Abstract
Draws attention to a major legend concerning the birth of St. Thomas Becket, still well known to audiences c. 1600, that lies behind Othello’s account of Desdemona’s wooing. Critics have turned to Virgil's account of Aeneas's wooing of Dido as the obvious parallel, but the legend that Becket's mother was a Muslim princess who overheard her father's conversations with Gilbert Becket and then followed him to England is closer in almost every way. The estrangement of the medieval past from Shakespeare's culture has been reenacted by modern criticism's assumptions that the medieval is a time of comfort that has nothing to do with Shakespeare's tumultuous times.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Word and Self Estranged in English Texts, 1550-1660 |
| Editors | Phillipa Kelly, Liam Semler |
| Place of Publication | Aldershot |
| Publisher | Ashgate Publishing |
| Pages | 121-34 |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9780754699071 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9781409400370 |
| Publication status | Published - 2010 |
Keywords
- William Shakespeare
- Othello
- Thomas Becket
- Aeneid
- medieval
- periodization