A.L. Rowse popularized the view that Emilia was the 'dark lady' of the Sonnets during the 1970's, though his arguments have subsequently received various criticisms. (73) Research by Peter Goodwin has shown that her family called Emilia 'the Moor', (74) suggesting that she had a 'black' or swarthy skin tone and was indeed a 'dark lady'.
The author of the Shakespearean plays had a keen interest in young women with dark skin. They are a constant feature of the Italian plays and are responsible for the fair/foul imagery in many others. This imagery focuses on the question of whether or not black can be 'fair' -- a theme that modern critics interested in race and gender issues also tend to dwell upon. There are multiple characters referred to as 'Moors' in the plays and multiple indirect references to Moors such as being 'sick as a Moor' (sycamore), and the name of the Empress 'Tamora' -- who has a child by the 'moor' Aaron -- in Titus Andronicus. 'Tamora' is an Italian abbreviation of "I love you Moor' (t'amo mora).
[endnotes for Ch. 4 of Joseph Atwill's Shakespeare's Secret Messiah (2014):]
57. Roger Prior, 'Jewish Musicians at eh Tudor Court', The Musical Quarterly, 69 (1983), 253-265
58. James Shapiro, Shakespeare and the Jews (Columbia University Press, 1996)
59. 'Bassano', Jewish Encyclopedia, 1906
60. Susanne Woods, Lanyer: A Renaissance Woman Poet (New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) pp. 5-7.
61. Karl Boyd McBride, 'Biography of Aemelia Lanyer'
62. David Lasocki and Roger Prior, T he Bassanos: Venetian Musicians and Instrument Makers in England, 1531-1665 (Aldershot, England; Brookfield, Vt., USA: Scolar Press ; Ashgate Pub. Co., 1995), p. 78.
63. Considering these facts, it seems improbable that Hilliard's miniature of a pale-skinned blue eyed woman 'Mrs Holland' (at the Victoria & Albert Museum) is Emilia, as claimed by Tony Haygarth in 2003.
64. Eldred D. Jones and Fourah Bay College, Othello's Countrymen: The African in English Renaissance Dreams (Published on behalf of Fourah Bay College, the University College of Sierra Leone [by] Oxford University Press, 1965).
65. Ross W. Duffin, Shakespeare's Songbook (W. W. Norton & Company, 2004).
66. George Grove. Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians (T. Presser Col, 1918), p. 539.
67. Steve Sohmer, 'Another Time: The Venetian Calendar in Shakespeare's Plays', Shakespeare Yearbook, X (1999), 141-161.
68. Ernesto Grillo, Shakespeare and Italy (The University Press, 1949).
69. Gary Goldstein, "Shakespeare's Little Hebrew', Elizabethan Review, 7 (1999), 70-77.
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