Shakespeare from the margins
Ismail Serageldin, The Modernity of Shakespeare, trans. Naglaa Abu Agag, Cairo: Supreme Council for Culture, 2002.
Today's director of the new Bibliotheca Alexandrina is an Egyptian of international standing who can proudly stand on equal footing with his legendary predecessors. Like them, he conforms to the Hellenic ideal of the "whole man" and the 16th century concept of the "Renaissance Man". Previously vice-president of the World Bank, Dr Ismail Serageldin is well known in economics, development, architecture and science in addition to being an authority on literature. In 1998, he published The Modernity of Shakespeare, with a foreword by Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, and this year it was translated into Arabic by Naglaa Abu Agag and published by the Supreme Council for Culture as part of its national project for translation.
Before dealing with the Shakespearean texts, Serageldin first clarifies what he means by the "modernity of Shakespeare", which he defines as the way in which Shakespeare speaks to the contemporary mind and relates to the present. Shakespeare is also modern in the sense that it is in his works that the characteristic modern element of questioning self and society began, something that had been virtually unknown in the mediaeval world.
After giving a brief but lucid survey of Shakespeare criticism from Dr Johnson in the 18th century through to post- structuralist readings, Serageldin argues for what he calls a "New Reading" of Shakespeare. The previous schools do not give enough credit to the Bard, he argues, since each school tends to fragment the text and disrupt its meaning. Serageldin's new reading, on the other hand, aims to analyse the constituent parts of the text within the entirety of the play and its social context.
Serageldin's analysis shows that the modernity of Shakespeare lies in the fact that he challenged social conventions having to do with class, gender, honour and race. He confronted us with the fundamental issue of being human, showing that society, any society, does not have the right to deny any person their rights. To illustrate his point, Serageldin focusses on the themes of racism and sexism in two plays, The Merchant of Venice and Othello.
The Merchant of Venice is often viewed as a romantic comedy, with Shylock as the archetypal figure of the Jewish usurer. According to Serageldin, however, this orthodox view is too simplistic and misses the counter voice that presents "the ideal of humanism set against a racist, sexist society". Shylock's eloquent speech, beginning "Hath not a Jew eyes?" (III.i.59-73), is the plea that any member of a minority group, whether religious or ethnic, is justified in making. After Shylock has presented the evidence that he is as human as the Christians he is addressing, he delivers his most powerful blow: "And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction."
This statement, Serageldin argues, is not simply a plea for the recognition of a common humanity between Jews and Christians, it is also an outright condemnation of Christian morals and values, for Shylock is here presented as the mirror image of all that the Venetians have concealed of their real nature. For all their veneer of civilised behaviour they are barbarians with a preference for material over human values. Such a dramatic situation demands of the audience that they also reconsider their condemnation of Shylock as an avaricious moneylender. For Shylock is not only an externalisation of the dark side of the Venetians' hidden nature, he is also the product of Venetian society and culture.
It is in his discussion of Othello that Serageldin uses outright the term "racism". While he accepts the orthodox view of Othello as the noble but flawed hero brought down by Iago through jealousy, he bluntly states that the tragedy revolves round a simple truth that critics have ignored -- namely, that in "casting the male protagonist as black, Shakespeare activates all the fantasies that have haunted white society about miscegenation to our day: the idea of the black man and the white woman".
Indeed, Iago's hatred for Othello is the manifestation of society's hatred for the culturally and racially alien, and more problematic still is Othello's sense that he is alienated from both society and from his own self. This, says Serageldin, is "the lot of all migrants who have tried to integrate themselves into a society that would not in its heart of hearts assimilate them, or accept them as equals, no matter what their achievements might have been. By their actions to integrate themselves into that alien society they become collusive accomplices in their self-denial, and they know it, even if they cannot easily accept it."
It is this knowledge that he has betrayed his authentic self in order to be accepted by a society that rejects him, that he has played the double role of both victim of society and the agent by which it destroyed him, that leads to Othello's suicide. The culmination of this is brought out by these words that Serageldin quotes from the tragedy:
Set you down this;
And say besides, that 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.
(V.ii.351-6)
By committing suicide, Othello liberates himself from the condition of being both self and other, both victim and agent of his destruction, and "acknowledges the terrible truth of the lie he has lived". The modernity of Shakespeare, in this sense, can thus also be seen in the way in which Arab writer Tayeb Salih's Sudanese narrator in his novel Season of Migration to the North states before the court that is trying him for the murder of the Englishwoman Jean Morris, "I am no Othello. Othello was a lie."
The other form of marginalisation that Serageldin addresses in both plays is that of gender. With her moral and intellectual qualities, Portia is the real "hero" of The Merchant of Venice. Yet she is, by simple virtue of being a woman, as oppressed as the Shylock she is defending. She has no freedom of will or choice and can only uncover her abilities in the guise of a man. Similarly, Desdemona is denied freedom of will and choice and the "alternative, humane reality" that she and Othello could have enjoyed.
Throughout The Modernity of Shakespeare Serageldin displays all the signs of a true scholar. His impressively long and comprehensive bibliography, and his acknowledgement of his indebtedness to other Shakespeare critics, are characteristics of academic research and ethics. Furthermore, Serageldin also places his analyses of the plays within the larger framework of Shakespeare's world. He examines, for example, in addition to Shakespeare's language and style, the historical context of the Elizabethan world, the humanism of the Renaissance, and the use of the Elizabethan theatre as an ideological and artistic medium. All these factors set the stage ("pun definitely intended" to borrow Soyinka's words) for Shakespeare's plays.
Abu Aggag's Arabic translation of the text is as refreshing and lucid as the original English in which it was written. More remarkable still is that she has preferred to provide her own translation of the quotations from Shakespeare included in the text, a most courageous step that merits applause. Also, the poetic qualities of her translations are to be commended. In one instance, however, her step falters. In Othello, she translates "circumcised" as haqir, meaning "base" or "low". Perhaps she has done this out of modesty, but in so doing she has missed the point of the argument. Circumcision is the visible mark of the condemnation of Othello as the alien other, just as the mark of Cain set him apart from the rest of society.
Finally, The Modernity of Shakespeare leaves the reader with many uncomfortable questions, which is perhaps the intention of the author. For, according to this reading of the plays, the humanistic vision of the European Renaissance carried within it the seeds of violent discrimination against women, and against those of other races and religions. While humanism outwardly stressed the value of the human, its outlook was intrinsically materialistic, which is evident in the Venetians' treatment of Shylock. And while it claimed that "Man is the measure of all things", it laid the foundations for the individualism that was to grow to monstrous proportions in the modern world. Serageldin has chosen to conclude his book with a brief look at the early manifestation of this ethos, summarised in Macbeth's words:
For mine own good
All causes shall give way.
(III.iv.134-5)
Such an ethic, he says, leads to "nothingness and leaves one empty, shallow and wandering", like the Macbeth of "Tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow". This is the predicament of modern, individualistic man: if the modern age is the heir of the Enlightenment, and the Enlightenment is the heir of humanism and the Renaissance, are we to conclude that Shakespeare's criticism of his society was a prophetic vision? For has not the racism of The Merchant of Venice and Othello, products in part of humanism and parents of the Darwinist ideology of "survival of the fittest", paved the way for the grosser racism of the 20th century concentration camps and of Zionist acts of genocide?
If it is the role of the artist to enlighten the public to the evils of its society, and the role of the critic to mediate this knowledge, then Shakespeare and Serageldin have jointly succeeded in disturbing the reader, shaking the common belief in the "progress" of mankind from the Renaissance to the present.
Reviewed by Sahar Hamouda
