The Massacre of the Innocents episode from the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew has inspired numerous literary, visual, and musical adaptations across a range of continents and languages, from the medieval period to the twentieth century. In this talk, Georgetown University Professor M. Lindsay Kaplan analyzed the depiction of Herod in Matthew 2 and followed some of its various adaptations to demonstrate the surprising incorporation of Muslim identity in portrayals of the Jewish King Herod in medieval English images and drama. This tradition continues into an early modern English dramatic convention that portrays a coordinated racialized Muslim/Jewish identity through the figure of Herod, with particular focus on Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Othello, The Moor of Venice and Elizabeth Cary’s adaptation, The Tragedy of Mariam, The Fair Queen of Jewry.
This event was sponsored by the Future of the Humanities Project and the Georgetown Humanities Initiative at Georgetown University with Blackfriars Hall, Oxford. It is part of the series Cultural Encounters: Books that Have Made a Difference.
