othello circumscised

Othello Circumcised: Shakespeare and the Pauline Discourse of Nations
Author(s): Julia Reinhard Lupton
Source: Representations, No. 57 (Winter, 1997), pp. 73-89
Published by: University of California Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2928664 .
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Representations.
http://www.jstor.org
JULIA
REINHARD
LUPTON
OthelloCircumcised: Shakespeare
and the Pauline Discourse of Nations
Etienne Balibar proIN HIS ESSAY "IS THERE A NEO-RACISM?"
poses thatwe now live under a new ideology of the nations,a "racism-withoutraces"thatpromotesvariousformsof ethniccleansingunder thealibiof "cultural"
identity,
purity,or autonomy,a discoursethatco-optsand neutralizesthe postwar
of the
vocabularyof liberal humanismand pluralism.Balibar linksthisneoracism
of the earlymodern period:
late modern to theprotoracism
conceptof race as itsmaindriving
A racismwhichdoes nothavethepseudo-biological
forcehas alwaysexisted,and it has existedat exactlythislevelof secondarytheoretical
Modernanti-Semitism-the
formwhichbeis anti-Semitism.
Itsprototype
elaborations.
ifnotindeedfromtheperiodin
in theEuropeof theEnlightenment,
ginsto crystallize
nationalistic
inflexion
and theInquisition
gavea statist,
whichtheSpainoftheReconquista
thewhole
a "culturalist"
racism... . inmanyrespects
anti-Judaism-is
totheological
already
racismmaybe considered,fromtheformalpointof view,as a
of currentdifferentialist
fortheinterpretation
Thisconsideration
isparticularly
anti-Semitism.
important
generalized
of contemporary
Arabaphobia,especiallyin France,sinceit carrieswithit an imageof
withEuropeanness.'
oftheworld"whichis incompatible
Islamas a "conception
Mapping contemporaryneo-racismonto the deep structuresof anti-Semitism,
Balibar derives the anti-Islamicstrain in contemporarypolitics from the long
traditionof anti-Jewishthoughtin Westernhistoriography.FollowingBalibar's
diagnosis,I argue here thatShakespeare'sOthelloprovidesa canonical articulation
of this protoracisminsofaras the play fashionsthe Muslim in the image of the
Jewaccordingto theprotocolsofPauline exegesis;in Balibar'sterms,Othellostages
a "culturalist"rather than biologisticordering of intergroup relations,a religiouslygrounded discoursebarelyvisiblefromthe vantage point of the modern
readable in the
racial theories that have since displaced it, yet intermittently
strangelightof the neoracismthathas emerged in recentyears.
A fundamentalreligiousambiguityvexestheracializationofOthello throughout the play; although his professed Christianityauthorizes Othello's place in
Venice, the play never decisivelydetermineswhetherhe has converted froma
pagan religionor fromIslam. I argue thattheblack Gentileof a universalchurch
undergirdsOthello'sopening narrativeof internationalromance,but thatthisdivine comedyof pagan conversionis continuallyshadowed bythe more troubling
possibilityof Othello's entrance into Christianityvia its disturbingneighbor,Islam. This secondaryscenario,whichsubsumes Islam withinwhat Balibar calls "a
REPRESENTATIONS
57 * Winter1997 C) THE
REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
73
situatesthe Moor in both greater proximitywith and
generalizedanti-Semitism,"
greaterresistanceto ChristianRevelationthan the pagan, who is conceived as a
Christianreinscription.These cateblank slate more open to a transformative
gories and theirpeculiar constellationin the play are inheritedfromSaint Paul's
divisionof humanityintoGreek,Jew,and barbarian,nationaldifferencesthatare
sublated in the ideal of the universalchurch.Yet thisis an always-futureuniversality,whichis projectedbythe continueddialecticbetweenthe open embrace of
the Christianmessage on the one hand and the residual ethnicexclusivismrepresentedbytheJewson theother,a tensionthatprovidesa foundationalmapping
of theWesternethno-politicalfield.In thetypologicalschemesof theRenaissance,
Islam representsa double scandal, the catastrophicbastardizationof both Christian universalism-through the seductivedanger of the Islamic world missionand Jewishparticularism,representedby Muslimallegiance to rituallaws and to
an AbrahamicmonotheismwithoutChrist.
Disclosingthe play'srelianceon thePauline divisionof the nationsnecessarily
reorientsthe currentcolor-based approach to the play,in which the scandal of
racial Imagi"monstrous"miscegenationinheritedfromthe nineteenth-century
Indeed, ifwe insiston
naryhas come to governOthello'seconomyof differences.2
graftingthe typicallymodern question of Othello's color onto the problem of
Othello'sreligion,the resultsmightnot fallwherewe expect them.Looking from
Venicewestand farto thesouth,towardpagan Africaand theNew World,Othello
would appear darker skinned,barbarian, and perhaps more capable of a full
conversionbecause of his religiousinnocence. Looking east, towardArabia and
Turkey,and to the northernparts of Africa,Othello would become a Muslimturned-Christian,
probablylighterskinnedthan his Gentileversion,inheritorof
a monotheisticcivilizationalready marked by frequentcontactswith Christian
Europe and hence more likelyto go renegade. Whereas for the modern reader
or viewera black Othello is more subversive,"other,"or dangerous, in the Renaissance scene a paler Othello morecloselyresemblingtheTurkswhom he fights
of the Christianparadigms set
mightactuallychallengemore deeply the integrity
up in the play as the measure of humanity.Critics have rightlydecried the
movementto "whiten"or "orientalize"Othello.3It is certainly
nineteenth-century
not myintentionto returnto such a projectbut ratherto insistthatthismove in
the nineteenthcenturytook place withinan alreadyracializeddiscourse,whereas
in Othelloreligiousdifferenceis more powerfullyfeltthanracial difference,which
was only then beginning to surface in its virulentmodern form. Rather than
deciding whatcolor Othello "really"is, I argue thatthe play initiallydraws moral
and physiological"blackness"away fromthe diabolical and bestial imagerymanipulated by lago into the more positivecircuitof the Gentilebarbarian,a recuperation thatin turnis undercutby the potentialattractionbetween the "Moor"
and the "Mohammedan." Shakespeare does not use Christianityto rise above
color-basedracismso much as his play rendersvisiblethe blindspotof ethnosthat
74
REPRESENTATIONS
mortgagesthe inclusivevisionof Christianhumanism,a blindspotmarked above
all by the unerasable yetnongeneticscar of circumcisionin Shakespeare's Venetian plays.
Entries into Covenant
Othello,one of Shakespeare's middle tragedies,has oftenbeen read as
a rewritingof TheMerchantof Venice:both are set in the mercantilecity-stateof
Venice,both employclearlymarked "others,"and both use the themeof conspicuous exogamy to heighten the conventionalcomedic situationof young lovers
exhibitsa comedicstructuresharplytypological
blockedbyan old father.Merchant
in itscounteringofJewishjustice and Christianmercy,a set of scripturalcoordinates more carefullysubmergedyetall the more powerfullyat workin Othelloas
well. lago's cryto Brabantio,"Look to yourhouse, yourdaughter,and yourbags,"
clearlyrecallsShylock'swail,"'My daughter! 0 myducats! 0 mydaughter,"'and
Brabantio,like Shylock,is promised "thebloodybook of the law" in recompense
for the loss of his daughter.4Yet Brabantio of course is no Jew,but one of the
"brothersof the state,"a citizenand senatorin thisChristianmaritimerepublic
(Othello1.2.98). The figureof Brabantio instantiatesthe typenot so much of the
Jew per se as of theJewishChristianaddressed by Saint Paul in his epistlesto the
Romans and the Galatians.
Paul opens the Epistle to the Romans by insistingon the inclusivenessof his
message:
andtobarbarians,
I am underobligation
toGreeks
bothtothewiseand tothefoolish;so
both
I am eagerto preachthegospeltoyoualsowhoareinRome.For I am notashamedof the
and
gospel;itis thepowerof God forsalvationto everyone whohas faith,totheJewfirst
also totheGreek.5
In thefirstline,Paul expresseshisobligation"to Greeksand tobarbarians,"taking
up the Hellenistic division of the world between civilized Greek-speakersand
inarticulatenon-Greeks.Paul thenextends his message to the Christiancommunityin Rome, implicitlylinked here to the Greeks as the modern inheritorsof
classicalculture.6The nextverse moves fromthe Hellenisticopposition between
Greeksand barbariansto the Hebraic divisionof peoples betweenJewsand Gentiles; Paul'sjudicious phrasing,"to theJewfirstand also to the Greek,"recognizes
the historicalpriorityof theJewsin the receptionof Revelation,yetinsistsas well
on the necessarydisseminationof that message to the second, larger group of
Greeks. The Hellenisticand Hebraic theoriesof the nationscondensed in Paul's
address to the Romans likelyresponds to the unhappy splitof his audience bethe firstgroup having no nattweenGentileand Jewishconvertsto Christianity,
ural relation to the Hebrew Scripturesso centralto Pauline hermeneutics,and
the second circlestilldeeply investedin thelawsof theTorah.7Finally,theselines,
Othello
Circumcised:
Shakespeareand thePaulineDiscourseofNations
75
like the epistle in general,acknowledgeand reconcile the claims of both groups
in the new church by presentingfaithas the common sign of righteousnessfor
all Christians.
The legacy of Romans to the Westerndiscourse of the nations is caught between Paul's urge to discountthe legal observancesof contemporaryJewson the
one hand and to granthistoricalsignificanceto theJewsas a people on the other,
impulses that equally stem fromPaul's sense of theJews as an ethnos,a tribeor
nation bound by a common language, law,and genealogy.Unlike Galatians,Romans does not forbid the observance of Jewishlaws such as circumcision,but
makesthemadiaphora,mattersofdoctrinalindifference;put otherwise,such practicesare (merely)cultural-belongingto the domain of communalcustom,which,
though not harmfuland sometimeseven positivelygood, nonetheless have no
significancein the drama of salvation. In Daniel Boyarin'sjudgment, although
Paul's project "is not anti-Semitic(or even anti-Judaic)in intent,it nevertheless
has theeffectof deprivingcontinuedJewishexistenceofanyrealityor significance
in the Christianeconomies of history."8
The triumphof the Gentile mission,by
no means a givenin Paul's historicalmoment,would eventuallylead to the forthrightlyanti-Jewish
interpretation
of Paul in the Church Fathersand Reformation
theologians.9Yet European modernityalso owes to Paul the knittingof the Hebrew Bible, reconceivedas the Old Testament,into the scripturalcanon and exAs Hans Hubner has argued, Paul
egeticalconsciousnessof GentileChristianity.
remained investedin "thetheologicalrelevance[of] thehistoryof Israel";'0 Paul's
typologicalrevaluation of the Torah, like his relativizationof Jewish law, also
springs from his cultural reading of Judaism, which, as the archetypalethnos,
coheres as a historicalentitycapable of modelingfortha comparable integrityfor
other nationsand forthe churchin Christianhistoriography."
The Epistles divide theJew between three basic types: thoseJewswho, like
Paul, convertedto Christianity;thoseJewswho remainedJewish,not accepting
Jesus as the Messiah; and the ancient Israelitesof the Hebrew Bible whose lives
and words typologicallypredictthe eventsof the new era. Whereas the Shylock
of Shakespeare's earlierVenice is a figureof obdurate intransigenceto Christian
conversionin the typologicaltraditionof Esau and Laban, Brabantio takes the
ratherdifferentpartof theJewishChristiansin Paul's epistle.Brabantioexcludes
Othello fromthe "nationof our wealthy,curled darlings"(Othello1.2.69), implicwhen Brabantio refersso conitlyequating "nation"withnatioor birth;similarly,
fidentlyto his "brothersof the state,"we are leftwiththereligiousquestion,"Who
2 Brabantio, like the JewishChristiansof Paul's Epistle to the
is my brother?"'
Romans, would presumablyrestrictthe circleof brothersto nativeVenetians,to
those tied to him by blood and custom.Yet Brabantio,as a typeof theJudaized
Christianrather than a Jew proper, is not a villain; unlike Shylockor Barabas,
Brabantio appears clannishbut not evil,myopicallywed to externalappearances,
76
REPRESENTATIONS
"toall thingsof sense" (1.2.65), butnotwithouttheAbrahamicvirtueof hospitality
thathelped lead to the presentcrisis.
Othello, byextension,takes the roles of Gentileand barbarian in Paul's divisions of the human kingdom.Othello's entryinto the play as a convertto Christianityinitiallystationshim in the traditionof the three kings at the Epiphany,
oftenrepresentedas theEuropean, African,and Asian recipientsof Christianity's
world message in Renaissance iconography.Bearing exotic offeringsof frankincense and myrrhto the manger of the Christchild, the Africanking Balthazar
bringsthe giftsof his culturein the sense of givingthemup, ceding a measure of
cultural identityin the act of conversion.'3The three kings were typologically
keyed to the three sons of Noah, taken as the forefathersof the world's white,
black, and yellowpeoples; in such a scheme, Othello-as-Balthazarbecomes the
epochal negation of Ham, fatherof the black nations. In patristicand rabbinic
traditions,Ham broughtthe curse of blacknessonto his descendantsby sleeping
withhis wife on the ark; Shakespeare, however,is careful to show Othello and
flood"(Othello2.1.2) and "enchafed
Desdemona arrivingfromthe"high-wrought
ships,redeemingratherthanrepeatingHam's transgresflood"(2.1.17) on separate
sion.'4 In these early scenes, the black Othello functionsas the livingsymbolof
Christianuniversalism,a social and spiritualvisionthatstands as the testof Brabantio's"Judaizing"constructionsof nationalbrotherhood.Whereas in Merchant,
Jessica'selopement withLorenzo fromthe house of Shylockstages the historic
in Othellothe marriageof a barbarian groom
shiftfromJudaism to Christianity,
to a Christianbride figuresforththe extensionof the Christianmessage from
European Gentilesto all the nationsof the world. From thistypologicalperspective,the marriage of whiteand black, of Greek and barbarian, far fromrepreor scandal, assumes almostcosmic significance,its harmosentinga monstrosity
nies resonatingwiththe exultantcoloraturaof the Song of Songs.
This epochal scene of Gentileconversion,I argue, initiallycontrolsthe play
of black-whiteimageryin the drama. lago uses bestial and demonic images of
blackness in order to deformand prejudice Brabantio's-and by extension the
audience's-reception of theelopement. lago in turnhas his own strangelinksto
hisfamousnegationof theJewishGod's unspeakable name,
theworldofMerchant:
"I am not what I am" (Othello1.1.67), flagshim as the Devil of the play and roots
seasoned bythe
him in a parodicallyOld Testamentethosof historicalressentiment,
damaged pride and nurturedspite of all the Cains, Ishmaels, and Esaus passed
over in the Bible for younger favored sons. It is lago, for example, who warns
Brabantio about "yourhouse, your daughter,and your bags," as if the character
ofVeniceintoOthello.
of lago were responsibleforraisingthespiritof TheMerchant
Even lago's infamousimage of bestialcross-coupling,"an old black ram/Is tupping your white ewe" (1.1.90-91), echoes Merchant'smost egregious pun, that
between "ewes" and "Iewes,"'5irradiatingthe play'smostcited example of color-
Circumcised:
Othello
Shakespeareand thePaulineDiscourseofNations
77
based racismwithan animus of a differentcolor. lago's presentationof blackness
as the sign of a savage, unredeemable nature is soon marked by the play as historicallybankrupted throughthe epochal weightgranted to Othello as a lattertrial scene), a Christian
day Balthazar (the name chosen by Portia in Merchant's
soldier who traces "his lifeand being/From men of royalsiege" (Othello1.2.2122), an exegeticalgenealogythatderiveshis noble personage fromthethreekings
of a global Epiphany.'6
It would be easy enough, however,to love thisvisionof Christianhumanism
disnot wiselybut too well. In Shakespeare's Venetianplays,Christian-humanist
a set that excludes
minusthecircumcised,
course always operates as a universalism
not the unconvertedpagans of the New Worldbut rathertheJewsand the Muslims, strictmonotheismsexistingnot far away but close at hand. Judaism and
Islam stem fromthe same Abrahamic lineage as Christianity;the three groups
are, in the Muslim phrase, "people of the book," religionsorganized around revealed Scripturesthatshare manyof the same prophetsand patriarchs.Othello's
role as defender of the faithagainst the Mohammedan Turks is faulted by the
possibilitythathe has convertedto ChristianityfromIslam, an entryinto a covenant thatwould tracea differentarc fromthatof the Gentilebarbarian,locating
the pre-ChristianOthello not antelegem-beforeor outside the revealed law that
singledout theJewsfromthenationsof theworld-but sublege,under a stringent
monotheismuntempered by Christ'slove.'7 John Pory's appendix to his 1600
andDescription
ofAfricalistsfourreligionson
translationof Leo Africanus'sHistory
18 a catalog
the dark continent,"Gentiles,lewes, Mahumetans, and Christians,"
thatclearlydistinguishes"Mahumetans"from"Gentiles."ThePolicyoftheTurkish
betweenMuslim monotheEmpire,an anonymoustractfrom1597, differentiates
ism and Gentile polytheism:"Touching the Godhead, [Muslims] acknowledge
bothwiththe lews and Christiansthatthereis one onelyGod: Whereintheydiffer
of Gods."'9 Such passages separate
fromthe Gentiles,who had theirmultiplicitie
Islam out frompaganismand correlateitwithJudaismbased on the tworeligions'
scriptural,legal, and monotheisticbases.
In Christiantypology,the Muslim was bound to theJew throughthe figure
of Ishmael. For Saint Paul, Ishmael is the typeof thecarnal Israel or modernJew:
thatAbrahamhad twosons,one bya slaveand one bya freewoman.But
Foritis written
theson of theslavewasbornaccordingto theflesh,theson of thefreewomanthrough
thesewomenaretwocovenants.
One is fromMountSinai,
promise.Nowthisisan allegory:
bearingchildrenforslavery;sheis Hagar.NowHagaris MountSinaiin Arabia;she corforshe is in slaverywithherchildren.(Gal. 4.22-25)
respondsto thepresentJerusalem,
With the rise of Islam, the figureof Ishmael as a negative type of the Jew was
transferredonto Mohammed, a translationalreadyauthorizedbythe Islamic appropriationof Ishmael foritsown propheticgenealogy.Christiantypologistsalso
78
REPRESENTATIONS
used Esau, Pharaoh, and Herod to couple theJewand the Muslim as carnal children of Abraham facingeach other across the world-historicbreak effectedby
the Incarnation.20Islam, the youngestof the three Abrahamic religions,reprea kind ofJudaismafterthe fact,a redoubling
sented to Renaissance Christianity
ofJewishintransigencein thefaceof Christianrevelation.As such,Islam executed
a second, even crueleraffrontto Christianity's
historicalvisionof epochal succesthe
modern
Christian
since
sion,
Judaism (from
perspective)is merelya residual
carryoverfroman earlier moment,but Islam fromitsveryinceptioncarried out
its proselytizingmissionin fullknowledgeof Christianteachings.The rapid expansion of Islam, however,presentedthe inverseofJudaism'sdispersed,sequestered,and inward-lookingcommunities.The thirdRevelationannounced by Islam rejected the particularism associated with Judaism in favor of the
liketherulersof European Christendom,
universalismpioneered byChristianity;
the Arab and then Turkishempires used the theme of spiritualequalityamong
the nationsto support theirreligiousand politicalprojects.2'
Brabantio's warning against "bondslaves and pagans" (Othello1.2.101) acknowledges the two possible avenues of Othello's entryinto Christianity.More
than simplysynonyms,the pointedlypaired words representdistinctlocationsin
theplay'sconceptualgeographyof thenations:thebondslavenames thecondition
of Hagar, her offspring,and his Ishmaelite progeny,while the pagan identifies
the state of the Gentile barbarian, potentialrecipientof the expanded Pauline
mission. Whereas the firstacts of the play establishOthello as Christiansoldier
and devoted husband, the middle movementof the tragedyinstigatesa crisisin
both the maritaland the religiouscovenantsthatbind Othello to Venice. If the
remainder of the play chartsOthello's increasingdistance fromthe role of the
Africankingestablishedin act one, we mustpay attentionto the effectsthatthese
competingscriptsfor the entryinto covenanthave on Othello's tragicexit from
it. As the play progresses,is Othello, as criticshave frequentlysuggested,paganized-made exotic, savage, and barbaric-or is he also Islamicizedand Judaized,
broughtback into contactwitha law thatshould have been dissolved by the rite
of baptism? In the play,paganization describesOthello's decline into gullibility,
madness, and cruelty,a process emblematizedby the infamoushandkerchief,its
subtilefabricwoven out of the iconographyof the Gentilegods. Even as Othello
descends into pagan fury,however,he also begins to "turn Turk" (2.3.164), a
phrase thatnames Islamicizationas a tragictrajectorythatrunsalongside thepath
of barbarization,paralleling,elaborating,and deviatingfromit.This second path
revertsnot to anarchyantelegembut to a tyrannysub lege,a transformationembodied by Othello's increasingidentificationwitha jealous justice that must be
executed at any cost, a law driven by the fiercemonogamy of an immoderate
monotheism.
This process climaxesin Othello's anguished retortto Desdemona's denials:
Othello
Circumcised:
Shakespeareand thePaulineDiscourseof Nations
79
Thou doststonemyheart,
Andmakesme callwhatI intendtodo
a sacrifice.
A murder,
whichI thought
(5.2.67-69)
Lord "whose
name is Jealous"
34.14),
(Exod.
obedient
by Desdemona's
percession
(though
identifies him with the old law, ruled by the
"sacrifice" simultaneously
Othello's
that of Christ. Whereas
by no means simply instantiates)
in the play tend to emphasize
noted Othello's
increasing
association
although
Othello's
as the mas-
with justice, usually understood
synthesis even while grotesquely
different:
the Semitic strands out of
reinforcing the authority of
increasing alliance with the law is indeed
chal, I would insist on the Abrahamic
suwith
studies of race
patriarchy.22 My point is somewhat
Othello's justice, like that of Shylock, serves to separate
the husband;
resonates
feminist critics have
the movement of paganization,
culinist tenets of Judeo-Christian
the Judeo-Christian
the law's epochal
and indicates
love, insofar as her death
(Judeo-Islamic)
patriar-
of the word
connotations
patriarch.23
Othello
Circumcised
Othello's
stages his double
final autobiography
rativesof paganizationand Islamicization:
placement
in the nar-
Then mustyou speak
Of one thatlovednotwiselybuttoowell;
Of one noteasilyjealous but,beingwrought,
Perplexedin theextreme;ofone whosehand,
threwa pearlaway
Likethebase Indian[ludean],24
Richer than all his tribe;of one whose subdued eyes,
Albeitunused to the meltingmood,
Drops tearsas fastas the Arabian trees
Their medicinablegum. Set you down this:
And say besides thatin Aleppo once,
Where a malignantand a turbanedTurk
Beata Venetianand traducedthestate,
I took byth'throatthe circumciseddog
Andsmotehim,thus.
In the exotic parable
departure
swiftly followed by the reference
Their medicinable
(Matt. 2.11),
80
the rejected pearl condenses
of the base Indian,
with Othello's
of Desdemona
(5.2.353-66)
The
the murder
first simile is
to tears that drop "as fast as the Arabian
gum," an elaborate
circumlocution
myrrh manifests the economy
REPRESENTATIONS
from Christianity.
trees/
for myrrh. As nativity gift
of conversion,
in which the Gentile
kingsbringthe precious distillationsof theircountriesin exchange fora place in
theChristianorder.In thewake ofDesdemona's murder,themyrrhalso functions
as a figureof Othello'sregretand repentanceforhavingreneged on thatcontract,
becomingthe medium of a "meltingmood" thatdissolvesthe universalisticonographyof Epiphany into the scene of conversion'sreversionback into the strange
substances that distinguishthe nations. As the symbolof the Epiphany and its
dissolution,the myrrhtree situatesOthello in a pagan scene, darkeninghis skin
in itsallusive shade.
Yet, as criticshave pointed out, the Folio text'ssubstitutionof "Judean" for
coordi"Indian" installsOthello's tragedywithinanother set of mytho-historical
edition,editorsand criticshave
nates. Since Lewis Theobald's eighteenth-century
occasionallyfavored the Folio reading, referringit to Judas's betrayalof Christ
and to the Herod-Mariam storyofjealous murder,taken fromJosephus'sJewish
oftheJewsas the materialfor several neo-Senecan dramas.25
Warand Antiquities
Like Brabantio'srestricteduse of "nation,"the"tribe"of the"base ludean" implies
worldviewin which the Christianpearl findsno
a circumscribedand circumcised
proper place, a rejection that stems not from the ignorance of the Indian but
fromthe knowledgeof good and evilbroughtabout bythe law.26Moreover,ifwe
read "base ludean" in termsof the Herod and Mariam story,a now familiartypological scenario takes shape withinthe confinesof the simile. Herod, an Idumean descended fromEsau, is a typeof the latter-dayMuslim as well as the inveterateJew,and his malignedbut faithfulwifeMariam,a sacrificialvictimin the
Christologicalpatternshared withDesdemona, representstherighteousremnant
who makes possible the historictransitioninto the new era.27
Rather than selecting"Judean" over "Indian," I followEdward Snow in insistinginstead that"each variantsuggestsa differentside of Othello."28"Indian"
describesthe more broadlydrawn,more theatricallypowerfulmovementof the
drama as the tragicbreakdown of Gentile conversion,yet the almost effortless
substitutionof "Indian" by "Judean"followsthe path of Islamicizationthat falls
out of the play's dominant turn toward barbarism,articulatingboth paganism
and Islam as the startingpointsof two separate itinerariesintoand out of Christianity.Othello's recollectionof the Turk in Aleppo flowsout of this auxiliary
reading. As criticshave oftenargued, Othello'sreenactmentof his earlierheroics
both identifieshim with the Turk and killsoffthat identificationin the act of
suicide,reassertingOthello'sallegiance to the Christianethicswhose standard he
has borne. Yet these readings too oftenidentifythe Turk simplyas a "barbaric
enemy,""the Infidel,"or one of a "proliferatingseriesof exoticizedothers."29To
the contrary,it is myprojectto distinguishtheJudean fromthe Indian, theJew
and the Muslim fromthe Gentilepagan.
As Lynda Boose, one of the few criticsto move beyond the pagan reading,
has pointed out, circumcisionratherthan skincolor is the traitthat Othello "invokes as the final,inclusivesign of his radical Otherness."30lago had already
Othello
Circumcised:
Shakespeareand thePaulineDiscourseof Nations
81
evoked an epochal reading of circumcisionwhen he advised Cassio to elect Desdemona as his petitioner:
And thenforher
To wintheMoor-were'ttorenouncehisbaptism,
Allsealsand symbols
ofredeemedsinHis soulis so enfettered
toherlove
Thatshemaymake,unmake,do whatshelist.
(Othello
2.3.336-40)
of redeemed sin"linksbaptismto Saint Paul's reading
The phrase "sealsandsymbols
of circumcisionas "a signorseal" of faith(Rom. 4.1 1).31 In Judaism,circumcision
has a performativeor constitutivefunction;it is a "seal" in the sense of an official
imprimaturthatvalidatesand authenticatesthecontractbetweenman and God.32
Britmilah,"the covenantof circumcision,"operates as a kindof signature,since it
ratifiesa contractand confersa Hebrew name; writtenon the body of the infant,
thisname at once identifiesthe child'sabsolute uniqueness and situateshim in a
networkof genealogical relations.
For Paul, however,circumcisionbecomes an outwardmarkdesigned to reflect
an internalconditionof faith,a "sign"in the sense of an externalindication.In
Paul's words,"he is not a real Jewwho is one outwardly,nor is true circumcision
somethingexternaland physical.He is a Jew who is one inwardly,and real circumcisionis a matterof the heart,spiritualand not literal"(Rom. 2.28-29). In
the new era, circumcisionis relegated to the statusof a fallen sign (a mark that
mayor maynot manifesta correspondinginnercondition)and a merelylegal seal
(a bodily signature that establishes a purely formal covenant unmediated by
spirit).In the dialecticof Christianhistory,circumcisiongives way to baptism,a
sacramentthatleaves no bodilytraceof itsoperation,itstransparentand reflective
watersdissolvingtheblood and erasingthescar ofcircumcision'sviolentlyinscriptivecut.
In thejudgment ofJamesShapiro, "More than anythingelse in the sixteenth
century... Paul's ideas about circumcisionsaturatedwhatShakespeare's contemI would add thatitwas
porariesthought,wrote,and heard about circumcision."33
above all the riteof circumcisionin itsPauline articulationthatemblematizedthe
affiliation
betweentheJewand the Muslimin Christiantypologicalthought.The
author of the PolicyoftheTurkish
Empirelaysout the statusof the law in the three
religions:
Foras theJewshad a particular
lawegivenuntothemand publishedbyGod himselfe
in
ofthesame)certainelawesand precepts
mountSinai. .. So havetheTurkes(inimitation
orCommandements
laidedowneintheirAlcoran. .. Whichargueththattheirconfidence
inthepietieand meriteoftheirvertuouslife,and
consisteth
and hopeofsalvation
chiefely
in thatpointfromtheopinionof some
good deedes: And thattheydoe notmuchdiffer
whodo attribute
theirsalvationuntotheirmerites.34
Christians,
82
REPRESENTATIONS
The passage setsup Islamiclaw as a belated versionof theTorah and an alienating
mirrorof the Catholic Church. The author goes on to singleout circumcisionas
a law thathad once been "a most holyand sacred sacrament,"but "is nowe converted . .. to a most idle and vaine ceremony"among Jewsand Muslims.35The
tract,thoughstronglypolemical,actuallymakes some progressin depictingbasic
Islamic tenetsand practices,differingon manypointsfromthe fantasticaccounts
disseminatedfrommedieval sources. If the typologicalperspectivethreatensto
make Islam disappear intoJudaism,reductivelyappropriatingthe one religion
to the more familiarparadigms of the other,I would also insistthat the special
historicalconsciousnessborn of typology-theinterestin coherentepochs or "cultures" fundamentalto Westernphilosophies of history-also helps account for
the tract'srelativesuccess in depictinga foreignworldview.In the Policyof the
and the descriptive-historiographical
Turkish
Empire,the assimilative-reductionist
poles of typologicalconsciousnessexistin somethingof a balance; the same might
ofVeniceand theirfurtherelabbe said forthe mimeticsuccessesof TheMerchant
orationin Othello.
ChristopherMarlowe'sJewofMalta, on the other hand, withits more naked
debts to medievaldrama, lies towardthe allegoricalside of the typologicalcontinuum; in Marlowe'splay,the cut of circumcisionequates Jewand Muslim withan
exemplary if reductive claritythat Shakespeare transmitsin more sublimated
and successorthe
forms.The JewBarabas chooses as his slave,partner-in-crime,
"Make account of me /As of
Muslim Ithamorebyacknowledgingtheiraffiliation:
we hate Christiansboth."37The
thyfellow;we are villainsboth:/Both circumcised,
fellowshipbetweentheJewand theMuslimhas been signedand sealed in advance
by the shared mark of circumcision,a permanent bodily sign that establishes
membershipin a group but, unlike racial traitssuch as skin color, is produced
throughthe deliberateexecutionof rituallaw. The name Ithamore is itselfborrowed fromthe Old Testament,where "Ithamar"appears as the youngestson of
"-mar"into "-more,"Marlowe has effectively
Aaron (Exod. 6.23); byintensifying
Islamicized thistypeof theJewishpriest,semanticallyflaggingthe link between
Judaic and Muslim law accordingto the habitsof Christiantypology.38
In appointinghimselfbothconfessorand executionerof Desdemona, Othello
strugglesto assume a priestlyas well as a judicial function,becoming an "Ithamore,"a Moorish son of Aaron, but in a higher,more interiorized,mimeticregisterthanthatelaboratedin Marlowe'sfarcicalmoralityplay.In his suicide speech,
Othello's drawn sword at once pointsoutwardto circumcisionas the traitidentireturnsit onto Othello's own body as
fyingthe object of his scorn,and reflexively
the verymeans of death, a finalstrokethatcuts offhis lifeby turningthe Turk
into and onto himself.In one arc of its meaning,thiscut redeems the Moor in
death, restoringhim to the historyof Veniceas one who has "done the statesome
service"and who, like MaryMagdalene, has "loved not wiselybut too well."From
thisperspective,circumcisionfunctionsas the emblem of Christiantypologypar
Othello
Circumcised:
Shakespeareand thePaulineDiscourseofNations
83
cancellationthatallows for the reconexcellence, the vehicle of world-historical
Othello's suicide, thatis, functionsas a marversionof the Moor to Christianity.
tyrologicalbaptismin blood, an act thatcompletesand terminatesthe era of the
law; throughhis suicide,Othello has become literally"circumcisedin the heart,"
not unlike Antonio in Shakespeare's earlier Venetianplay.At the same time,the
cut that(re)circumcisesOthello does not disappear intoitstypologicalsublations.
Instead it reinstatesthe Hebraic functionof the signature,the writtenlettersof
a legallyratifyingand subjectivelyidentifyingmarkthatdislodges Othello from
covenant.In thissense,
the Christianhistoricalorderbylocatinghimin a different
the suicide effectsa circumcisionaccordingto theJudeo-Islamicratherthan the
signaturethatseparates
Pauline-internalparadigm,constitutinga self-validating
out Islam as a historico-theologicalposition distinctfrom paganism, a regime
definedbythesingularimprintof circumcisionas thepersistent"seal and symbol"
of the law. With thisritual gesture,Othello signs his finalautobiography,exacerbatingand inflamingas much as redeeming that ancient scar in the Pauline
discourse of nations.This momentarypositingof Islam as its own dispensation
both exceeds the typologicalvision (which would reduce Islam to its own categories of faithand nationhood) and is itselfanticipatedby the historiographical
as a narrativeof epochal relations.
impulse of Christianity
Paul's ethno-politicaltheologycan accommodatethevastdifferencesbetween
the Greek and the barbarian,but not the verylittledifferencebetween the circumcised and the uncircumcised.In Othello-Shakespeare's second letterto the
Venetians-Christian universalism,circlingaround the black body of the Gentile
convert,has the capacityto envisionif not realize a world of racialequality.It is
like Islam, is a world religion,not a race,
worthassertinghere thatChristianity,
and does not belong to any civilizationas eitheritsspecial heritageor itscolonial
weapon, to whateverdegree ithas been used as such. What Shakespeare's Pauline
Christianity-and this is a paradox besettingall revealed religions-has more
imaginingis a worldof religiousequalityamong the people of the book,
difficulty
an equality in which circumcision,maintainedas an external mark of covenant
not erased through spiritualization,could be accounted for rather than discounted by Christianity'shistoricalscheme. In Othello,the romance of Gentile
conversion supports the dream of a universal brotherhood that allows Shakespeare to set up and see throughthe black-whiteopposition. Yet this Christianhumanistdiscourse alwaysoperates as a universalismminusthe circumcised;the
Jew and the Muslim are subtractedfromthe nationsof the world ingatheredby
singled out and cut offbythe ritualstrokethroughwhichtheyconChristianity,
tinue to distinguishthemselves.Odd as it may seem to contemporaryreaders
caught up in the horizon of modern racism,it is Othello's religious ratherthan
racial traitsthat prove more intractablein the Christianvision staged by Shakespeare's play,an obduracy that points in turn to the vicissitudesof Renaissance
84
REPRESENTATIONS
protoracismin the shapes of neoracismthat have emerged at the end of our bloody
century.
Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
Among the people who generouslyread and commentedon thisessay in draftform,
I'd like to thankin particularThomas Albrecht,JonathanCrewe, Robert Folkenflik,
Richard Halpern, KimberlyMoekle, PatriciaPhillippy,Kenneth Reinhard, and the
editorsat Representations.
Etienne Balibar, "Is There a Neo-Racism?"in Etienne Balibar and Emmanuel Walltrans. Chris Turner (London, 1991),
Identities,
erstein,Race, Nation,Class: Ambiguous
23-24.
The groundworkfor this orientationwas laid by the historicalcriticismof Eldred
TheAfricanin EnglishRenaissanceDrama (London, 1965),
Jones, Othello'sCountrymen:
and Cultural
and G. K. Hunter, "Othello and Colour Prejudice,"in DramaticIdentities
and His Contemporaries
(Liverpool, Eng., 1978), as well
Tradition:Studiesin Shakespeare
as the politicaland psychoanalyticmythcriticismof Leslie A. Fiedler,TheStrangerin
Shakespeare
(New York, 1972). In the recentwave of essays,the black-whiteopposition
explored byArthurLittle,"'An essence that'snot seen': The
has been mostfruitfully
Quarterly
44, no. 3 (Fall 1993): 304-24,
Shakespeare
PrimalScene of Racism in Othello,"
YaleJournalof
and JonathanCrewe, "Out of the Matrix: Shakespeare's Race-Writing,"
Criticism
8, no. 2 (1995): 13-29. Karen Newman, "'And wash the Ethiop white': Femand
in Shakespeare
Reproduced:TheTextin History
ininityand the Monstrousin Othello,"
ed. Jean E. Howard and Marion F. O'Connor (New York, 1987); PatriciaParIdeology,
and Bringingto Light,"in Margo
ker,"Fantasiesof 'Race' and 'Gender': Africa,Othello,
in theEarlyModernPeriod
Hendricks and PatriciaParker,Women,"Race,"and Writing
(London, 1994); and Michael Neill,"Unproper Beds: Race, Adultery,and the Hideous
40, no. 4 (Winter1989), have focused on monstrosity
Quarterly
in Othello,"
Shakespeare
MoretoShakeand miscegenation.Stephen Greenblatt,RenaissanceSelf-Fashioningfrom
speare(Chicago, 1980); Parker; Newman; and Emily Bartels, "Making More of the
Quarterly
Moor: Aaron, Othello, and Renaissance Refashioningsof Race," Shakespeare
41, no. 4 (Winter 1990), have excavated travelnarrativesas sources and models of
Othello'sprotocolonialpractice,a dimensionemphasized froma postcolonialangle in
Ania Loomba, "The Color of Patriarchy:CriticalDifference,CulturalDifference,and
and Ania
"Race,"and Writing;
Renaissance Drama," in Hendricksand Parker,Women,
Loomba, Gender,Race, RenaissanceDrama (Manchester,Eng., 1989). Bartels assumes
that Othello was a Muslim,but does not develop the tensionsbetween race and religion, a dynamicon whichLynda Boose, "'The Gettingof a Lawful Race': Racial Discourse in Early Modern England and the UnrepresentableBlack Woman," in Henhas reflectedsuggestively.
dricksand Parker,Women,
"Race,"and Writing,
See Neill, "Unproper Beds," 385.
ed.John
ofVenice,
Othello,ed. David Bevington(New York, 1980), 1.1.82; TheMerchant
Russell Brown (London, 1955), 2.7.15; Othello1.3.69-71. (All subsequent citationsof
these playsare fromthese editions.)
OthelloCircumcised:Shakespeare and the Pauline Discourse of Nations
85
ofSt. Paul (New York, 1972). (All
5. Rom. 1.14-16, in Wayne Meeks, ed., The Writings
subsequent citationsof Paul are fromthisedition; emphasis added.)
6. As WayneMeeks comments,Paul "looksto Rome ... as thecenterof the knownworld,
and his visittherebecomes a symbolforthe universalityof his mission'among all the
ofSt.Paul, 66.
Gentiles'(Rom. 1.5)"; Meeks, Writings
7. Accordingto modernscholarsof Paul, theJewishcommunityin Rome, includingthose
had been exiled by Claudius around 49 C.E. and
who had convertedto Christianity,
returnedto the citywiththe accession of Nero in 54, a returnthat may have led to
tensionsbetween Gentile and JewishChristiansin the Roman church at the time of
ofSt.Paul, 67. Hans Hubner summarizesand rejectsthis
Paul's letter;Meeks, Writings
argument,takingwhat seems to be a minorityposition,namelythat Paul's more tolerant attitude towardJewish law in Romans (as compared to Galatians) reflectsa
change of heartratherthanofrhetoricalsituation;Hans Hubner,Law inPaul's Thought,
ed. John Riches,trans.James C. G. Greig (1978, reprint:Edinburgh, 1984), 5.
(Berkeley,1994), 32.
8. Daniel Boyarin,A RadicalJew:Paul and thePoliticsofIdentity
9. The twentiethcenturyhas seen a more balanced look at Paul's Jewishsources as well
exegeticaltraditionsfounded on
as a salutaryextricationof Paul fromthe anti-Jewish
his epistlesbyfiguressuch as MartinLuther.On Paul and Judaism,see W.D. Davies,
Paul and RabbinicJudaism:SomeRabbinicElementsin Pauline Theology(1955, reprint:
New York, 1967), and E. P. Sanders, Paul, theLaw, and theJewishPeople(Philadelphia,
1983); for examples of revisionistChristianreadings of Paul in the wake of the Ho(New York,
ofChristianity
and theFoundations
locaust,see Alan Davies, ed., Antisemitism
1979). For a briefhistoryof Pauline scholarshipin lightof the Jewishquestion, see
Boyarin,RadicalJew,39-56.
10. Hilbner,Law, 56.
11. Erich Auerbach, in his stilldefinitiveessay on typologicalinterpretation,writesthat
this exegetical principleinsured that the Old Testament became part of European
civilization;Erich Auerbach, "Figura,"in ScenesfromtheDrama ofEuropeanLiterature
(1959, reprint:Minneapolis,Minn., 1984), 52. See also Karl Lowithon the importance
of the Biblical idea of the nationforWesternhistoriography;Karl Lowith,Meaningin
History(Chicago, 1949), 195-96.
12. The distinctionbetween "brother"and "stranger"establishedin Deuteronomy is of
course crucial to the intergroupeconomyof TheMerchantofVenice;whereas the Jew
distinguishes"brother"and "stranger,"not lending moneyto the one but permitting
it to the other,the Christianis supposed to take all men as his brother; Marc Shell,
Money,Language,and Thought(Baltimore, 1982), 51. Brabantio presumablyconcurs
withRoderigo's assessmentthatthe Moor is "an extravagantand wheeling stranger"
(Othello1.1.139)-not included in the Venetianbrotherhood.
13. PeterErikson,"Representationsof Blacks and Blacknessin the Renaissance,"Criticism
34, no. 4 (Fall 1993): 499-527. Shakespeare uses epiphanyimageryin his description
of Morocco's love of Portia: "'Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.'/
Why,that'sthe lady,all the worlddesiresher./Fromthe fourcornersof the earththey
2.7.37-40). Withthe
come/To kissthisshrine,thismortalbreathingsaint"(Merchant
exceptionof Erikson,recentcriticsof Othelloignore thisstrandof racial iconography.
BlackFace,MalignedRace: TheRepresentation
Loomba, Gender,42; AnthonyBarthelemy,
toSoutherne
(Baton Rouge, La., 1987), 3-4;
ofBlacksin EnglishDramafromShakespeare
and Little,"Primal Scene," 308, emphasize the equation of blackness with evil and
devilishnessin the Christiantraditionbut do not note the counterthemeof Gentile
conversion.
86
REPRESENTATIONS
14. Hunter citesBede's commentaryon St. Matthew:"Mysticeautem tresMagi trespartes
mundi significant,Asiam, Africam,Europam, sive humanum genus, quod a tribus
filiisNoe seminariumsumpsit";Hunter,"Othello and Colour Prejudice,"50. For the
patristictraditionon Ham, see AugustineCityofGod,ed. David Knowles,trans.Henry
Bettenson(Harmondsworth,Eng., 1972), 16.11; forthe rabbinictradition,see Genesis
Rabbah,in MidrashRabbah,trans.H. Freedman (London, 1983), 1:36-37. For another
Renaissance figureof the Africankingas a symbolof the universalityof the Christian
message, see Thomas Middleton's 1613 masque, The Triumphof Truth,in which the
of a "kingof the Moors" epitomizesthe "triumphof truth"
conversionto Christianity
announced in the masque's title.His visitto England is a modern epiphany narrative:
"Nor could our desires resttillwe were led /Unto thisplace, where those good spirits
in TheWorks
ofThomasMiddleton,
ofTruth,
were bred"; Thomas Middleton,TheTriumph
ed. A. H. Bullen (New York, 1964), 7:248. Samuel Chew commentson the masque in
and theRose: Islamand EnglandDuringtheRenaissance(1937, reprint:New
TheCrescent
York, 1965), 463-65. The Ham storyhas received much play in recent criticismof
Othelloas a primalscene of Renaissance racismin Newman,"Femininityand the Monstrous,"146-47; Barthelemy,BlackFace, 3; and Little,"PrimalScene," 308. I have not
seen mention,however,of the waythatShakespeare stagesthe "flood"near Cyprusas
replacing Ham with
the typologicalantidote to the Old Testamentstory,effectively
Balthazar.
15. Shell,Money,49.
16. The foundationsof thishumanistreading of race in Othellowere laid byEldred Jones,
who argued thatthe firstscenes of the playintroduceus to Othello throughthejaundiced eyes of Lago in order to correcthis contaminatinglanguage withthe figurecut
byOthello himself,and byG. K. Hunter,who demonstratedthattheuniversalistdream
of a world Christianityis what makes possible act one's judicious weighingof Lago's
Countrymen,
conventionalstereotypesagainstOthello's naturaldignity;Jones,Othello's
87-93; Hunter,"Othello and Colour Prejudice,"49.
17. The period antelegemdates fromAdam to Moses, sub legefromMoses to Christ,and
sub gratia from Christ onward; Howard Hibbard, Michelangelo,2d ed. (New York,
1974), 99-125.
18. John Pory,"A summarie discourse of the manifold Religions professed in Africa,"
& Description
ofAfrica(1600), trans.John Pory,
appended to Leo Africanus,TheHistory
ed. RobertBrown (London, 1896), 3:1001-50.
19. ThePolicyoftheTurkish
Empire(London, 1597), 15.
20. On Arab genealogyin Christianexegesis,see Norman Daniels, Islamand theWest:The
Makingofan Image(Edinburgh, 1960), 128. On the reading of Pharaoh and Herod as
390, 395.
Muslims,see Chew,Crescent,
21. Bernard Lewis,Race and Colorin Islam(New York, 1970), 1-28.
22. See Lynda Boose, "Othello'sHandkerchief:'The Recognizance and Pledge of Love,"'
Renaissance5, no. 3 (Autumn 1975): 372-73.
EnglishLiterary
23. For Othello's identificationwith an angry or untempered justice, see also Othello
2.3.69-72 and 5.1.1-3. In an unpublished lecture,Joseph Chaney has productively
God"; Joseph Chaney,"OthellinkedOthello'sjealousyto thatof the "Judeo-Christian
South
lo'sJealousyand the TriangleofDesire" (lecturedeliveredat Indiana University,
Bend, Ind., March 1994). Monogamyand monotheismare firmlylinkedin theJewish
tradition,forexample in the keyingof the commandmentagainstidolatryto the parallel commandmentagainst adulteryin the adjoining tablet;Avroham Chaim Feuer,
Anthologized
A New Translation
withCommentary
AseresHadibroslTheTenCommandments:
OthelloCircumcised:Shakespeare and the Pauline Discourse of Nations
87
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
88
fromTalmudic,Midrashic,and RabbinicSources(New York, 1981), 33. Boose notes the
Deuteronomic sources forthe "sacrifice"of an adulterouswoman,but does not single
out the specificallyOld Testamentprovenanceof the law (Deuteronomybeing an especiallycharged textin thetypologicaleconomyofMerchant);Boose, "Othello's Handkerchief,"372.
As editorDavid Bevingtonnotes,the Quarto gives"Indian" (selected in mostmodern
editions), but the Folio gives "Ludean," chosen by some editors and critics;Othello,
126 n.
Criticswho prefer"base Ludean" include Richard S. Veit,"'Like the Base Judean': A
Renaissance10, no. 3
EnglishLiterary
Defense of an Oft-RejectedReading in Othello,"
(Autumn 1980), and Gordon Braden, who reads Othelloin the context of HerodAnger's
and theSenecanTradition:
Mariam dramas; Gordon Braden, RenaissanceTragedy
Privilege(New Haven, Conn., 1985), 153-71. Edward Snow provides a powerfuldefenseof retainingboth readings; Edward Snow,"Sexual Anxietyand the Male Order
of Things in Othello,"Shakespeare
Quarterly
26 (1975): 412; citingVeit,he points out
that"the word 'tribe'is never used in connectionwithIndians in Shakespeare. It primarilyconnotes'clan' forhim,oftenin connectionwiththe 'tribesof theworld"' (412).
195-96, makes a strongcase for"Ludean,"but thenchooses "Indian"
Fiedler,Stranger,
instead.Josephus'saccountsof the Herod-Mariamromanceare excerptedin Elizabeth
ed. BarryWellerand MargaretW.
ofMariam:TheFair QueenofJewry,
Cary'sTheTragedy
Ferguson (Berkeley,1994).
See St. Paul: "If it had not been forthe law,I should not have known sin"; Rom. 7.7.
Dympna Callaghan providesa relatedreadingofthe Herod-Mariam storyin her interpretationof Cary's TragedieofMariam;Callaghan, however,emphasizes not the typological splitbetween the intransigentmodernJew and the successfulJewishconvert
(the Esau-Jacob pair), but ratherthe "racialization"or blackeningof Herod and the
concomitantwhiteningof Mariam. Crudelyput, in Callaghan's reading,racial difference precedes and governsreligiousdifference;Dympna Callaghan, "Re-readingElizin Hendricks and Parker,
abeth Cary's The TragedieofMariam,Faire QueeneofJewry,"
In myreading,religiousdifferenceprecedes and governs
"Race,"and Writing.
Women,
racial difference.
Snow,"Sexual Anxiety,"412.
Race,RenaissanceDrama,48; Parker,
169; Loomba, Gender,
Braden, RenaissanceTragedy,
"Fantasiesof 'Race' and 'Gender,"' 98.
Boose, "Racial Discourse,"40.
In Rom. 4, Paul notes thatthe declarationof Abraham's faithin Genesis 15.6 ("And
he believedthe Lord; and he reckoneditto himas righteousness")precedes byseveral
chapters God's institutionof the rite of circumcision(Gen. 17.11). From this,Paul
argues that Abraham "received circumcisionas a sign or seal of the righteousness
whichhe had byfaithwhilehe was stilluncircumcised"(Rom. 4.11).
In a related argument,Boyarin,RadicalJew,37, cites midrashimthatdepict circumcision as a writingof God's name on the body.
and theJews(New York, 1996), 117.
James Shapiro, Shakespeare
PolicyoftheTurkish
Empire,15.
Ibid., 23. In Islam, circumcisionis a customratherthan a law,though I have not seen
thispointacknowledgedin the Elizabethanliteratureon Islam, whichgenerallyassimilates the Moslem practiceto the more familiarJewishone.
443-44.
Chew,Crescent,
ChristopherMarlowe, TheJewofMalta, in Russell A. Fraser and Norman C. Rabkin,
REPRESENTATIONS
eds., Drama oftheEnglishRenaissance,vol. 1, TheTudorPeriod(New York, 1976), 22527 (emphasis added).
Shake38. EditorsFraserand Rabkinnotetheborrowing;ibid.,276 n. In TitusAndronicus,
speare would clarifyMarlowe'sallusiveconflationof the twoidentitiesbysimplynamthe familiarfatherforthe obscure son.
ing his Moor "Aaron,"substituting
OthelloCircumcised:Shakespeare and the Pauline Discourse of Nations
89