"Shax’s Invention of Stigma: Richard’s Deformity, Aaron’s Race, Faulconbridge’s Bastardy”
(Representing the Other in Medieval and Early Modern Drama)

The fusion of comedy and tragedy in the Vice allowed English dramatists before Shakespeare to capture the complexity of sin and evil, alluring in the carnal pleasure they provide, disgusting in the social harm they cause. After adapting the Vice to structure his depiction of Richard III’s deformity, Shakespeare returned to it in the following years to depict Aaron the Moor’s black skin and Philip Faulconbridge’s bastard birth...