From Mauri to Shakespeare’s Moor: Hybridity and the Construction of Moorish Identity
Keywords:
Moors; hybridity; postcolonialism; race; Mediterranean; identity; Shakespeare,Abstract
This paper examines the Moors’ hybridity in historical and postcolonial contexts. Building on Homi Bhabha’s concept of hybridity, this paper explores Moorish identity across three interrelated dimensions: racial, linguistic, and cultural, thus illustrating how the colonial experience and cultural dialogue have resulted in the creation of Moorish identity as a palimpsest of history. First, it revisits the historical meanings of the term “Moor” from Roman Mauretania to medieval and early modern Europe. Then it examines the Maghreb as a linguistic contact zone where local and colonial languages interacted. Finally, it analyzes Shakespeare’s representation of the Moor on the early modern stage, focusing on Aaron in Titus Andronicus, The Prince of Morocco in The Merchant of Venice, and Othello in Othello. The article argues that Shakespeare’s Moors not only reflect a long historical process in which Moorish identity emerged as a hybrid construct shaped by centuries of cross-cultural interaction in the Mediterranean world, but also serve as a literary embodiment of early modern Europe’s anxieties about racial and cultural hybridity.
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