Representations of Blacks and Blackness in the Renaissance

Abstract

In Playing in the Dark, Toni Morrison argues that figurations of blackness have a central role in the work of twentieth-century white writers.1 The present essay asks whether, and how, this perception might be applied to the study of Renaissance culture. The inquiry proceeds in three steps. The first is to assess the question of historical methodology. What follows is a survey of images of blacks in visual art of the Renaissance period, which provides a context for the last step, the examination of Shakespeare's comedies as a specific test

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