than preferment gained by letters of recommen-
and of encounters with monsters and cannibals dation from influential somebodies.
is mythically Odyssean. One thing we know is
Preferment goes by letter and affection
that he had once experienced the ultimate degra- And not by old gradation, where each second
dation that had come when, ‘‘taken by the Stood heir to th’ first.
insolent foe,’’ he had been ‘‘sold to slavery.’’
But though he makes his claim by referring
Somehow, he found his freedom, and we can
to a system of respect for service he calls ‘‘old
presume that he was converted from his original
Mohammedanism, but we are ignorant of when gradation,’’ he himself has tried to go up the
or how. Already, when we first meet him, he is a ladder by the aid of ‘‘letter and affection’’ and
Christian and a ‘‘self-made man’’ who has made secured the support of ‘‘[t]hree great ones of the
the most of opportunity and his own genius and city.’’ He is one of the new breed of men who not
has overcome the handicaps of being foreign and only claim advancement by merit but will
black in the white Venetian world in which he has manipulate and scheme for advancement—and
found a place. This stranger with an exotic, by either means expect to escape assignment to a
almost mythical otherness has acquired a place fixed definition. That he has not received his
within the order of Venice by his own efforts on deserved promotion and must prosper just the
behalf of a colonial empire. And yet, in the end, same is something he is prepared for as a master
he cannot sustain this new personhood, this trans- of Machiavellian elasticity. He deprecates title
formed social being donated by altered occasion, and position and even the old division into mas-
forged by his own will. ters and followers that organizes society:

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We cannot be all masters, nor all masters made less threatening by proof of Othello’s wor-
Cannot be truly followed. You shall mark thiness. ‘‘For if such actions may have passage
Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave free/Bond-slaves and pagans shall our statesmen
That, doting on his own obsequious bondage,
Wears out his time much like his master’s ass
be,’’ he shouts in an outburst of class panic. Iago
For nought but provender, and when he’s old, will remark a bit later to Cassio, ‘‘he to-night
cashiered. hath boarded a land carrack,’’ implicitly com-
Whip me such honest knaves! paring Othello’s sexual conquest to the seizure of
Others, adapting to a new social climate, a Spanish or Portuguese treasure ship (a ‘‘car-
know the meaninglessness of the identities soci- rack’’) by an English privateer—in other words,
ety assigns. Taking instruction from Machia- an act of social piracy.
velli, they make the most of opportunity, and, Yet nothing can be more fragile than Oth-
though observing the old boundaries of outer ello’s self-making, which has none of Iago’s con-
behavior, fidence in being whatever, for the occasion, he
trimmed in forms, and visages of duty,
wills himself to be. His attempt to give rebirth to
Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves an ancient ideal of epic heroism is vulnerable to
And, throwing but shows of service on their the spirit of the later time represented by Iago.
lords, As his nobility is erased by rage and despair in
Do well thrive by them, and when they have the middle of the third act, he mourns,
lined their coats,
O now for ever
Do themselves homage: these fellows have
Farewell the tranquil mind, farewell content!
some soul
Farewell the plumed troops and the big wars
And such a one do I profess myself.
That make ambition virtue! O farewell,
But not all have Iago’s confidence. In a Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill
mobile society, one is always likely to lose one’s trump,
footing and become a nobody—that is, to cease The spirit-stirring drum, th’ ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner, and all quality,
to exist in a social sense. The play is full of
Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!
implicit references to a milieu in which, as in And, O ye mortal engines, whose wide throats
today’s corporate world, there is no longer a Th’ immoral Jove’s great clamours counterfeit,
guarantee of tenure. Demotion breaks Cassio’s Farewell: Othello’s occupation’s gone.
heart. Othello remembers with grief how he had The strangeness of this wonderful speech is
‘‘done the state some service’’ before his replace- seldom commented on. There is no real reason
ment as general and administrator of Cyprus. why Othello should say goodbye at this point to
Unlike the aristocratic Cassio, Othello, who his soldier’s profession, which has given him an
may once have been a prince, has been a merce- epic selfhood. His terrible crime, for which he
nary soldier and before that even a slave in only escapes punishment by performing his own
another world. But, as the play begins, he is in execution, is still ahead of him. But the collapse
command of the Venetian forces in defense of of personal being he is already experiencing is
Cyprus against the Turks. A Renaissance idea of inseparable from the loss of occupation. Before
fame, or of ‘‘making a name’’ for oneself, is he embraces his literal self-destruction at the last,
invoked in the play, as is Iago’s Machiavellian he refers to himself in the third person, saying
idea of ‘‘thriving.’’ It is the heroic character Oth- ‘‘Where should Othello go?’’ as though the man
ello has made for himself that achieves his suc- he was is no longer speaking. Afterwards, when
cess in his wooing. He makes Desdemona put Lodovico comes looking for him with ‘‘Where is
aside the prerequisites of class and race assumed this rash and most unfortunate man?’’ he replies,
for her appropriate suitor. She says she ‘‘loved ‘‘That’s he that was Othello? here I am.’’ Then,
[him] for the dangers [he] had passed,’’ though he remembers his former self—the self created by
her father, who looks for inherited credentials he his public career—as having once defended the
understands better in the sons of Venetian aris- Venetian State even as, at this ultimate moment
tocracy, calls Othello’s recounting of his history of further transformation, he identifies himself
‘‘witchcraft.’’ And perhaps such self-fabrication, with the ‘‘circumcised dog’’ he once killed. Crit-
such transformation by which one of the colon- ics are mistaken who have spoken of Othello’s
ized joins the military elite of a colonial power, is ‘‘recovery’’ in the final scene when he seems to
a kind of magic. For Brabantio, miscegenation become, again, a fearless soldier and romantic
is, classically, a threat of redefinition not to be lover who dies by his own hand. It is hard to

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admire Othello uncritically once having read T. midnight summons from the Duke posts the
S. Eliot on this hero’s famous final speech bridegroom to the defense of Cyprus. But not
(‘‘What Othello seems to me to be doing in mak- only circumstances or conditions keep this mar-
ing this speech is cheering himself up. He is riage from being consummated. The play sug-
endeavoring to escape reality’’). But Eliot did gests that Othello himself is engaged in a deferral
not observe that what happens at this last of this forbidden act. Othello portrays himself
moment is tragic acceptance rather than escape, convincingly at his trial before the Venetian
an acceptance of his original status as a racial Duke and Senators as one more used to the
outsider, which neither his military achieve- ‘‘flinty and steel couch of war’’ than to the
ments nor his marriage have succeeded in per- ‘‘downy’’ bed of love. This war-hardened soldier
manently altering. hasn’t had much experience of love’s soft
delights. He confesses: ‘‘since these arms of
His marriage has proved to be the theater in mine had seven years’ pith,/Till now some nine
which the issues of self-realization, the issues that moons wasted, they have used/Their dearest
beset men in society at large, are acted out for action in the tented field.’’ He is no Marc Ant-
Othello on the scale of intimate relations. Mar- ony. Though Desdemona will accompany him
riage to a woman of a rank above one’s own has to Cyprus, he is at pains to remind the Duke
been a universally practiced means of male self- how largely his military preoccupation will
advancement throughout human history, of absorb him:
course, but the marriage of Othello to Desde-
And heaven defend your good souls that you
mona has provided a precarious bridge over the
think
gaps between them. Shakespeare hints that Oth- I will your serious and great business scant
ello’s jealous anguish and distrust of his own When she is with me. No, when light-winged
perceptions may be caused by the interracial char- toys
acter of his union with a daughter of his Venetian Of feathered Cupid seel with wanton dullness
masters. All those reminders by Iago of the My speculative and officed instrument
impossibility of establishing Desdemona’s adul- That my disports corrupt and taint my
business,
tery—a privacy invisible directly—refer one back Let housewives make a skillet of my helm.
to a miscegenation over whose consummation a
cloud of unknowableness also hangs. The real but He tells Desdemona, as he assumes his new
equally transgressive relation of Othello and Des- assignment, ‘‘I have but an hour/Of love, of
demona is even less easily viewable than the adul- worldly matter and direction/To spend with
tery of Desdemona with Cassio that did not take thee. We must obey the time.’’
place but was so vividly supposed. This marriage Desdemona may still be a virgin when they
becomes, by implication, something not to be are reunited after separate crossings to Cyprus,
made ‘‘ocular,’’ as though it is obscene, as though and Othello says, ‘‘The purchase made, the fruits
it can be fairly represented only by animalistic are to ensue./The profit’s yet to come ’tween me
metaphor in Iago’s description to the shuddering and you.’’ He gives orders for a wedding party
Brabantio at the beginning of the play: ‘‘Even while he leads his wife to bed, but the party
now, now, very now, an old black ram/Is tupping grows wild and brings Cassio into disgrace, and
your white ewe!’’ Just as he will cause Othello to Othello and Desdemona are interrupted once
hallucinate the false image of Desdemona and more—after which Othello lingers on with the
Cassio locked in naked embrace, Iago rouses her wounded Montano, saying to his wife, with
father with his wizard evocation, setting into the some equanimity, ‘‘Come Desdemona: ’tis the
mind of the old man the animal coupling that soldiers’ life/To have their balmy slumbers
represents their racial transgression as ‘‘making waked with strife.’’ Shakespeare may have
the beast with two backs,’’ and figuring Othello as wanted us to wonder how well their lovemaking
a black ram as well as a Barbary horse. had gone or if it had even got under way, and to
sustain the doubt in Iago’s earlier question, ‘‘Are
It seems probable that, at this early point,
you well married?’’
Othello and Desdemona have not yet had the
opportunity of establishing the union they have We may connect the jealousy aroused so
secretly contracted. The newly married pair readily in Othello with one of those postnuptial
could not have enjoyed their nuptial rapture for awakenings that come to men unprepared for the
long during their first night in Venice when a active sexuality of the women they marry. Was

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Desdemona too quick or he too slow? It has been This, of course, is a counterpart to the white
evident from the start of the play that she can take master’s fear of the slave’s rebellion, which
the initiative. We recall that when she first heard expresses itself in the racist presumption of the
Othello’s narrative of his past exploits she told dangerous lustfulness of the oppressed and
him that ‘‘she wished/That heaven had made her repressed—the cliché of a primitive savagery
such a man’’—a remark that either expresses her more powerful than the white man’s, a lust threat-
longing for masculine roles or her bold invitation ening white womanhood. Someone like the stupid
to him to make himself hers. She prompted Oth- Roderigo, who has failed to get Desdemona even
ello by telling him that if he had a friend who to glance at him, will refer to the ‘‘gross clasps of a
loved her, he ‘‘should but teach him how to tell’’ lascivious Moor’’ when he attempts to arouse
such a story as his own, ‘‘and that would woo Brabantio against Othello. Iago works this vein
her.’’ She herself admits to the Duke of Venice, when he portrays Othello as someone of mere
‘‘That I did love the Moor to live with him/My impulse. ‘‘These Moors,’’ he says, ‘‘are changeable
downright violence and scorn of fortunes/May in their wills.’’ He even claims to believe that ‘‘it is
trumpet to the world,’’ and so she pleads to be thought abroad’’ that his General’s unbridled lust
allowed to accompany him to Cyprus rather than has extended to Emilia, and cuckolded him. ‘‘I do
to be left behind, ‘‘a moth of peace.’’ When Oth- suspect the lusty Moor/Hath leaped into my
ello lands in Cyprus to find her already there seat,’’ he says, and though he may not really
waiting for him he greets her, ‘‘O my fair warrior!’’ think this possible, he repeats his half-belief in
Perhaps she already is what Cassio calls her, his
this suggestion that Othello had ‘‘done [his] office
‘‘captain’s captain.’’ Her father may not have
’twixt [his] sheets,’’ while confessing that he is only
known the daughter he describes as ‘‘[a] maiden
looking for specious causes for his animosity: ‘‘I
never bold,/Of spirit so still and quiet that her
know not if’t be true,/But I, for mere suspicion in
motion/Blushed at herself.’’
that kind,/Will do as if for surety.’’ Perhaps the
Her activeness may be sexual. She had same promptness to such presumption has
insisted to the Duke that if she were left behind, infected the minds of some of the play’s readers
‘‘the rites for which I love [Othello] are bereft me.’’ ever since, despite Shakespeare’s exposure of the
Later, convinced that she has made love to Cas- motives of both Iago and Roderigo in seizing so
sio, Othello will come to say, under Iago’s influ- readily upon the ancient stereotype of the ‘‘lusty
ence, ‘‘O curse of marriage/That we can think Moor.’’ A refined version of it has even been
these delicate creatures ours/And not their appe- discovered in Othello by so distinguished a mod-
tites!’’ Iago will have laid the ground for such a ern Shakespeare scholar as E.A.J. Honigmann,
disillusion by his suggestion that Desdemona had the editor of the latest Arden Edition of the play,
already been an awakened woman before her who speaks of Othello’s ‘‘exceptional sensuoús-
marriage, a ‘‘super-subtle Venetian’’: ‘‘In Venice ness, though not necessarily ‘racial’’’ to be found
they do let God see the pranks/They dare not in some of Othello’s tributes to Desdemona’s
show their husbands.’’ Brabantio charged Othello effect upon him. Honigmann cites, particularly,
before the Venetian signory with having bound Othello’s swooning recall of her appeal to his
Desdemona in ‘‘chains of magic’’—for how, oth- sense of smell—as when he exclaims, in his culmi-
erwise, could she, ‘‘so opposite to marriage that
nating anguish, ‘‘O thou weed/Who art so lovely
she shunned/The wealthy, curled darlings of our
fair and smellst so sweet/That the senses ache
nation’’ and incurred ‘‘the general mock,’’ have
at thee.’’
‘‘run from her guardage to the sooty bosom/Of
such a thing’’? But Othello knows he has used no But, in fact, Othello himself, as Shakespeare
witchcraft, and to him Iago suggests ‘‘a will most shows, is quite the reverse of the stereotypical
rank,/Foul disproportion; thoughts unnatural’’ in ‘‘lusty Moor.’’ To respond to the call of arms,
Desdemona. And with this disbelief in her gen- Othello delays his wedding-night happiness
uine love for him, along with a suspicion of her without hesitation, almost welcoming, in a curi-
too-ready sexual forwardness, he is lost. Per- ous way, as I have noted, the deferral of his bliss.
haps he suspects a racial will to dominance in Moreover, he himself goes so far as to deny the
her sexual ‘‘appetite,’’ which declares that she is sensuality of his feelings for his beautiful bride.
not his but that he is hers as a slave belongs to He supports her plea to accompany him to
his owner. Cyprus with the odd observation to the Duke:

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‘‘I . . . beg it not/To please the palate of my appe- her. She may be expected to retain an inclination
tite/Nor to comply with heat, the young affects/ for such a familiar species as Cassio. Only
In me defunct, and proper satisfaction,/But to be moments before she is murdered she will remark
free and bounteous to her mind.’’ This renunci- upon the Venetian nobleman to whom she is
ation of sexual urgency almost removes his color related by blood as well as class, ‘‘This Lodovico
for his grateful employers as though to refute the is a proper man.’’ To which Emilia replies,
convention that attributes ‘‘savage’’ sexuality to woman-to-woman, ‘‘I know a lady in Venice
the black man. ‘‘Your son-in-law is far more fair would have walked barefoot to Palestine for a
than black,’’ the Duke tells Brabantio as Othello touch of his nether lip.’’ For this is how, accord-
accepts his mission. It is Desdemona rather than ing to the code of Venice, a Venetian woman
himself who is to be suspected of illicit lust, as should feel; it is perfectly ‘‘natural.’’ When Des-
Iago will soon persuade him when he stresses the demona is called a ‘‘whore’’ by an Othello
reduced to the racial enemy’s language by his
positive unnaturalness of her love for her hus-
jealousy, Emilia exclaims, ‘‘Hath she forsook so
band instead of for a social and racial equal—
many noble matches,/Her father, and her coun-
knowing, rightly, how such a thought will pro-
try, and her friends,/To be called whore?’’ But
mote that jealous insecurity he wishes to arouse.
this is exactly what her social desertion must
He responds to Othello’s protest that Desdemo-
seem to white society, something more adulter-
na’s betrayal would be an incredible case of ous, indeed, than the affair with Cassio of which
‘‘nature erring from itself’’ by suggesting that it she is falsely accused.
is her marriage itself, her inclination for Othello,
that is a perversity. Othello’s collapse into murderous violence
would seem to be an illustration of the way,
Not to affect many proposed matches
Of her own clime, complexion, and degree,
according to the racist view, the coating of civi-
Whereto we see, in all things, nature tends lization must slide readily off the ‘‘savage’’ per-
Foh! one may smell in such a will most rank, sonality. But Shakespeare’s readiness to admit
Foul disproportion; thoughts unnatural. the instability of personality—as though he is
We can imagine how these suggestions ready to entertain Iago’s denial of intrinsic and
affect Othello, most especially the reference permanent character—is apparent in all his trag-
to ‘‘complexion.’’ Paradoxically, Iago actually edies. The Macbeth who is held by his wife to be
increases Othello’s self-doubt when he suggests too full of the milk of human kindness before his
murder of Duncan is not the same as that ‘‘dead
that Desdemona has not freed herself from her
butcher’’ whose head is triumphantly carried onto
father’s racism. Is not this borne out by a love
the stage on the uplifted lance of Macduff at the
that began with her vision of her lover’s ‘‘visage
end. Certainly, in Othello, the serene and just
in his mind’’—rather than in the black face gaz-
commander of himself and others we first meet
ing at her? To match this, Othello’s disclaimer
is not the madman who shrieks, ‘‘I will chop her
to the Duke and Senators of Venice of his phys-
into messes,’’ as he accepts the view that his wife
ical desire for his wife may be connected to his
has betrayed him. The play exhibits that muta-
fear of their physical union stated in almost the bility in the alteration of his very language from a
same terms when he declares that all he looks majestic poetry that has been called the ‘‘Othello
forward to is ‘‘but to be free and bounteous to music’’ to a debased tone from which all music
her mind.’’ has gone. But this alteration is only temporary.
So, Othello seems to suffer the insecurity of The play does not justify the racist theory of the
someone who has crossed the racial line yet feels uneducable savage. Othello is always too noble
reproved for it when his white wife is reclaimed even in his preposterous delusion and degrada-
by her social and racial world in her supposed tion, too superior to everyone else on the scene,
affair with Cassio. Iago can count on the self- for such a view. And yet, again, though many
hating that afflicts the victim of prejudice who have seen in Othello’s final end a full recovery of
cannot, himself, believe that he is loveable to tragic greatness, Shakespeare’s vision may be too
someone of the other race. He has been com- pessimistic to allow that either.
pelled to hallucinate her intimacy with a white There are no more romantic lovers in all of
man, but can hardly imagine his own union with Shakespeare than the almost virginal warrior

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and the high-minded virgin Lady whose love he Liebestod climaxing a forbidden love, forbidden
wins by recital of his heroic past. But they also for both pairs of lovers even in marriages that
recall the May-December prototypes of farce; constitute social adultery. We must recall that
Othello feels his head for horns like the deluded Othello’s anticipations of bliss had prompted
old husband of a thousand comic tales. Despite thoughts of death:
the grimness of this tragic history, the comic fore- If it were now to die,
grounding of sex, as in farce, is both invoked and ’Twere now to be most happy; for I fear
obscured in a play in which so much of the time My soul hath her content so absolute
the marriage bed is at least present to mind even if That not another comfort like to this
offstage, just guessed at, though unseen, like the Succeeds in unknown fate.
sexual union enacted there. Othello’s sexual secret It is one of those flights of Othello’s hyper-
discloses itself, however—rather than being bole that suggests too much before the fact, and
merely suspected or hinted—on the deathbed Desdemona herself reins him in with, ‘‘The heav-
that has been laid with his and Desdemona’s ens forbid/But that our loves and comforts
wedding sheets—‘‘sheets’’ being an evasive met- should increase/Even as our days do grow.’’ To
onymy for the bed and for the lovemaking that think that one will reach the peak of happiness—
takes place upon it. When Iago claims to hate and so be ready to die—is a traditional poetic
Othello because ‘‘twixt my sheets/He’s done my extravagance, but here more sinister, forecasting
office,’’ or when he remarks to Cassio on Cyprus, as it does the death which will actually be the
‘‘Well, happiness to their sheets!’’ the same figure consequence of their love—and Desdemona’s
of speech, along with the sniggering euphemism literalism seems to express an appropriate cau-
of ‘‘office,’’ has been employed. Like Desdemo- tion. And well it might, for in the calculus of
na’s honor, which Iago thinks of as ‘‘an essence their unanticipated difficulties Shakespeare has
that’s not seen,’’ her sexual union with Othello, added something besides the uncertainty of the
though sanctified by marriage, has not been bridegroom, the too-readiness of the bride. In
directly imaginable till now when it is revealed this play about love and jealousy, which shows
to the prurient gaze as the curtains of the mar- how love is a moment’s hazardous leap over vast
riage bed are drawn apart. ‘‘My mistress here lies distance, he has included the crippling prohibi-
murdered in her bed,’’ Emilia announces, as tion of racial difference.
though the bed of marriage, with its ‘‘tragic lodg-
ing’’ of dead bodies—one black, the other white, At the last, Othello surrenders himself to the
lying side by side—is what horrified vision must prison of race he thought he had escaped. He is
take in at last. ‘‘Lodging’’ even implies the living not able, in the end, to cast away the role and
together, the cohabitation of the lovers. The character which societal convention prescribed
change of the word to ‘‘loading’’ in the Folio to him at the beginning of his career in the white
version of the text recalls Iago’s plundered ‘‘land colonial world. He recalls an exploit of his
carrack.’’ When Lodovico says, ‘‘the object poi- adopted Venetian identity when he remembers
sons sight,/Let it be hid,’’ the horror he feels is for how, ‘‘in Aleppo once,’’ he had taken by the
a forbidden union as much as for the deaths this throat a ‘‘turbanned,’’ that is, unconverted,
union has caused. To intensify that horror and to Turk (wearer of what Shakespeare calls in Cym-
further emphasize the perversity of their sexual beline an ‘‘impious turband’’) who ‘‘[b]eat a
relation, there is a hint of necrophilia in the impli- Venetian and traduced the state.’’ He remembers
cation that now, at last, their love is consum- how he ‘‘smote him—thus,’’ as he turns his dag-
mated. Othello tells his victim, ‘‘Be thus when ger toward himself. This has generally been
thou art dead, and I will kill thee/And love thee taken as splendid coup de theatre—but it is
after,’’ and then, having done so, ‘‘I kissed thee ere more. Reenacting that killing of an infidel by
I killed thee. No way but this:/ Killing myself to his transformed Christian self, Othello becomes
die upon a kiss,’’ giving ‘‘die’’ its usual Elizabethan again what he was before his conversion and
double sense as orgasm. enlistment in the service of Venice. His magnifi-
cent self-making has been undone and he now
The play makes it seem, even if we are sure kills, again, the irreversibly circumcised, unassi-
of the contrary, that only their deathbed unites milable racial other that he is.
their bodies in ultimate union. ‘‘ Star-crossed’’ by
racial difference, they resemble Romeo and Source: Millicent Bell, ‘‘Shakespeare’s Moor,’’ in Raritan,
Juliet, their prototypes in the enactment of a Vol. 21, No. 4, Spring 2002, pp. 1–14.

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SOURCES FURTHER READING

Bell, Millicent, ‘‘Shakespeare’s Moor,’’ in the Raritan, Bloom, Harold, Shakespeare: The Invention of the
Vol. 21, No. 4, Spring 2002, pp. 1–14. Human, Riverhead Books, 1999.
In this controversial book, Bloom states that
Carey, Elizabeth, The Tragedy of Mariam, the Fair Queen Shakespeare alone is responsible for the creation
of Jewry, edited by Barry Weller and Margaret W. Fer- of the modern human personality in all cultures.
guson, University of California Press, 1994.
Bovilsky, Lara, Barbarous Play: Race on the English
Cerasano, S. P., and Marion Wynne-Davies, eds. ‘‘Eliza- Renaissance Stage, University of Minnesota Press, 2008.
beth Carey, The Tragedy of Mariam (1613),’’ in Renaissance Bovilsky examines the plays of Shakespeare,
Drama by Women: Texts and Documents, Routledge, 1996. Marlowe, Webster, and others to demonstrate
how race was constructed during the English
Cervantes, Miguel de, The History of That Ingenious Renaissance. She also draws parallels between
Gentleman: Don Quixote de La Mancha, translated by race and gender.
Burton Raffel, Norton, 1995, p. 38.
Erasmus, Desiderius, The Praise of Folly and Other Writings:
Cross, Wilbur L., and Tucker Brooke, eds. The Yale Shake- A New Translation with Critical Commentary, Norton, 1989.
speare, Barnes & Noble Books, 1993, pp. 992, 1150. This book contains some of Erasmus’s most influ-
ential writings as well as excerpts from some of his
Davies, Norman, Europe: A History, Oxford University letters.
Press, 1996, pp. 469–507.
Greenblatt, Stephen, Shakespearean Negotiations: The
du Bellay, Joachim, ‘‘From The Defence and Illustration of Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England, Uni-
the French Language,’’ in The Norton Anthology of Theory versity of California Press, 1989.
and Criticism, edited by Vincent Leitch, Norton, 1996, p. 284. In this book, a classic in Shakespearean study,
Greenblatt offers his interpretations of Shake-
Erasmus, Desiderius, The Praise of Folly, edited by Hor- speare’s major plays.
ace Bridges, Pascalcovici, 1925, pp. 8, 81.
Jordan, Constance, Renaissance Feminism: Literary Texts
Frye, Roland M., ‘‘Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus: The Repudia- and Political Models, Cornell University Press, 1990.
tion of Humanity,’’ in Twentieth Century Interpretations of The author argues that the concept of, and first
‘‘Doctor Faustus,’’ edited by Willard Farnham, Prentice- debates about, feminism as a mode of thought
Hall, 1969, p. 56. originated during the Renaissance.
Kraye, Jill, The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance
Hall, Vernon, A Short History of Literary Criticism, New Humanism, Cambridge University Press, 1996.
York University Press, 1963, pp. 31, 48. This book provides a thorough guide to the
Hart, Jonathan, ‘‘Reading the Renaissance: An Introduc- humanist movement, which originated during
the Renaissance.
tion,’’ in Reading the Renaissance: Culture, Poetics, and
Drama, Garland, 1996, p. 2. Lewis, C. S., The Discarded Image: An Introduction to
Medieval and Renaissance Literature, Cambridge Univer-
Johnson, Paul, The Renaissance: A Short History, Mod- sity Press, 1994.
ern Library Chronicles series, 2000, pp. 3–59. This book examines the medieval view of the
world, giving historical and cultural back-
Johnson, Samuel, ‘‘From Preface to Shakespeare,’’ in The
ground that allows for a greater understanding
Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, edited by
of medieval and Renaissance literature.
Vincent Leitch, Norton, 1996, p. 469.
Viroli, Maurizio, Niccolo’s Smile: A Biography of
Marlowe, Christopher, ‘‘Doctor Faustus,’’ in Doctor Faustus Machiavelli, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000.
and Other Plays, edited by David Bevington and Eric Ras- Theories about Machiavellianism are mainly
mussen, Clarendon Press, 1995, p. 137–83. about immoral and ruthless behavior used to
maintain power at all costs. The author of this
More, Thomas, Utopia, edited by George M. Logan and
Robert M. Davis, Cambridge University Press, 1989, pp. book argues that this was merely a reflection of
18–19, 54. the kind of leader Machiavelli longed for as a
solution to the violent time period in which he
Rabelais, François, Gargantua & Pantagruel, Dodd, lived rather than a type of behavior that he
Mead, n.d., p. 527. preached as appropriate.

Shakespeare, William, The Yale Shakespeare, edited by Wells, Stanley, The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare
Wilbur L. Cross and Tucker Brooke, Barnes & Noble Studies, Cambridge University Press, 1986.
Books, 1993, pp. 992, 1150. A comprehensive introduction to William
Shakespeare through essays, this book begins
Viorst, Milton, The Great Documents of Western Civili- with information about Shakespeare and then
zation, Barnes & Noble Books, 1994, p. 85. connects his works to the time in which he lived.

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