【正文】 7. pride and prejudice 8. Shylock 9. Othello 10. Venice and the MediterraneanI. Comprehensive Soul It is well known that John Dryden, in his “An Essay of Dramatic Poesy,” makes Neander praise Shakespeare as “the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most prehensive soul” (247). But what exactly did the term “prehensive soul” mean to Neander or Dryden? The statement that immediately follows the praise is: “All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them, not laboriously, but luckily。本論文談到莎劇中各項(xiàng)種族的傲慢與偏見，探究種族主義的相關(guān)因素，歸納莎翁對種族問題的看法，最後提出莎翁心靈所見的靈象：「羞鎖客」(Shylock) 摔不掉種族意識的鎖，而奧賽羅永遠(yuǎn)被種族主義的手巾綁住而喊叫：「噢！地獄囉!」(Ot, hell,O!)。The Jew and the Moor: Shakespeare’s Racial Vision猶太人與摩爾人：莎士比亞的種族見解摘要種族非莎劇最重要主題之一，但莎翁於五劇本中透過十一人物呈現(xiàn)其「種族見識」。猶太人與摩爾人代表兩種最基本的種族主義：在以基督教和白人為中心的莎劇世界裡，宗教和膚色成為種族歧視的主因。從莎劇中，我們可以看出：莎翁看到種族各異，但主張種族間應(yīng)有自由、平等、博愛，所以他是人道主義者，其宏大的心靈帶來的是不偏不倚的種族見識。 when he describes anything, you more than see it, you feel it too” (247). This statement seems to explain that what made Shakespeare’s soul prehensive was his ability to grasp “all the images of nature” and render them “l(fā)uckily” and touchingly. Except this apparent explanation Dryden or Neander provides no further explication in this famous essay. In an editorial of 1998, Christopher Flannery says: “When Dryden speaks of Shakespeare’s ‘prehensive soul,’ he means that Shakespeare’s genius plumbs the deepest depths and scales the loftiest heights of human nature and enpasses the broadest reaches of the human condition.” Thus, he goes on to say, “Shakespeare’s themes include virtually every interesting aspect of human life.” However, the Shakespearean themes he mentions are such as “l(fā)ove, revenge, beauty, ambition, virtue, vice, justice, free will, providence, chance, fate, friendship, loyalty, betrayal。 truth and illusion, men and women, mortality and immortality。 in The Merchant of Venice, the Prince of Morocco asks Portia not to dislike him “for my plexion” which is like the “shadowed livery of the burnished sun” (MV, )。 )。C, ). To be sure, Othello is also said to have thick lips while Caliban is characterized as a deformed monster rather than a colored person, yet to Shakespeare’s Elizabethans the Moors, the Egyptians, or the Algerians—all those African people were distinctly colored people. Besides skin color, however, religion was another important characteristic for Shakespeare’s Europeans to discriminate between themselves and aliens. It happened that Moors were usually Moslems. It followed, therefore, that Moslems were associated with colored people and a foreign race in Europe. But Moslemism was not the only religion to suggest religious difference to Christians. Judaism was another religion that made the Europeans differ from Jews. To be sure, no religion is ever conspicuously written on anyone’s face: 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 theoreti