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Durham E-Theses African gures in the Elizabethan and Jacobean drama Jones, Eldred D. How to cite: Jones, Eldred D. (1962) African gures in the Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/8096/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk AFRICA FIGURES IN ELIZiBETHAij /JD JACOBEM DEMA ' THESIS PRSSEf^TED FOK THE DEGKIE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY BY ELDRED D. JOxNES 2nd MAY, 1962 The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without his prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. - 1 - PREFACE The tremendous interest in travel, discovery, and foreign trade during the second half of the sixteenth century in England led to the publication of a lerge number of works of a geographical nature. As new lands v;ere discovered, scientific and popular writers recorded the ftcts about thorn, and supplemented the gaps in their information vith old classical legends and, sometimes, uith the products of their own imagination. This was the process by uhich knowledge of Africa grew in England. At the beginning of the century little ivas known tbout the continent except through the tales of Pliny, Herodotus and other classictl v/riters. After 1550 accounts of English voyages down the coast of Africa and translations of European works on Africa began to appear. Frequently the eye-witness accounts were ' supplemented with whole passages borrowed from thz classics in a blend of fact and fiction. By the end of the century fact had established a predominsnce over fiction in these accounts, and Richard Hakluyt had published a lirge collection of them in his Principal navigations. In addition to this work and others dealing meinly with the coastal areas of Africa, John Pory issued in I6OO an English translation of the most authoritative vfork on the history ^nd geography of the interior that \/C:S to appear in England for more than tv;o centuries. The work, John Leo Africanus' History and Description of Africa, was widely read. By this time trade had been established with North and West Africa, and seamen v^ent back and forth carrying merchandise and tales. The dramatists were not slow to realize the value of the "new" continent as a source of spectacle, plot, character, and imagery. The present study examines the background of knowledge available to playwrights through works published during the sixteenth and early seventeenth century, and the use they made of such knowledge in their plays. One of the main results of this investigation is a realization of the extent to which the Elizabethans' knowledge of the continent and peoples of Africa has been under• estimated by modem critics. Statements about Othello's colour and racial identity are full of suggestions that Elizabethans did not know the difference between Moors and Negroes, or that they had heard of Negroes only as slaves. Coleridge, for example, asked how we could ever suppose that Shakespeare would have been so ignorant as to make a Negro plead royal birth at a time when Negroes were knov/n only as slaves. In our time John Draper reveals a similar state of mind when he writes: "Shakespeare seems to have realized that unlike 'Negro-land' they [the Barbary states] were organized monarchies, for Othello is descended from men of royal siege ..." (The Othello of Shakespeare's Audience. 1952, p» 200.) Statements like these ignore the fact that among the published v;ritings of English voyagers v^ell before 16OO there were reports of contacts vdth V.'est African kings like the king of Benin in 'Negro-land', and that in the pages of John Leo's book several such kingdoms in 'Negro-land' had been vividly described. Robert Greene and Ben Jonson cite Leo's work by name, while Webster and Shakespeare show signs of having known it. Elizabethans also had plenty of opportunity to see Moors and Negroes in Engl&nd. Indeed there were so many Negroes in England by I6OI that Queen Elizabeth issued an order for their transportation out of the realm. All this is not to say that the playwrights put photographic representations of particular types on the stage. Their characters were essentially products of the imagination compounded out of fact, fiction, and fantasy. The best of them, like Othello, emerge as studies of human nature, and the lesser ones as reflections of po-jular stereotypes. Part of this study examines the various African characters in Elizabethan and Jacobean plays. The term "Moor", which has been the most frequently used to sustain a charge of confusion in the minds of the dramatists, is examined along with other racial terms. • In most instances the dramatists' intentions when they use these terms are clear. The original audiences had the physical image of the characters in front of them in the theatre, and thus had less difficulty in getting the poets' meaning than we do.' The practical matter of presenting the image on the stf.ge - make-up, costuming, &c. - is also examined. Finally some attention is given to the use made of Africa, its products and its peoples in the language of the plays. This last topic is treated in detail by R, R. Cawley in The Voyages and Elizabethan Drama, 1940, Book I, and is therefore not. treated in great detail here. My indebtedness to a great number of works will be evident from the numerous references to a wide range of scholars. My greatest debt is to Dr Clifford Leech, without whose personal help and encouragement the research for this work would never have got under way. All references to the plays of Shakespeare are based on The Oxford Shakespeare, ed. ¥. J. Craig, 1914, except where otherwise stated. TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface 1' Table of Contents 5 Chapter I African.Geography end English Writing 7 (15th century - l/th century) Chapter .II Africa in English Masque and P?.geantry 6I Chapter III Dramatic Treatments of African Characters 78 The Battle of Alcazar 84 Titus Andronicus 100 Lust's Dominion II8 Some Minor Treatments of African Characters, 1591-1596 154 • Captain Thomas Stukeley I56 The Merchant of Venice 141 Wonder of Women - Sophonisba 146 The Fair Maid of the West 155 Othello 166 The White Devil 199 The Knight of Malta 205 Treatments of Cleopatra 2t^'9 All's Lost by Lust • 215 Chapter IV Some Racial Terms in Elizabethan Usage 222 TABLE OF CONTENTS CONTD. Chapter V A Note on Physical Portrayals - Make-up and Costume 270 Chapter VI . ,. ^ A Note on Africa and the Language of the Plays 277 Conclusion 285 Appendices i Chart of Plays, Masques and Pageants involving African Characters 287 ii Bibliography of Books consulted^,most of ytdch are referred to in the Thesis (a) Early Printed Books on Geography, History and Travel 294 (b) General VJorks and Editions of Plays and Masques 298 - 1 - CHAPTER I AFRICAN GEOGRAPEY AND ENGLISH WRITING (15th century to 17th century) Dramatic treatments of African characters, and even references to the land and its peoples, are rare in the literature of England before the l6th century; but from the middle of that century, not only do isolated references become more numerous, but the continent's potentialities as a source of plot, character and spectacle come to be increasingly exploited. This is not at all surprising, for before the 16th century Englishmen had little interest in countries outside their own and those of their European neighbours. Even this interest in their Q\m. neighbouring lands v/as not a scientific geographical interest. The whole science of geography - the study of the physical, climatic tnd human characteristics of a territory - was generally neglected until the second half of the l6th century, when it received a tremendous impetus through the influence of a handful of passionate geographers. There are some notable exceptions to this general statement in the period before.the l6th century. The foundations of English geographical science had been laid earlier by Roger Bacon in the 15th century. His works, Opus Ma.jus. De Fluxu et Refluxu Maris, and De DescriTJtione Locorum, were important enough contributions, but what was to 8 be of even greater importance vjas his scientific approach to existing knowle,dge, and his Insistence on experiment whenever possible. For geography, this meant travel snd first-hand experience. This was the spirit that wi:s later to inspire the recorders of geographical experience in the second half of the l6th century and the early part of the 17th. There is thus a strong link between Bacon and men like Richard Eden, John Dee, Richard Willes, Richard Hakluyt, and Samuel Purchas, not to mention the numerous humbler men whose record? supplied these great compilers with their material. A large part of the section on mathemstics in Bacon's Opus Majus is devoted to what is nov; the science of geography.