Alfred Drake (California State University - Fullerton)
ajdr@****.com (Log-in to reveal)
Shakespeare’s dramas in all their generic types—history, romance, comedy, and tragedy—show an interest in exploring what sustains sociopolitical orders, what damages them, and what the human consequences are when such damage occurs. A great deal may be revealed about the viability of a society if we attend to those who are cast as (or see themselves as) aliens, foreigners, or non-conformists with regard to that society’s ruling order, mores, laws, and other key aspects. Bearing in mind that characters who offer the greatest difficulty in terms of identity and relation may be the most valuable objects of study, we will consider a range of Shakespeare’s “outsiders” for the understanding they can provide.
When we hear the term “outsider” in connection to Shakespeare’s characters, we are likely to think of, say, Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, or Othello. Such characters are undeniably “other” in terms of their race or ethnicity, their religion, or other cultural factors respecting the societies in which they function. Shylock is a Jewish moneylender in a Christian Venice that despises him for his religion and for following the one profession open to him, while Othello is respected for his martial prowess, but treated as exotic and unacceptable by the white Europeans who employ him in their defense.
Even within the two plays mentioned above—The Merchant of Venice and Othello, we need hardly confine ourselves to their two most iconic characters: in the first play, the initial “sadness” of Antonio the merchant indicates that this older amicus perfectus of young Bassanio is not the consummate insider he seems to be. The same play also gives us Portia, bound to obey her dead father’s will and constrained to dress as a learned male doctor of law to effect the play’s resolution. Where does the heiress of Belmont stand, with respect to Venice? Othello offers a similar alternative in Desdemona.
There are plenty of other plays to focus on in Shakespeare’s canon, and a variety of characters both male and female who find themselves, and are found to be, outsiders of one sort or another. As this special session’s title reminds us in quoting Richard of Gloucester in 3 Henry VI, “I have no Brother, I am like no Brother,” one can be a quintessential player within a society, and yet a virtual outcast on other levels pertaining to that society. Shakespeare, perhaps better than any of his remarkable contemporaries, built up representations of complex, sophisticated, multi-layered societies in which seemingly solid, fundamental concepts such as personal and national identity, socioeconomic class, linguistic competence, and cultural norms are anything but easy to reduce to order. This special session welcomes thoughtful presentations on any of Shakespeare’s characters who must deal with the difficulties of outsider-status in relation to the places, people, assumptions, and constructions that constitute their world.