Weekly Response #4

Emily Schmitt

ENG 280 001

Natalie Phillips

9/18/12

Weekly Response #4

Quote; Morrison: “ As a disabling virus within literary discourse, Africanism has become, in the Eurocentric tradition that American education favors, both a way of talking about, and a way of policing matters of class, sexual license, and repression, formations and exercises of power, and meditations on ethics and accountability.” (Morrison 1007)

Quote; Shakespeare: “I’ll have some proof. My name, that was as fresh/ As Dian’s visage, is now begrimed and black/ As mine own face. […]/” (3. 3. 387-389)

Question: Where is this Africanism that Morrison brings up and is it written completely without some sort of known ulterior motive?

            This aspect of Africanism is truly intriguing because of the implication that it has influenced writing, even when it was not intended to. Perhaps Shakespeare’s Othello is not the best example to demonstrate this, but it works for this instance. The particular passage I would like to examine, “My name […] is now begrimed and black/ As mine own face. […]/” has a very obvious alternate meaning here. That is that because Othello’s face is Black, that it is dishonorable, or unacceptable to begin with. This sort of self-degrading speech perpetuates that Blackness is somehow undesirable. That Othello would refer to his own face as ‘begrimed’ or make reference towards it in comparison to something undesirable shows that Shakespeare was aware of and made the connection between Blackness and societal expectations. Even if it was unconsciously, Shakespeare had to be aware of the implications of these particular words for him to have written them.

Works Cited

Morrison, Toni. “Playing in the Dark.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed.

            Julie Rikvin and Michael Ryan. Malden: Blackwell, 1998. 4. Print.

Othello William Shakespeare. Ed. Edward Pechter. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2004.

            Print. Norton Critical Edition.