It might be a good topic - but what if it turns out that the essence of
romance is 'a clef', and there was no actual Moor or ethnic other that
romance writers wanted to allude to? Hard to stretch that to 80,000 words,
but still a really interesting thought. Surely there is an Indian boy
somewhere? Best of luck to the student. Penny.
-----Original Message-----
From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Joseph Black
Sent: 05 September 2008 02:16
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: 'Blackface' disguise in romance?
Thank you all for the responses so far. Theatrical examples are indeed
plentiful: scores of plays from the period feature characters in 'blackface'
of
one sort or another, and in many of those plays other characters (non-Moor,
non-Turk, etc.) adopt at some point 'blackface' for purposes of disguise.
But while common on stage, cross-racial disguise still appears to be
relatively
(if not entirely?) absent from prose romance, a genre in which disguises of
all
other sorts abound. Disguise calls attention to the barrier that the
disguise
crosses, and at times even suggests a measure of permeability. Renaissance
theater repeatedly deploys disguise and other modes of self-transformation
(e.g., conversion) to explore issues of racial and cultural identity,
fluidity,
and hybridization; prose romance -- a genre in some ways about identity
formation -- doesn't. At least, I'm beginning to think it doesn't. Or at
least it's starting to seem a topic a graduate student might usefully
explore?
Joseph Black
Department of English
University of Massachusetts Amherst
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