SOURCE: “‘Is Black So Base a Hue?’: Shakespeare's Aaron and the Politics and Poetics of Race,” in CLA Journal, Vol. XL, No. 3, March, 1997, pp. 336-66.

In the following essay, White contends that Aaron in Titus Andronicus subverts the Elizabethan notion that equates blackness with evil.

“Mislike me not for my complexion,” the Prince of Morocco passionately implores Portia in the Merchant of Venice.¹ In sharp contrast, Aaron, Shakespeare's first Moor, who makes his unforgettable appearance in Titus Andronicus, cares little about how others perceive him, finding in his color no reason for embarrassment of self-loathing. No apologist, he is quite comfortable with his hue, never mind that the play's other characters find in his blackness a symbol of negation. A complex and compellingly suave character who revels in inflicting pain on others, he marches to the sound of no drumbeat except his own. Aware as is Morocco of...