Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1864-04-07
weekly NationaI IateIiigencer
THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 1864.
A QUESTION OF LITERARY CRITICISM

Our reference to the historical question which
has been raised in few minds with regard to the
chronological extraction Of Hannibal appears to have
suggested to the mind Of one Of our readers q re-
newal Of the similar question which has been
mooted in literature with regard to the nationality
of "Othello, the Moor" as conceived and sketched
by Shakespeare. On this point we have received
the following Communication
&c., WASHINGTON, MARCH %, 1864.
Messrs. EDITORS Seeing your article this morning on
the subject of Hannibal encouraged to ask If you
will not oblge by giving some information as to the
race to which !" Othelo" belongs. Shakespeare calls
him the :. Moor yet ia various prints and Representa-
h0ns he 10 described negro, with the woey hair and
characterisics Of that ask for information, and
trust you will be disposed to enlghten h, ignorance Of
LADY SUBSCRIBER.
1t is quite true, as our fair correspondent OBJ
serves that many eminent artists and scholars have
supposed that Othello, as conceived and drawn by
Shakespeare justly represented in the character Of
anegro. he is SO sketohed by Retzsch in his Out
lines, and he is SO presented by the modern Ger
man artist Hildebrandt, of the Dusseldorf School,
in the picture which loug formed the chief attrac-
tion of the :" Dusseldorf Gallery" in New York
So accurate and learned scholar as John Quincy
Adams has also written in support of the thesis
that Othello was negro.
But it seems to us that our fair correspondent
has said all that need be said and all that be
said, in reply to such representations when she
premises her inquiry whether Othello was negro
by saying that "Shakespeare calls him Moor"
If Shakespeare calls him Moor, we may be
AZ AZ L L.
meant, and did not use the term Moor as syn
onym for Ethiopian. The scene of the drama is
laid in Venice, and, as is we'll suggested by Mr..
Richard Grant White the accomplished scholar
/, and editor of Shakespeare the Venitians had no
thing to do with negroes that we know of, and
could not have in the natural course of things;
whereas, with their over-the-way neighbors, the
Moors, they were continually in contact These
were warlke, civilized, and enterprising race,
which could furnish an Ottello It is not 60 pro
bable (and Shakespeare, we must suppose, had an
eye to the fact when he calls Othello "the Moor"
that the negro race could have furnished to Venice
the valiant captain he has portrayed.
The careful reader Of Shakespeare is aware that
he frequently ascribcs Cor makes his characters
ascribe) to the Moors certain physical character
istics which, whether stated with poetic license or
) nUhe language Of contumely, certainly symbolic
strongly with the distinctive traits of the negro
race Thus Roderigo, the Venetian gentleman,
calls Othello /" the thick lpsj;" Brabsntio, lament
ing the il-assorted match Of his daughter Desde-
mona, deplores that she had "run from her
puardage to the sooty bosom of such thing" as
0thello; Desdemona, justifying her passion, says
she /" saw Othello's vissge in his mind," thus i'm
plying that his face made against him in the eyes
of the world; Iago, predicting the eventual de-
cline Of Desdemona's affection for "the Moor, "
suggests to Roderigo that "her eye must be fed, .
and asks what delight shall she have to look on
the devil 2" and again, the same Mephistophelean
Isgo invites Cassie to join ga brace of Cyprus gal
lants "in stoup of wine" to the health of black
Othello;" Othello himself, yielding to- the first
suggestion of Desdemona's Inconsistency, suspend,
il on "haply" suggested by the thought "for
am black" and when oppressed by the full con.
viction Of her guilt, he exciaims,
Her name, that was fresh
As Disn's visage is now begrimed and black
As mine oon face;
and honest Emiiia imports tnat there Wao some
sensible incongruity between Desdemona and
Othello when she reproachcs the latter BY saying
that the former was " too fond Of her most filthy
bargain"
It is from sych intimations as these that thu
impression has been derived by many scholars ano
artists that Shakespeare meant to represent tht
Moor as nothing else than a negro.
Inreply to all this it is proper to say that Shakes
peare ascrbes in other plays precisely the cha
rAoterstics to personages who incontestibly wer
aMoors" without being negroes. SO Portia, il
the Merchant Of Venice, closes her heart agans
the addresses Of the Prince Of Morocco roya
Moor and certainly not negro-by saying, "i
he have the condition Of saint and the complex
ion of devil, had rather he should shrive m,
than wive me-" The Prince himself prays her
"mislikc me not for my complexion !" and she
when he has sealed his rejection by selecting th'
wrong casket, rejoins, may all of his complexion
choose me so" And yet he was not " jetty black
but twny;" for the stage direction in the ol,
auartos is: "Enter Moroohus, a tapny Moor, al
in white"
It is plain that in Shakespeare's day, as in ou
own there were those who supposed some of th