Notes on Shakespeare's Dark Lady

Jasmin Savoy-Brown cast as Emilia Bassano, 

believed by some to be Shakespeare's Dark Lady 
Photo: John Willy (2016)

I have written elsewhere on this blog about Baudelaire and his bi-racial mistress and muse, Jeanne Duval, whom he fondly (if rather predictably) termed his Vénus noire [click here]. The 19th century French poet and critic was not, however, the first European male to have a taste for brown sugar. Nor should the fetishization of non-white womanhood be seen as a trope that originated within the Decadent movement.

There are many instances of such to be found within Elizabethan and Baroque literature, including, for example, Edward Herbert's poem La Gialletta Gallante, or the Sun-burn'd Exotic Beauty and Giambattista Marino's Bella schiava ('Beautiful Slave-Girl').

And, of course, mention must also be made of Shakespeare's notorious Dark Lady, the subject of the openly erotic sonnets 127-52 and of ongoing speculation concerning her identity and whether her darkness should be understood literally or metaphorically (i.e., does it refer to her colouring and complexion, or to her character and the fact she's wrapped in mystery). Either way, we can assume she wasn't a typical English rose, or born on a Monday.

The majority of scholars believe she was more likely to have been from a Mediterranean background, rather than of black African descent. But the truth is we don't know; there is simply not enough evidence, either textual or biographical in nature. Amongst possible candidates for the role of the Dark Lady, three stand out:

(i) Emilia Lanier (née Bassano)  

In 1973, Shakespearean scholar A. L. Rowse claimed to have solved the mystery surrounding the identity of the Dark Lady, confidently asserting that it was Emilia Lanier - an attractive, independent-minded woman of Italian (and possibly Jewish) background who came from a famous musical family (the Bassanos).

Not only was she the mistress of Lord Hunsdon, the Queen's Lord Chamberlain, but she was also the first woman to publish a full collection of original poetry under her own name in English - Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (1611). As talented as she was, she probably didn't look like the lovely American actress Jasmin Savoy-Brown who plays her on TV in the TNT series Will (2017) ...

(ii) Aline Florio

Meanwhile, Dr. Aubrey Burl, a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, piecing together whatever clues there are about the Dark Lady's identity in his own inimitable manner, insists that she is Aline Florio, wife of Italian translator, John Florio. She certainly had dark hair. And, like Shakespeare's heroine, was said to be self-centred  and sex-obsessed. And ... er, that's about it! (Though it might be noted that distinguished Shakespearean, Jonathan Bate, also came to the same conclusion as Burl - indeed, he arrived at it fifteen years earlier ...)

(iii) Black Luce (or Lucy Negro)

In August 2012, the Independent reported that it was possible that the Dark Lady was in fact a notorious London prostitute and madam called Black Luce or Lucy Negro. According to Dr. Duncan Salkeld - author of Shakespeare Among the Courtesans (2012) - not only did the Bard have associates and, perhaps, family in the Clerkenwell area where Lucy ran her brothel, but she was mentioned in the diary of Philip Henslowe, the theatre owner who built the Rose and one of Shakespeare's great contemporaries.

It seems highly likely, therefore, that she would have been known to Will and given her sexual reputation and charms - she was described by those who knew her as an arrant whore and bawde catering to men of all types - it's not unreasonable to assume she would have been the object of his interest and desire ... But, again, who knows?

Who knows - and, indeed, who really cares?

For it seems to me needless and naive to read a work of art in this manner; to reduce literature to a form of biographical confession; i.e., to regard Shakespeare's sonnets as an account of real events and real people. As Howard Jacobson rightly says, enough's enough already:

"Let the Dark Lady be whoever the Dark Lady was. It is not our affair personally, given that Shakespeare chose it not to be, and it is not our affair aesthetically ..."

He continues:

"Of the misconceptions that continue to bedevil literature, this is among the most obdurate: that it is a record, straightforward or otherwise, of something that actually happened. Even the most sophisticated readers will forget all they know of the difference between literature and life when biography perchance shows its slip."

Shakespeare, as an artist, creatively transforms the latter, life, into literature; poetry is a magical reality that exists in the unique space opened up by experience and imagination. When we forget this and read the sonnets merely as a form of lyrical reportage, says Jacobson, "we diminish thought, we diminish imagination, and we diminish art".


See:

Duncan Salkeld, Shakespeare Among the Courtesans, (Routledge, 2012).

Werner Sollors (ed.), An Anthology of Interracial Literature, (NYU Press, 2004).

Note: the Howard Jacobson article in the Independent (11 Jan 2013) that I quote from, can be read by clicking here.  

On the Black Virgin and the Question of Racial Fetishism

Nigra sum sed formosa 

The statues and paintings of Mary created in medieval Europe are all fascinating, but none more so than those in which the Mother of God has dark skin; the so-called Black Virgins (or Black Madonnas), of which there are several hundred located in various churches and shrines, venerated by their devotees and associated with miracles by pilgrims who come to receive a blessing.     

If I'm honest, however, what really interests is not the significance of the figure within Catholic theology, or the pagan roots of her worship, but the sexual allure of black femininity for white heterosexual males. Obviously, this is a controversial topic - perhaps more so now than ever.

In the past, the concern was with miscegenation and only decadent individuals openly flaunted their love for women of colour and were excited by the idea of transgression. Today, mixed race relationships are more commonplace and relatively accepted, but there is now a real (and legitimate) concern with racial fetishism; that is to say, with the manner in which white men view the non-white women whom they subject to their eroticized and imperial gaze.

For women of colour are not merely objectified sexually, but racially stereotyped. Their exotic otherness is not so much exaggerated and distorted as it is invented within the pornographic imagination, before being circulated and sustained within wider popular culture (via art and advertising, for example).

Angela Carter understands how this game works. In her short story, Black Venus, she describes the illicit affair between Baudelaire and his mistress Jeanne Duval (who was of mixed European and African origin), perfectly capturing the essence of the relationship and how, for the poet, this Creole woman symbolizes primitive sensuality and the promise of faraway lands.

Thus, when he's not asking her to take off her clothes and dance naked for Daddy except for the bangles and beads he loves so much - his eyes fixed upon the darkness of her skin - he's whispering like a madman into the ear of his pet:

"Baby, baby, let me take you back where you belong, back to your lovely, lazy island where the jewelled parrot rocks on the enamel tree and you can crunch sugar-cane between your strong, white teeth ... When we get there, among the lilting palm-trees, under the purple flowers, I'll love you to death. We'll go back and live together in a thatched house with a veranda over-grown with flowering vine and a little girl in a short white frock with a yellow satin bow in her kinky pigtail will wave a huge feather fan over us, stirring the languishing air as we sway in our hammock, this way and that way ... think how lovely it would be to live there." [10]

Jeanne recognises this pervy and racist fantasy for what it is: Go, where? Not there! Not the bloody parrot forest with its harsh blue sky which offers nothing to eat but bananas and yams and the occasional bit of grizzled goat to chew!

And many women of colour are rightly appalled by the way in which racism is smuggled into the bedroom disguised as something romantic and a form of positive discrimination. The young black feminist, Mysia Anderson, is quite right to say there's a history of oppression here that simply must be taken into account.

But, the problem is - for me, in my whiteness and heterosexual maleness - it still seduces. For ultimately, of course, it's a fetishistic fantasy designed to appeal to readers such as myself and not the black-thighed woman smelling of musk smeared on tobacco to whom it's spoken.

Thus, despite knowing better, I still find myself at the feet of a black goddess and still singing like Solomon about she whose beauty radiates from a skin darkened by the sun. 

Notes:

Charles Baudelaire's most famous work, Les Fleurs du Mal (1857), contains several poems believed to have been written about (or inspired by) Jeanne Duval, including Sed non Satiata, Les Bijoux, Le Serpent qui danse, Parfum Exotique, and Le Chat.

Angela Carter's Black Venus was first published by Chatto and Windus (1985), but I'm quoting from the Picador edition (1986).

Mysia Anderson is a student at Stanford University majoring in African and African American Studies. Her online article entitled 'Avoid racial fetishism on Valentine's Day' was published on Feb 11, 2015 on stanforddaily.com and can be read by clicking here. 

The photo, by Barron Claiborne, was found on Lamatamu.com the site for "everything exotic", edited by Biko Beauttah.