'Send the midwife': The Birth of Blackness in Titus Andronicus

This article examines a neglected context for understanding the ontology and epistemology of race in Shakespeare's drama: the role of the midwife. Early modern midwives performed an important cultural function by not only assisting women in labour, but also pronouncing the sex and paternity of a newborn. As Caroline Bicks has shown, this was a time when a midwife was thought to have significant influence over how a body was literally shaped and interpreted at the moment of its birth, thereby determining its reception in the community. Nowhere in Shakespeare's canon is the midwife's authority more manifest - and threatening - than in Titus Andronicus, where the midwife's role includes establishing an infant's race. After Tamora, Empress of Rome, delivers a baby fathered by her lover, Aaron 'the Moor', he asks: 'How many saw the child?' By subsequently killing the birth attendants, Aaron calls attention to how controlling the destiny of his son will depend upon rewriting the script of his nativity. Merging critical interest in early modern childbirth with Shakespeare scholarship on race and performance, I show how newly born bodies are midwived into racialized subjects, illuminating how midwifery discourses can broaden our understanding of early modern racecraft. My specific claim is that the statements made by Tamora's nurse concerning Aaron's 'black' son can be read as a performative utterance that confers, constitutes and attempts to naturalize the newborn's raced identity.

Automated summary

This article examines the role of midwives in Shakespeare's plays and their influence on the formation of racial identities. Midwives not only assisted women during labor, but also played a significant role in determining a newborn's sex and paternity, which in turn affected how the child was received in the community. By analyzing the portrayal of midwives in Titus Andronicus and their involvement in establishing an infant's race, the author explores how midwifery discourses contribute to our understanding of race in early modern society.