Shakespeare and His Dark Lady
- Daisha Brabham
- Nov 7, 2019
- 5 min read
Updated: Dec 8, 2019
Shakespeare, the most famous author to have ever lived, according to most English lecturers. The product of Great Queen Bess’s Golden Age, and the chieftain of the English language, Shakespeare is more of an idea than a man. Over the years, several new theories have been introduced questioning his authorship and work, including that Shakespeare was not, in fact, a commoner, but a nobleman afraid of the social repercussions, that he was a woman or that he was in fact, Queen Elizabeth all along. I, myself, still believe that Shakespeare could have been the distraught love child of Queen Elizabeth. A theory I became engrossed with after watching the hit movie Anonymous. But the most insightful theory to come to the forefront in recent years is the question: Did Shakespeare have a black girlfriend?
For some, the theory may seem preposterous, even laughable, seeming more likely to be a Twitter hashtag than a concept debated in academic discourse. But, just like the other theories, this too has historical merit. Over the course of his life, Shakespeare wrote over a hundred sonnets detailing life, love, and lust, giving historians insight into love in the sixteenth century. However, the most peculiar of his sonnets are that of the Dark Lady. Sonnets 127 through 154, introduce a dark woman into the poet's life. She is described as a dark-haired lady with black wires stretching out her scalp, dun or dark-colored skin and a liar's tongue. The Dark Lady is illustrated as everything society claimed as ugly, yet the speaker is enthralled by her and sees her as a reclamation of blackness as beautiful.
In Sonnet 127, he introduces his lover:
In the old age, black was not counted fair,
Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name;
But now is black beauty's successive heir,
And beauty slandered with a bastard shame:
( Sonnet 127)
The interpretations of these sonnets have been a source of talk for some time, each academic trying to identify this woman with wiry hair and dun-colored skin. I will not dive into the sonnets themselves (though it is recommended that you read them for yourself) but rather the historical mystery of trying to reclaim this woman from the past. Some academics have believed the darkness of the woman to be a metaphor and identified lists of candidates from noblewomen to Elizabeth I herself (yes-she is always tied to Shakespeare theories). But for some, the dark lady can only be seen as an African, living in London.
The Elizabethan time period, also known as the Golden Age, is remembered as a transformative time in England. The defeat of the Spanish Armada, embarking to the New World, even the exportation of the English language, all historical pinpoints for the beginnings of the British empire. But it is also a time in which our ideas of race and race relations are in its infancy.
Contrary to common belief, Shakespeare, the author of Othello, would have encountered Africans during his time in London. On a scale from the homogeneous, white, London that most imagine to the multicultural hub that exists today, London would have been somewhere in between. Though it is impossible to pinpoint exactly statistically how many were living in London at the time, we know that they were there.
Black women traditionally occupied servant roles working in and out of noble homes. It is important to distinguish that our modern-day memories regarding black women and slavery in domestic service are not to be placed onto these women. They, similar to their male counterparts, assimilated into Tudor society, converting and adopting Protestant names and would oftentimes have interracial relations with their fellow common-folk and on occasion, their bosses. We know this because the birth of their children were recorded in parish and community records. Other women, some historians believe, went into prostitution. Most of the areas in London associated with prostitution in the 16th century were Southwark, Bankside and Clerkenwell. Placing aside our modern ideas regarding the sexualization of black women and slavery, it is important to point out here that these women may not have been prostitutes because they were black but because they were poor. Or in other words, as historian Onyeka points out, they were not delegated these roles based on their complexion, but rather because they were a vulnerable portion of society.
One of these women was Lucy Negro or Black Luce, who is believed to have run a brothel in Clerkenwell. Luce was notorious in London for her successful brothel, oftentimes attracting the wealthy and elite of London society. Based on historical sources, it is believed that she may have worked in Gray Inn Tavern and had sexual relations with many writers including Shakespeare. Though whether or not, she was in fact, an African is contested, by historians such as Miranda Kauffman.
Nonetheless, the myth of Lucy Negro continues to permeate in popular myth. In recent years, Shakespeare's African lover has begun to enter our public memory with popular recreations of her in film and Broadway. She was reimagined in beautiful ballet and a book titled Lucy Negro Redux, where she responds to Shakespeare and retells the bewitching a young and in love Shakespeare utilizing an African American tone to assert her blackness. She has even been represented in Doctor Who episode in which Shakespeare falls in love with a black British woman.
So, did Shakespeare get enthralled in black girl magic before it became a hashtag? If so, does this black woman prove that Tudors were not in fact racist? Does a love affair between Lucy Negro and Shakespeare undo years of colonization and racism? If you have read this blog and want this to be my conclusion, I am afraid you will be disappointed. In my view, these questions are not really the questions we should be asking. The more accurate question is why can’t she be black. If Shakespeare, the man translated into hundreds of languages, can be a noble court man, a virgin queen or a product of a royal affair, then why can’t the woman he wrote about being just as capable of captivating our imaginations and transcend barriers to shape who we want her to be. So, did Shakespeare have a black girlfriend, he could have, we will never know for sure but that my friends, is the beauty of Shakespeare.
Comment Below!
Who do you think the dark lady was?
To Read More About Africans During the Sixteenth Century, Check-Out:
Black Tudors, Miranda Kauffman
Blackamoores: Africans in Tudor England, their Presence, Status, and Origins, by Onyeka
For more information on Lucy Negro Redux:
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