Mejia LaPerle, Carol. "Shakespeare's tragedies and the construction of difference." Throughlines. www.throughlines.org/suite-content/shakespeares-tragedies-and-the-construction-of-difference. [Date accessed].
Shakespeare's tragedies and the construction of difference
Three framing questions to analyze early modern racialization
Carol Mejia LaPerle offers three interpretive questions to introduce the ways early modern frameworks scaffold modes of racialization:
- Who is friend and foe?
- Whose power is legitimate?
- Whose suffering matters?
By looking at Shakespeare's tragedies through these questions, students learn how early modern texts embed and develop structures of race and racial difference. These questions do more than reveal how early modern representations of evil, of legitimacy, and of suffering evoke racial difference. They invite us to dismantle the racializing logics that have perpetuated over long periods of time.
Further learning
Recommended
Henry V and belonging
Shakespeare's language and status in the Western canon can feel inhospitable to many students, especially students of color. Teaching Henry V with a focus on linguistic identity, legitimacy, and belonging can open conversations that allow students to carve out a Shakespeare for themselves.
.jpg)
Titus Andronicus as the gateway drug
Students believe they know what Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet or Macbeth mean, but rarely do those “meanings” stem from the students’ close engagements with the texts. Using Titus Andronicus at the beginning of any Shakespeare class forces students to experience Shakespeare anew.
