【文章內(nèi)容簡(jiǎn)介】 ace: Moslemism or Judaism is a cultural manifestation, not a physical appearance. Yet, even though a white cannot easily tell himself apart from a Jew (who is not as colored as a Moor), he can observe a Jew’s practice of Judaism and then find the needed difference to form his racialism. It is for this reason, perhaps, that in The Merchant of Venice the Christians as well as Shylock apparently equate the Jew’s religion to his race and his nation. So far we have established the fact that in Shakespeare the Jew and the Moor are the two prominent figures bearing on problems of race, owing to their nurture (religious practice) and/or nature (such physical appearance as skin color). But racialism or racism is not just a matter of the “racial personae.” It is to even much greater a degree a matter of those who live with the “darkskinned people” or with the “nonChristian unbelievers.” In his “Race and Racism,” Tzvetan Todorov says, “Racism is a matter of behavior, usually a manifestation of hatred or contempt for individuals who have welldefined physical characteristics different from our own” (64). This statement does not apply very well to the case of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, for Shylock is not identified in the play as a person with any particular skin color, hair type, or facial feature, but as a person with Jewish belief and Jewish behavior. So, through Shylock Shakespeare seems to suggest that racism does not necessarily arise from “welldefined physical characteristics” only: there are cases in which racism es from different social conduct (. Shylock’s Jewish usury). Yet, Todorov’s statement still holds true in that the Christians as well as Shylock do reveal their racism in their behavior, in their hatred or contempt for individuals who have nurture or nature different from their own. Accordingly, when we discuss any particular case of racism, we should take into consideration both sides: the side that has the visible differences and the side that sees or makes the differences, that is, the side of “the other” and the side of “the self.” And, more often than not, we may find that the former side is the minority while the latter side is the majority in the society in which they live together. In Shakespeare’s plays, for instance, Venice is where the Jews and the Moors appear and live with the native Venetians or Italians, but the Jews and the Moors are the minority side of “the other” that has the visible differences, whereas the whites or the Christians are the majority side of “the self” that sees and makes the differences. That is why W. H. Auden can say: “Shylock is a Jew living in a predominantly Christian society, just as Othello is a Negro living in a predominantly white society” (232). Since it takes both sides to consider any racism, any list of racial personae should contain not only those characters who are the minority others with visible differences but also those characters who are the majority selves seeing or making the differences. Consequently, Shakespeare’s racial personae theoretically prise not only the eleven characters we have just mentioned above。 they should prise all the dramatis personae in the five plays concerned, at least all the characters, white or colored, Christian or nonChristian, who have demonstrated more or less their racial consciousness: for example, Demetrius and Chiron as well as Aaron, Antonio and Portia as well as Shylock and Jessica, Branbantio and Iago as well as Othello, Philo and Octavius as well as Cleopatra, and Prospero and Miranda as well as Caliban. Among the racial personae, however, two figures are undoubtedly most important: namely, Shylock and Othello. They are so important not just because they, through their racial actions and reactions, represent the two basic types of racism (racism owing to nurture and racism owing to nature), but also because their names, as will be clarified below, have special significance in the light of racialism or racism. In Shakespeare, characternaming is indeed “not an entirely random matter”: Shakespeare’s characters often “allude to, or play on, the names of themselves or others”9 By giving the Jew and the Moor each “a local habitation and a name” (to quote a phrase from The Midsummer Night’s Dream), Shakespeare, as we shall see, has not just made concrete two racial stories, but also made meaningful his imaginative understanding of racial III. Pride and Prejudice There is a tendency for scholars to differentiate racialism from racism. Todorov, for instance, refers to racialism as a belief in the existence of races, ., “human groupings whose members possess mon physical characteristics,” just like animal species (6465). Such a belief is a scientific one, and hence neutral in attitude without any racial prejudice. However, racialism often bees racism, a belief not just in inherent biological differences among various human races but also in the superiority of some races to others and thus the justification for hating or despising or even eliminating other For Todorov, “the form of racism that is rooted in racialism produces particularly catastrophic results” (64), as Nazism is that form of racism. Kwame Antony Appiah also uses “racialism” to denote the idea of recognizing the existence of races with certain mon traits and tendencies, or inheritable characteristics called “race essence.” But Appiah assumes that from the basic racialism two types of racism may develop in time. The first type is “extrinsic racism,” which believes that “the racial essence entails certain morally relevant qualities,” and thus, “members of different races differ in respects that warrant the different treatment, respects—such as honesty or courage or intelligence—that are uncontroversially held ... to be acceptable as a basis for treating people differently” (5). It is through this racism that one believes negroes simply lack int