Along with reading Othello, I have been looking into some of the scholarship on the representation of Moors and Turks in English literature of the period. One book I looked at, The Moor in English Renaissance Drama, describes a rich and complex historical relationship between Moors and the English. An essay "Ethiops Washed White: Moors of the Nonvillainous Type" strongly emphasized the sexualizing of men of African background in English discourse and how that effects the portrayal of Othello. Reading this essay I wondered how modern stereotypes might be affecting the argument. An essay that seemed more careful to me was "Turning Turk in Othello" by Daniel Vitkus -- this essay we will all read for Monday. One thing I found fascinating in the essay was the fact that the Turks were seen as a threatening empire and that the English would understand the urgency that the Duke of Venice and the other Venetian characters express to defeat the Turkish threat and, thus, their turning to Othello to protect them. Wikipedia has an excellent article on the history of the Turkish empire and the threat it posed to Europe. Memhid II conquered Constantinople in 1453 and made it the new capital of the Ottoman Empire. That's Mr. Mehmid II himself pictured above.
2 comments:
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I really enjoyed the maps and the comparisons you made between them. The way you described the Italians being fearful of the Turks was made understandable by the map of the Turks expanding. Good stuff :)
Hehe, sounds like you definintely took the road less traveled :P I think that is awesome, though..most of my friends in HS didn't really care too much for acedemics...so I was usually the odd man out, especially when I was the only one taking AP classes and freaking out about college applications. Not to be prejudiced against the popular crowd, but the "nerds" in high school usually amount to much more than the "cool" kids. So things even out.
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