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Not in Our Stars
| Article
# : |
15965 |
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Section : |
BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1989 |
3,236 Words |
| Author
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Alan L. Keyes
Alan Keyes is currently a resident scholar at the American
Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. He was assistant
secretary of state for international organizational affairs
from 1985-87. |
PAUL ROBESON
Martin Bauml Duberman
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989
468 pp. $24.95
Readers of Othello are sometimes tempted to believe that Iago's evil machinations fully explain Othello's destructive passion. This facile interpretation degrades the moral stature of Shakespeare's Moorish hero and steals away the tragedy's instructive core of meaning. The heart and soul of a tragic drama lie ultimately in the conviction that "the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves." This is why tragedy at one and the same time chastens and uplifts the human spirit, confirming both our frailty and our freedom.
Paul Robeson was the first black American to bring Shakespeare's Othello to life in the American theater. Like the tragic hero he portrayed, Robeson was a man whose enormous capacities won him fame, fortune, and prestige in a world that otherwise abused and rejected black people. He might have been among those who made decisive contributions to the black struggle for justice and equal rights. Instead, when the climactic scenes of the civil rights struggle came, Robeson had to watch from the shadows, consciously shunned by the black leaders who occupied center stage. As with Othello, it would be easy to conclude that Robeson was the victim of the evil around him--a blazing sacrifice upon the altar of racism. Yet nothing in the man suggests the victim's sheepish passivity. His star shone so brightly that the fire which consumed him must have be his own.
Courage and
... (1969 of 18648 Characters)
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