The Muslim world

[gggg gggg]

https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/the-centrality-of-the-muslim-world-to-shakespeare-s-work-57404

[Margaret]

Post by gggg gggg
https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/the-centrality-of-the-muslim-world-to-shakespeare-s-work-57404

Massively overstated thesis.

Of course Shakespeare knew about the Muslim world. Just as he knew about the "Indian" (American) world. He refers to both in equal measure. He lived and worked in England's premier international port after all and his limited knowledge of the world elsewhere may indeed have given him a certain perspective on his own society. But the idea that Islam or his attitudes are "central" to his work is just another academic developing tunnel vision with regard to his own specialisation.

[John W Kennedy]

Post by Margaret

Post by gggg gggg
https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/the-centrality-of-the-muslim-world-to-shakespeare-s-work-57404

Massively overstated thesis.
Of course Shakespeare knew about the Muslim world. Just as he knew about the "Indian" (American) world. He refers to both in equal measure. He lived and worked in England's premier international port after all and his limited knowledge of the world elsewhere may indeed have given him a certain perspective on his own society. But the idea that Islam or his attitudes are "central" to his work is just another academic developing tunnel vision with regard to his own specialisation.

...in Aleppo once,
Where a malignant and a turban’d Turk
Beat a Venetian and traduc’d the state,
I took by th’ throat the circumcised dog,
And smote him—thus.

Honestly, I think it more likely that Othello is at least a
second-generation Christian. He cheers from the Christian stands even
with no Moslem rivals to hear him.