Speaking of the Moor : From "Alcazar" to "Othello"

(やまだぃちぅ) #1

Munday’s The English Romayne Lyfe( 1582 ), the chapbook The Famous History of Stout Stuk-
ley: or, His valiant Life and Death( 1638 ) and a ballad appended to it but written earlier,
“The famous life and death of the renowned Englishgallant,Thomas Stukley” ( 1612 ?). On
these and other accounts, see Yoklavich, 247 – 73.
6. On the “enormous literature of ‘Sebastianism,’ ” see Yoklavich, 257 , and Bovill,
155 – 56. A contemporary text, “Strange Newes of the Retourne of Don Sebastian” ( 1598 ),
survives only in the Stationer’s Register.
7. Referenced in Matar, Islam in Britain, 36.
8. In Othello’s Countrymen, Jones aptly identifies the play as the “first full-length treat-
ment of a Moorish character in English dramatic literature” ( 42 ). “The presentation of
Africans as individualized characters worthy of detailed treatment began,” he writes, “when
George Peele seized upon an historical occurrence which projected a Moor into great promi-
nence in European eyes, and brought Europe and Africa spectacularly together” ( 40 ). On the
dating of the play, see A. R. Braunmuller, George Peele(Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1983 ), 69.
9 .On Muly Molocco, see Yoklavich, 221 – 23.
10 .The Famous History of Captain Thomas Stukeley(Malone Society Reprints, 1970 ;
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975 ). Quotations (referenced by line numbers only) are
from this edition.
11. Thomas Heywood, If You Know Not Me, You Know Nobody, in The Dramatic Works
of Thomas Heywood, 6 vols. ( 1874 ; New York: Russell and Russell, 1964 ), vol. 1 , cited by
page numbers. On Heywood’s nationalism and its expression in his Apology for Actors, see
Crystal Bartolovich, “Shakespeare’s Globe?” in Marxist Shakespeares, ed. Jean E. Howard
and Scott Cutler Shershow (London: Routledge, 2001 ), 178 – 205 , esp. 182 – 83.
12. Matar, Britain and Barbary, 17.
13. The histories of these negotiations, which I outline below, are detailed in Bovill,
43 – 52 , and D’Amico, 15 – 32. Though Bovill’s argument is dated by its belief in “the Moor-
ish mind and its profound ignorance of the western world” ( 182 ), and D’Amico’s by its in-
sistent humanism (see note 35 to my Introduction), both sources uncover important
archival evidence.
14. See D’Amico, 15. Several of these factors are mentioned in Hakluyt, 6 : 285.
15. See D’Amico, 17 ; and Bovill.
16. Matar, Britain and Barbary, 15.
17. Matar, Britain and Barbary, 2.
18. Matar, Britain and Barbary, 3.
19. Bovill’s argument centers on this triangulation, and the following summary relies
largely on his account.
20. From Calendar of State Papers, Spanish, 1568–79, 481 ; quoted in Bovill, 44.
21. Bovill, 46. There is no record of the outcome, but Bovill speculates that Hogan
was acquitted since he soon begins to advocate for the lifting of the ban.
22. See D’Amico’s critique of Bovill, 17 – 19.
23. Bovill ( 179 ) points to the example of Henry Roberts, who, when he writes to
Ahmed el-Mansur, admits that he “forbeare[s] here to put down in writing” “the partic-
ulers of my service, for divers and reasonable causes” (Hakluyt, 6 : 427 ).


202 notes to pages 22–26

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