Cover not available
Part of
Othello in European Culture
Edited by Elena Bandín Fuertes, Francesca Rayner and Laura Campillo Arnaiz
[Shakespeare in European Culture 3] 2022
► pp. 99–112

Chapter 5
Othello’s race and slavery

Shakespeare, Ducis and Barbaz

| Utrecht University

Shakespeare’s Othello is usually regarded as a play about race. According to Douglas Lanier, however, continental European cinema often foregrounds the hero’s class instead of his race. I trace this continental phenomenon to post-revolutionary France. In Jean-François Ducis’s Othello adaptation (1792), race is subsumed under class. As John Golder has argued, Ducis’s Othello responds to the revolutionary French movement towards the emancipation of slaves and coloured people. When Britain abolished the slave trade, however, the dangers to economic prosperity became clear. In that context, a racist parody of Ducis’s Othello adaptation by the Dutchman Abraham Barbaz (1815) reinstated race as its anti-hero’s defining characteristic. Whether Othello’s race is seen as his defining characteristic depends on the political and economic context.

Keywords: Shakespeare, Ducis, Duval, Barbaz, Othello, race, class, French Revolution, slavery, abolition
Article outline
  • Ducis and Duval
  • Barbaz
  • Slavery and slave trade
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 25 May 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sec.3.05fra
References
Anon
1802 [Review of] Othello, of de Moor van Venetien. Vaderlandsche Letteroefeningen [Dutch literary journal, 1761–1876]. In Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren. [URL]
Barbaz, Abraham Louis
1815 [1814?] Othello, of de jaloersche zwart, hekelspel. In Tooneel-Parodiën of Hekelspelen, 1–56 [continued numbering 33–88]. Amsterdam: P.E. Briët.Google Scholar
1818 De Negerhandel Afgeschaft, Dichtstuk. In Dichterlyke Bloemhof, 180–208. Amsterdam: J. C. van Kesteren.Google Scholar
Boulukos, George E.
2006 “The Politics of Silence: Mansfield Park and the Amelioration of Slavery.” Novel 39 (3): 361–383. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ducis, Jean-François
1839 Othello, ou le More de Venise. In Œuvres de J.F. Ducis suivies des œuvres de M.J. de Chénier, 155–182. Paris: Ledentu.Google Scholar
Duval, Alexandre
1824–1825 Shakespeare amoureux; ou, la pièce à l’étude. In Œuvres Complètes d’Alexandre Duval, vol. 8, 305–348. Bruxelles: Hayez.Google Scholar
Franssen, Paul
2016 Shakespeare’s Literary Lives: The Author as Character in Fiction and Film. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Golder, John
1992 Shakespeare for the Age of Reason: The Earliest Stage Adaptations of Jean-François Ducis, 1769–1792. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation.Google Scholar
Hawkes, Terence
1992 Meaning by Shakespeare. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lanier, Douglas
2013 “Othello without Race in European Film.” Unpublished conference paper. Montpellier, ESRA conference Shakespeare and Myth.
Leek, Robert-Henri
1972 Shakespeare in the Netherlands: A Study of Dutch Translations and Dutch Performances of William Shakespeare’s Plays. PhD diss. University of Auckland, NZ. [URL]
Oostindie, Gert
2014 “Dutch Atlantic Decline during ‘The Age of Revolutions.’” In Dutch Atlantic Connections, 1680–1800: Linking Empires, Bridging Borders, edited by Gert Oostindie and Jessica V. Roitman, 309–335. Leiden: Brill. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Parker, Reeve
2011 Romantic Tragedies: The Dark Employments of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
[Uylenbroek], P. J.
1802 Othello, of de moor van Venetiën; Treurspel. Het Fransche van Ducis vry gevolgd. Amsterdam: Abraham Mars.Google Scholar
Van der Veen, Hans
2016 Voorby gegaan te zijn, was t’ allen tyd’ myn lot: Het leven en werk van Abraham Louis Barbaz, 1770–1833. 4 vols. Hippolytushoef: Burghout.Google Scholar
Vaughan, Virginia Mason
1994 Othello: A Contextual History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar