• Othello and the Body in Transformation

    Author(s):
    Albert Rolls (see profile)
    Date:
    2002
    Subject(s):
    Human body, Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616, Other (Philosophy)
    Item Type:
    Article
    Tag(s):
    Othello, Shakespeare, Otherness
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/M6S57N
    Abstract:
    At the start of Shakespeare's play, Othello and Iago exchange the symbolic positions that the audience expects them to hold, implying that cultural otherness is not the same thing as racial otherness. The implication is confirmed by Renaissance medical thought, oddly because of the connection that was made between culture and what we would call biology. Medical discourse in Shakespeare's age connected biological difference to cultural difference, assuming that bodies living in different cultures were physically different. Marsilio Ficino thus notes in the Book of Life (1489), a health guide chiefly addressed to students, that 'differences in . . . customs, of course, are seen in the fact that what is poison to a Persian is good for the heart in Egypt' (Ficino 1996, 49). The difference referred to by Ficino, as we will see, was thought to be neither innate nor permanent: the connection between biology and culture was predicated upon the assumption that the human organism was affected on a biological level by the cultural milieu that it inhabited. In the following pages, I want to argue – with reference to this medical discourse, which has been ignored by critics who have set out to explain the Renaissance understanding of cultural difference – that the problem of Shakespeare's play, Othello's becoming an unsuitable husband for Desdemona, is a consequence of a physical and cultural transformation in his body, as well as his mind. Othello, according to this argument, embarks upon a real and symbolic journey from otherness to sameness and back to otherness.
    Metadata:
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    Published as:
    Journal article     Show details
    Publisher:
    University of Hull
    Pub. Date:
    Winter 2002
    Journal:
    Renaissance Forum
    Volume:
    6
    Issue:
    1
    ISSN:
    1362-1149
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    5 years ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved
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