The Image of Moors in the Writings of Four Elizabethan Dramatists: Peele, Dekker, Heywood and Shakespeare
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THE IMAGE OF MOORS IN THE WRITINGS OF FOUR ELIZABETHAN DRAMATISTS: PEELE, DEKKER, HEYWOOD AND SHAKESPEARE A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Submitted by Mohamed Ibrahim Hassan Elaskary To the University of Exeter April 2008 This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. ………………………… 1 A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S I would like to express my sincere appreciation to my supervisors, Dr Mohamed-Salah Omri and Dr Philip Schwyzer, for their patience and assistance in the preparation of this thesis. Honestly, I cannot find words to express my thankfulness and gratitude to them. In addition, due thanks should go to Professor Muhammad Abou Liala, the former head of English Department, and to all members of staff at English Department, the Faculty of Languages and Translation, al-Azhar University, for their valuable support over the years. Lastly, I would like to thank the Egyptian government, and Egyptian tax-payers, for funding this project; without the scholarship I have been granted this dissertation should not have come to light. 2 A B S T R A C T THE IMAGE OF MOORS IN THE WRITINGS OF FOUR ELIZABETHAN DRAMATISTS: GEORGE PEELE, THOMAS DEKKER, THOMAS HEYWOOD AND WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE The word ‘Moor’ is a loose term that was used in Medieval and Renaissance England to refer to the ‘Moors’, ‘blackmoors’, ‘Negroes’, ‘Indians’, ‘Mahometans’ or ‘Muslims’. All these terms were more often than not used interchangeably. This study is concerned with the Moor from North Africa. This study is divided chronologically into two phases. The first part deals with the plays that were written during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I while the second part examines the plays that were written during (and after) the rule of King James I. Queen Elizabeth I and King James I had opposite points of view when it came to the relationship between England and the Muslim world. Thus, while Queen Elizabeth was in closer alliance with the Moors and the Turks than the Spaniards and the French, King James I chose, only after a few months of being enthroned as the King of the English monarchy, to befriend the Spaniards rather than the Moors and the Turks. The plays discussed in this thesis will be viewed against the opposite policies adopted by Elizabeth I and James I concerning the relationship between England and the Muslim world. The idea of poetic verisimilitude will be given due importance throughout this study. In other words, I propose to answer the question: did the authors discussed in this thesis manage to represent their Moorish characters in an efficient and objective way or not? Warner G. Rice, Mohammed Fuad Sha’ban, Thoraya Obaid, Anthony Gerald Barthelemy and Gerry Brotton had written PhD dissertations on the image of Moors, Turks, or Persians, in English drama. This study, however, will focus on the image of North African Moors in Elizabethan drama. What I intend to do in this thesis is to relate each of the plays discussed to a context (political, historical, or religious) of its time. My argument here is that the tone and the motive behind writing all these plays was always political. For example, George Peele’s The Battle of Alcazar will be related to the historical and political givens of the 1580s, i.e., the familial strife for the throne of Marrakesh in Morocco, the Portuguese intervention in this Moorish-Moorish conflict and the friendly Moroccan-English relations. Thomas Dekker’s Lust’s Dominion will be viewed in the light of the Reconquista wars and the expulsion of the Moors from the Iberian Peninsula. Thomas Heywood’s The Fair Maid of the West will be seen in 3 relation to the theme of conversion and Moorish piracy that were so vigorous in the 16th and 17th century. William Shakespeare’s Othello is unique and it represents what may be ranked as the earliest insights regarding the idea of tolerating the Moors and foreigners into Europe. The contribution this study aims to offer to the western reader is that it involves scrutinizing Arabic texts and contexts whenever available. Thus, Arabic sources concerning the historical accounts of the battle al-Kasr el-Kebir (the battle of Alcazar); the expulsion of Moors from Spain or Moorish and Turkish piracy are to be invoked. In the same vein, the reception of these plays in the Arab world is to be reviewed at the end of each chapter. 4 T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S TITLE PAGE………………………………………………………………………….1 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS……………………………………………….............……2 ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………3 TABLE OF CONTENTS………………………………………....…………………..5 INTRODUCTION............…………….........................................................................7 Research context............................................................................................... ...... 10 Aims and objectives………………………………………………………………..11 Structure ..........……………………………………………………………….........16 Methodological approach…………………………………………………………..19 Significance of study..................................................................... ...........................22 PROLOUGE: THE HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL BACKGROUND……..25 CHAPTER 1: THE POLITICAL REPRESNTATION OF THE MOORS IN GEORGE PEELE’S THE BATTLE OF ALCAZAR................................................32. The historical and political moment……………………………............................35 Sources of the play………………….......................................................................42 Peele’s Moors……………………………..............................................................46 The reception of The Battle of Alcazar in the Arab world .....................................60 Conclusion…………………………………………….......................................... 62 CHAPTER 2: THE MOORS OF SPAIN IN THOMAS DEKKER’S LUST’S DOMINION ……………………………………………………….……....................63 Historical background……………………………………………….....................68 Authorship……………………………………………………………...................78 Sources of the play………………………………………………………...............82 The Moors of Spain……………………………………………………..................84 The reception of Lust’s Dominion in the Arab world ............................................101 Conclusion .............................................................................................................102 CHAPTER 3: THE DEVIL AND THE NOBLE MOOR IN THE FAIR MAID OF THE WEST………………………………………………….....................................105 Historical background………………………….....................................................113 Authorship and sources of the play…………………………................................118 Moors and Britons: cultural competition and the theme of conversion……..........131 The reception of The Fair Maid of the West in the Arab world ............................141 Conclusion……………………………..................................................................143 5 CHAPTER 4: SHAKESPEARE’S OTHELLO………………………….............145 The setting of the play…………………………………………………………...148 Sources of the play………………………………………………………............154 Original sources and Othello……….......................................................….........160 Othello: The Moor of Venice………………………………………………….....165 Arab Othello and the theme of conversion…………………………………….....168 Shakespeare and Islam……………………………………………………….…...176 The reception of Shakespeare’s Othello in the Arab world………………………180 Conclusion………………………..…………………...………………………….185 CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................186 BIBLIOGRAPHY: ……………………………………………………………......191 6 I N T R O D U C T I O N The early years of the 1550s witnessed the first sizeable appearance of black people in England; those whom English merchants took captive and brought to England to work as slaves.1 John Hawkins was among the earliest English adventurers to bring black people to England and to sell some other black Africans into slavery in the New Found World.2 In the 1550s, a black man who was brought to England was married to a native white woman. The child that the mixed couple brought to life was described as black as “coal”.3 The words “Moor,” “blackman”, “blackmoor,” “Negroe,” “Aethiopian,” (or even “Turk,” and “Arab”) were used interchangeably in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in spite of the fact that the English became aware of the distinctions between different types of blacks.4 The word ‘Moor’ was commonly used to refer to Muslims in general whether they came from Africa or Asia.5 Thus, the inhabitants of the island of Molucca (part of today’s Malaysia) are referred to as “Moors in religion”.6 In fact, as Anthony Gerald Barthelemy puts it, “almost anyone who was not Christian, European, or Jewish could have been called a Moor; this includes Asians, Native Americans, Africans, Arabs, and all Muslims regardless of ethnicity.”7 Throughout this thesis, the term ‘Moor’ is used to refer to Moors from North Africa or those who come originally from North Africa. These are to be distinguished from blacks, Negroes, Turks or Arabs who appeared on the London stage in Elizabethan drama. In Elizabethan England, the word “Moor” was sometimes used synonymously to refer to “traitors”8 while in Spain the term ‘Moro’ was used derogatorily to mean a 1 Anthony Gerald