Chapter 5. Othello’s race and slavery
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Paul Franssen
Abstract
Shakespeare’s Othello is usually regarded as a play about race. According to Douglas Lanier, however, continental European cinema often foregrounds the hero’s class instead of his race. I trace this continental phenomenon to post-revolutionary France. In Jean-François Ducis’s Othello adaptation (1792), race is subsumed under class. As John Golder has argued, Ducis’s Othello responds to the revolutionary French movement towards the emancipation of slaves and coloured people. When Britain abolished the slave trade, however, the dangers to economic prosperity became clear. In that context, a racist parody of Ducis’s Othello adaptation by the Dutchman Abraham Barbaz (1815) reinstated race as its anti-hero’s defining characteristic. Whether Othello’s race is seen as his defining characteristic depends on the political and economic context.
Abstract
Shakespeare’s Othello is usually regarded as a play about race. According to Douglas Lanier, however, continental European cinema often foregrounds the hero’s class instead of his race. I trace this continental phenomenon to post-revolutionary France. In Jean-François Ducis’s Othello adaptation (1792), race is subsumed under class. As John Golder has argued, Ducis’s Othello responds to the revolutionary French movement towards the emancipation of slaves and coloured people. When Britain abolished the slave trade, however, the dangers to economic prosperity became clear. In that context, a racist parody of Ducis’s Othello adaptation by the Dutchman Abraham Barbaz (1815) reinstated race as its anti-hero’s defining characteristic. Whether Othello’s race is seen as his defining characteristic depends on the political and economic context.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors vii
- Introduction. “I would my [European] pilgrimage dilate” 1
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Part 1. Trans(national) subjects
- Chapter 1. Charles Mathews’s Othello, the Moor of Fleet Street (1833) and Maurice Dowling’s Othello Travestie (1834) 29
- Chapter 2. Othello in Spain (1802–1844) 49
- Chapter 3. Traditions of playing and spectating 63
- Chapter 4. Othello on the German stage 81
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Part 2. Othello and European constructions of alterity
- Chapter 5. Othello’s race and slavery 99
- Chapter 6. From black to white, from man to beast, from tragical to comical 113
- Chapter 7. Let it be hid? 133
- Chapter 8. “It is all about passion” 153
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Part 3. Adapting Othello
- Chapter 9. Adapting Othello for television in late Francoist Spain 173
- Chapter 10. Pulling the strings 191
- Chapter 11. The circumcised dog and the subtle whore 205
- Chapter 12. “It is not words that shakes me thus” 225
- Chapter 13. A selective timeline of Othello in European culture 247
- Index 261
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors vii
- Introduction. “I would my [European] pilgrimage dilate” 1
-
Part 1. Trans(national) subjects
- Chapter 1. Charles Mathews’s Othello, the Moor of Fleet Street (1833) and Maurice Dowling’s Othello Travestie (1834) 29
- Chapter 2. Othello in Spain (1802–1844) 49
- Chapter 3. Traditions of playing and spectating 63
- Chapter 4. Othello on the German stage 81
-
Part 2. Othello and European constructions of alterity
- Chapter 5. Othello’s race and slavery 99
- Chapter 6. From black to white, from man to beast, from tragical to comical 113
- Chapter 7. Let it be hid? 133
- Chapter 8. “It is all about passion” 153
-
Part 3. Adapting Othello
- Chapter 9. Adapting Othello for television in late Francoist Spain 173
- Chapter 10. Pulling the strings 191
- Chapter 11. The circumcised dog and the subtle whore 205
- Chapter 12. “It is not words that shakes me thus” 225
- Chapter 13. A selective timeline of Othello in European culture 247
- Index 261
