Jews and Muslims in Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta and Shakespeare’s Othello

Abstract

In this paper, I will discuss the representation of Jewish and Muslim characters in Marlowe``s The Jew of Malta and Shakespeare``s Othello. The approach I will follow throughout this paper is the New Historicist one; i.e. relating the plays to the historical and political background in which they were written. In this regard, I will argue that the seemingly friendly relationship between England and the Muslim world during the reign of Queen Elizabeth played a significant role in the way both Jews and Muslims were represented on the London stage. Queen Elizabeth, whose throne was threatened by the Pope of Rome and the Catholic King of Spain, had to seek an alliance with some strong party who would help her. She found refuge at the then mighty Ottoman Sultan. When it comes to the representation of Muslims and Jews in Marlowe``s The Jew of Malta and Shakespeare``s Othello, I found that the friendly relation between the Muslim world and England helped in representing Muslimcharacters in a favorable way than their Jewish counterparts. Shakespeare was objective in representing his ``others`` while Marlowe was subjective.