Aaron’s Roots: Spaniards, Englishmen, and Blackamoors in <i>Titus Andronicus</i>
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12745/et.19.2.2847Keywords:
Race, stage, transnational, Shakespeare, Spain, Titus AndronicusAbstract
Focusing on the play’s genealogy and various allusions to the black legend, this article recovers the long-neglected Spanish dimension of Gothic identity in Titus Andronicus and reconsiders the racial discourse of the play in the light of this information. Within an analogical setup associating Goths with Spaniards and Romans with Englishmen, the play attempts intellectual emancipation: it attempts to think through the topical question of the black African presence in 1590s England on English terms — outside of the Iberian conceptual frameworks with which black Africans had long been associated.
References
Primary Sources
Ashley, Robert. A comparison of the English and Spanish nation: composed by a French gentleman against those of the League in Fraunce, which went about to perswade the king to breake his alliance with England, and to confirme it with Spaine. By occasion whereof, the nature of both nations is liuely decyphered. Faithfully translated, out of French, by R.A., Gentil-homme francois, fl. 1588. London: Printed by Iohn Wolfe, 1589.
Bandello, Matteo. La Terza parte de le novella del Bandello. Lucca: per il Busdrago, 1554.
Belleforest, Francois. Second tome des histoires tragiques, extraites de l’italien de Bandel. Paris: Robert le Magnier, 1566.
Davenant, William, The History of Sir Francis Drake, exprest by Instrumentall and Vocall Musick, and by Art of Perspective in Scene, etc. London: Printed for Henry Herringman, 1659.
Johnson, Samuel. Titus Andronicus. The Yale Digital Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson. New Haven: Yale University Press. Web.
Las Casas, Bartolomé de. The Spanish Colonie, or Briefe chronicle of the acts and gestes of the Spaniardes in the West Indies, called the newe world, for the space of xl. yeeres: written in the Castilian tongue by the reuerend Bishop Bartholomew de las Cases or Casaus, a friar of the order of S. Dominicke. And nowe first translated into English, by M.M.S. Imprinted at London: [By Thomas Dawson] for William Brome, 1583.
Munday, Anthony. The Coppie of the Anti-Spaniard made at Paris by a French Man, a Catholique. Wherein is directly proued how the Spanish King is the onely cause of all the troubles in France. Translated out of French into English. London: Printed by Iohn Wolfe, 1590.
Nichols, Philip, Sir Francis Drake Revived, Calling upon this Dull or Effeminate Age to folowe his noble steps for gold and silver. London: Printed by E. A. for Nicholas Bourne, 1626.
Rowley, William. All’s Lost by Lust. London: Printed by Thomas Harper, 1633.
Shakespeare, William. Titus Andronicus. The Norton Shakespeare, Second Edition. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt, Walter Cohen, Jean E.Howard, Katharine Eisaman Maus. 2008.
Secondary sources
Barker, Francis, ‘Treasures of Culture: Titus Andronicus and Death by Hanging’, The Production of English Renaissance Culture, ed. David Lee Miller, Sharon O’Dair, and Harold Weber, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994. 226-261.
Bartels, Emily C.
- ‘Too Many Blackamoors: Deportation, Discrimination, and Elizabeth I’, Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 Vol. 46, No. 2, Tudor and Stuart Drama (Spring, 2006), 305-322, http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/sel.2006.0012.
- Speaking of the Moor: From Alcazar to Othello. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008, http://dx.doi.org/10.9783/9780812200294.
Barthelemy, Anthony Gerald, Maligned Race: the Representation of Blacks in English Drama from Shakespeare to Southerne. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University, 1987.
Broude, Ronald, ‘Roman and Goth in Titus Andronicus’, Shakespeare Studies 6 (1970), 27-34.
Campos, Edmund Valentine, ‘Jews, Spaniards and Portingales, Ambiguous Identities of Portuguese Marranos in Elizabethan England’, ELH 69. 3 (Fall 2002), 599-616, http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/elh.2002.0023.
Cox Jensen, Freyja, Reading the Roman Republic in Early Modern England (Boston, 2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/9789004233034.
Dameto Juan, Vicente Mut, Gerónio Alemany, Miguel Moragues, Joaquin Maria Bover, Historia general del reino de Mallorca, segunda edición. Tomo III. Palma: Imprenta Nacional, 1841.
Dandelet, Thomas James, The Renaissance of Empire in Early Modern Europe (New York, 2014),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781139045704.006
Duque, Pedro J., Shakespeare en España: Presencia de España y de lo español en Shakespeare y so obra. León, Sapin: Universidad de León, 1991
Feerick, Jean, ‘Botanical Shakespeare: the Racial Logic of Plant Life in Titus Andronicus’, South Central Review, Vol 26, no 1/2, Shakespeare and Science (2009), 82-102, http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/scr.0.0043
Fuchs, Barbara
- Passing for Spain: Cervantes and the Fictions of Identity. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003
- ‘The Spanish Race’, Re-Reading the Black Legend: The Discourses of Religious and Racial Difference in the Renaissance Empires, Margaret R. Greer, Walter D. Mignolo, and Maureen Quilligan, eds. Oxford University Press, 2008. 88-99 http://dx.doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226307244.001.0001
Goldstein, David B., ‘The Cook and the Cannibal: Titus Andronicus and the New World’, Shakespeare Studies; 2009; 37. 99-133
Griffin, Eric
- Renaissance Drama and the Spanish Specter: Ethnopoetics and Empire. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009 http://dx.doi.org/10.9783/9780812202106
- ‘Shakespeare, Marlowe, and the Strangers’ Crisis of the early 1590’s’, Shakespeare and Immigration, Ruben Espinosa and David Ruiter, eds. Burlington: Ashgate, 2014. 13-36
Habib, Imtiaz, Black lives in the English Archives, 1500-1677: Imprints of the Invisible. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008
Kagan, Richard, Clio and the Crown: the Politics of History in Medieval and Early Modern Spain. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2009
Kliger, Samuel The Goths in England, a Study in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Thought. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952
http://dx.doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674337190
Loomba, Ania, Shakespeare, Race, and Colonialism, New York: Oxford University press, 2002
Miller, Anthony, Roman Triumphs and Early Modern English Culture. New York: Palgrave, 2001 http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9780230628557
Noble, Louise ‘‘And Make Two Pasties of Your Shameful Heads’: Medicinal Cannibalism and Healing the Body Politic in Titus Andronicus’, ELH, Vol. 70, no. 3 (Fall, 2003). 677-708 http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/elh.2003.0029
Royster, Francesca T. ‘‘White-limed Walls: Whiteness and Gothic Extremism in Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus’, Shakespeare Quarterly (51.4, 2000) http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2902338
Ryjik, Veronika, ‘Las dos Españas de Lope de Vega y la reelaboración del mito fundacional en El Ultimo godo’, Revista Canadiense de Etudios Hispánicos, vol 29, numero 1, Otoño 2004. 213-230.
Shapiro, James, Shakespeare and the Jews, New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.
Schlueter, June, ‘Rereading the Peacham Drawing’, Shakespeare Quarterly, 50:2 (Summer, 1999), 171-184, http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2902185
Stewart, Alan, ‘The Birth of a National Biography: The Lives of Roderigo Lopez, Solomon Lazarus Levi, and Sidney Lee’, Entertext 3, no 1 (2003). 183-203.
Ungerer, Gustav, ‘The Presence of Africans in Elizabethan England and the Performance of Titus Andronicus at Burley-on-the-Hill, 1595/96’, Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England, 2008, Vol. 21. 20-55.
Daniel J. Vitkus, Turning Turk: English Theater and the Multicultural Mediterranean, 1570-1630. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-05292-6.
Ashley, Robert. A comparison of the English and Spanish nation: composed by a French gentleman against those of the League in Fraunce, which went about to perswade the king to breake his alliance with England, and to confirme it with Spaine. By occasion whereof, the nature of both nations is liuely decyphered. Faithfully translated, out of French, by R.A., Gentil-homme francois, fl. 1588. London: Printed by Iohn Wolfe, 1589.
Bandello, Matteo. La Terza parte de le novella del Bandello. Lucca: per il Busdrago, 1554.
Belleforest, Francois. Second tome des histoires tragiques, extraites de l’italien de Bandel. Paris: Robert le Magnier, 1566.
Davenant, William, The History of Sir Francis Drake, exprest by Instrumentall and Vocall Musick, and by Art of Perspective in Scene, etc. London: Printed for Henry Herringman, 1659.
Johnson, Samuel. Titus Andronicus. The Yale Digital Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson. New Haven: Yale University Press. Web.
Las Casas, Bartolomé de. The Spanish Colonie, or Briefe chronicle of the acts and gestes of the Spaniardes in the West Indies, called the newe world, for the space of xl. yeeres: written in the Castilian tongue by the reuerend Bishop Bartholomew de las Cases or Casaus, a friar of the order of S. Dominicke. And nowe first translated into English, by M.M.S. Imprinted at London: [By Thomas Dawson] for William Brome, 1583.
Munday, Anthony. The Coppie of the Anti-Spaniard made at Paris by a French Man, a Catholique. Wherein is directly proued how the Spanish King is the onely cause of all the troubles in France. Translated out of French into English. London: Printed by Iohn Wolfe, 1590.
Nichols, Philip, Sir Francis Drake Revived, Calling upon this Dull or Effeminate Age to folowe his noble steps for gold and silver. London: Printed by E. A. for Nicholas Bourne, 1626.
Rowley, William. All’s Lost by Lust. London: Printed by Thomas Harper, 1633.
Shakespeare, William. Titus Andronicus. The Norton Shakespeare, Second Edition. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt, Walter Cohen, Jean E.Howard, Katharine Eisaman Maus. 2008.
Secondary sources
Barker, Francis, ‘Treasures of Culture: Titus Andronicus and Death by Hanging’, The Production of English Renaissance Culture, ed. David Lee Miller, Sharon O’Dair, and Harold Weber, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994. 226-261.
Bartels, Emily C.
- ‘Too Many Blackamoors: Deportation, Discrimination, and Elizabeth I’, Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 Vol. 46, No. 2, Tudor and Stuart Drama (Spring, 2006), 305-322, http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/sel.2006.0012.
- Speaking of the Moor: From Alcazar to Othello. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008, http://dx.doi.org/10.9783/9780812200294.
Barthelemy, Anthony Gerald, Maligned Race: the Representation of Blacks in English Drama from Shakespeare to Southerne. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University, 1987.
Broude, Ronald, ‘Roman and Goth in Titus Andronicus’, Shakespeare Studies 6 (1970), 27-34.
Campos, Edmund Valentine, ‘Jews, Spaniards and Portingales, Ambiguous Identities of Portuguese Marranos in Elizabethan England’, ELH 69. 3 (Fall 2002), 599-616, http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/elh.2002.0023.
Cox Jensen, Freyja, Reading the Roman Republic in Early Modern England (Boston, 2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/9789004233034.
Dameto Juan, Vicente Mut, Gerónio Alemany, Miguel Moragues, Joaquin Maria Bover, Historia general del reino de Mallorca, segunda edición. Tomo III. Palma: Imprenta Nacional, 1841.
Dandelet, Thomas James, The Renaissance of Empire in Early Modern Europe (New York, 2014),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781139045704.006
Duque, Pedro J., Shakespeare en España: Presencia de España y de lo español en Shakespeare y so obra. León, Sapin: Universidad de León, 1991
Feerick, Jean, ‘Botanical Shakespeare: the Racial Logic of Plant Life in Titus Andronicus’, South Central Review, Vol 26, no 1/2, Shakespeare and Science (2009), 82-102, http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/scr.0.0043
Fuchs, Barbara
- Passing for Spain: Cervantes and the Fictions of Identity. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003
- ‘The Spanish Race’, Re-Reading the Black Legend: The Discourses of Religious and Racial Difference in the Renaissance Empires, Margaret R. Greer, Walter D. Mignolo, and Maureen Quilligan, eds. Oxford University Press, 2008. 88-99 http://dx.doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226307244.001.0001
Goldstein, David B., ‘The Cook and the Cannibal: Titus Andronicus and the New World’, Shakespeare Studies; 2009; 37. 99-133
Griffin, Eric
- Renaissance Drama and the Spanish Specter: Ethnopoetics and Empire. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009 http://dx.doi.org/10.9783/9780812202106
- ‘Shakespeare, Marlowe, and the Strangers’ Crisis of the early 1590’s’, Shakespeare and Immigration, Ruben Espinosa and David Ruiter, eds. Burlington: Ashgate, 2014. 13-36
Habib, Imtiaz, Black lives in the English Archives, 1500-1677: Imprints of the Invisible. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008
Kagan, Richard, Clio and the Crown: the Politics of History in Medieval and Early Modern Spain. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2009
Kliger, Samuel The Goths in England, a Study in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Thought. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952
http://dx.doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674337190
Loomba, Ania, Shakespeare, Race, and Colonialism, New York: Oxford University press, 2002
Miller, Anthony, Roman Triumphs and Early Modern English Culture. New York: Palgrave, 2001 http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9780230628557
Noble, Louise ‘‘And Make Two Pasties of Your Shameful Heads’: Medicinal Cannibalism and Healing the Body Politic in Titus Andronicus’, ELH, Vol. 70, no. 3 (Fall, 2003). 677-708 http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/elh.2003.0029
Royster, Francesca T. ‘‘White-limed Walls: Whiteness and Gothic Extremism in Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus’, Shakespeare Quarterly (51.4, 2000) http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2902338
Ryjik, Veronika, ‘Las dos Españas de Lope de Vega y la reelaboración del mito fundacional en El Ultimo godo’, Revista Canadiense de Etudios Hispánicos, vol 29, numero 1, Otoño 2004. 213-230.
Shapiro, James, Shakespeare and the Jews, New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.
Schlueter, June, ‘Rereading the Peacham Drawing’, Shakespeare Quarterly, 50:2 (Summer, 1999), 171-184, http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2902185
Stewart, Alan, ‘The Birth of a National Biography: The Lives of Roderigo Lopez, Solomon Lazarus Levi, and Sidney Lee’, Entertext 3, no 1 (2003). 183-203.
Ungerer, Gustav, ‘The Presence of Africans in Elizabethan England and the Performance of Titus Andronicus at Burley-on-the-Hill, 1595/96’, Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England, 2008, Vol. 21. 20-55.
Daniel J. Vitkus, Turning Turk: English Theater and the Multicultural Mediterranean, 1570-1630. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-05292-6.
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