“This trap you have laid to catch my immortal life”: Beauty, Color, Romance, and Race in the Renaissance
Chieko Dunham
Beauty standards have ebbed and flowed across various extremes for millennia. What humans have considered “beautiful” has differed based on historical and cultural context, technology, and various other factors. For this essay, I will be focusing on beauty in the Renaissance period as displayed in the early modern play The Island Princess, written by John Fletcher and first performed in 1621. Looking at various essays written during the renaissance, beauty, as early moderns understood it, was shaped by physical “proofs,” indications, and signs, of “good,” and “moral” character. However, with the growing anxieties around foreign interaction and influence, European writers responded to these anxieties by developing racialized notions of beauty. This racialization thus leads to complicated depictions of beautiful women of color, their race drastically fluctuating in the works in which they appear. These racial fluctuations, in fact, are so momentous that it often becomes an important plot point in the story, as is the case for Quisara in The Island Princess.
The Island Princess chronicles the story of Portuguese soldiers who attempt to colonize the kingdom of Tidore, home to Princess Quisara. Quisara’s brother, the King, is kidnapped by the governor of a neighboring island. Quisara offers her hand in marriage as a reward for his rescue. Armusia, a new arrival from Portugal to Tidore, saves the King but encounters a problem with his marriage to Quisara because of their difference in religion. Drama ensues as there is also a love triangle involved with Rui Dias, captain of Armusia. Although characters describe Quisara’s fair complexion early on in the play, they regard her as dark at the climax, and then fair again by the resolution. I argue that the fluctuating racialized depictions of characters like Quisara in The Island Princess are due to the amorphous nature of Renaissance beauty standards and, to a larger extent, the amorphous nature of racial categorization.
To start this discussion, it is necessary first to explore the renaissance definition of “beauty” and its origin. In her study of renaissance conceptions of beauty, Farah Karim-Cooper finds that Italian thinkers, whose work was often translated into English, would base their perception of beauty on classical definitions written by Plato and Aristotle that emphasized “symmetry and the perfect balance of color” (Karim-Cooper 8). Since these writers were Christians, their modern definitions of beauty along with the classical definition were embedded with “Christian spiritualism,” making beauty a measure of “virtue” (Karim-Cooper 8). This definition of beauty intertwines external characteristics with internal characteristics; appearing “Christian” and “virtuous” becomes aligned with the classical definition of symmetry and balance of color.
One must ask, then, how do Christian values appear physically on the body? Early modern Italian essayists describe feminine beauty as “bright, white, even figured as silver, gold and shining marble” and that the natural luster and fairness that accompanies beauty should reflect a woman’s “virtue and spiritual luminescence” and appear on her cheeks (Karim-Cooper 8-12). Thus, whiteness/paleness and luster are considered beautiful and displays of spiritual correctness (appearing Christian). Here is where definitions of beauty become implicitly and explicitly racialized and start to form a binary between whiteness and blackness. Prior to the addition of Christian values to the definition of beauty, the criteria of being symmetrical, logically, could not exclude “Moors” and other people of color (Karim-Cooper 7). However, adding Christianity into the mix of beauty standards conveniently allowed scholars at the time to subtly and blatantly justify defining beauty by skin color and complexion. After all, the common characteristics of Christians in the Renaissance period are the characteristics of European and English citizens, a majority of which are white. Ania Loomba found that during the crusades, religion played such a huge role in understanding skin color that any non-Christians were seen as “dirty” and were represented as “literally black,” creating this understanding that people who do not appear white, logically to European travelers, are most likely not of Christian faith (Loomba 25). The emphasis on whiteness and fairness by scholars and poets at the time are so extreme that they start to establish a hierarchical system based on complexion, regardless of the Christian standards. Kim F. Hall finds that whenever whiteness is described it is in “hyperbolic comparison” to blackness (“These bastard signs of fair” 65).Hall argues that representations of “blinding” whiteness in early modern poetry is an early form of white supremacy (“These bastard signs of fair” 66-67). These representations of whiteness in these poems are also described in terms of desirability, thus adding credence to the devaluing of black beauty and the appreciation of whiteness (“These bastard signs of fair” 68). Since most of these poems and sonnets are romantic, descriptions of beauty as fair and white create a connection between courtship and whiteness: that one must appear white and fair in order to be eligible for romance, courtship, and marriage (Karim-Cooper 23). Moreover, Hall points out that most poets see fairness as needing to be reproduced, thus if one were considered “black” they would be out of the sphere of reproduction, and there would be no need to reproduce for those who are “black” (“These bastard signs of fair” 70). With this hyperfocus on whiteness and whiteness as a token of supremacy and reproduction in romantic and lyrical poems, equating whiteness with beauty makes whiteness a necessity for social, economic, and cultural acceptance. If one appears white, then one must be highly ranked in society. If one appears white then they are allowed, and in fact required, to reproduce.
Now that we have identified the established connection between “whiteness,” “fairness,” and beauty along with discussing the importance of abiding by these beauty standards, let’s discuss how women would achieve these beauty standards. Most women did not have a natural luster to them that would achieve the appearance of fairness, and some women were not pale enough to be stark white, thus they would employ the use of cosmetics in order to acquire the desired appearance. However, the use of cosmetics during the renaissance period was highly controversial. Multiple essays and sermons highly criticized cosmetics in general, one of the most impassioned examples of this is by Thomas Tuke, a clergyman and controversial writer. Tuke stated, in 1657, that cosmetics are “brought in use by the devil” and that the continued use of cosmetics over generations would “corrupt” and “rot” the children “by reason of the viscousness and taint of the mother that painted her self” (Tuke 197). Cosmetics were found to be an affront to religion due to the perceived connection between them and the devil, as it alters the appearance that God intended and deceives others (Tuke 197). Worth noting here is that some modern men still understand cosmetics in this way, vilifying women for their use of makeup to this day.
Another reason why the use of cosmetics was so detested was that cosmetics were seen as a form of indirect contact with foreign peoples, a threat to one’s whiteness and “purity.” Aside from cosmetics, there was general anxiety around the consumption of foreign goods. As Jennifer Park explains, the main philosophy that permeated England in the early modern period was the notion that “you are what you eat”; as such, early modern European colonizers were concerned with “the possible effects of exposure to an exotic environment, and especially to an exotic diet, on their own constitutions” (Park 609-610). Since cosmetics, at the time, were made up of ingredients that were foreign exports, the application of these creams that seeped into women’s pores was, to some, considered a form of foreign consumption. As Kimberly Poitevin finds, some early moderns even suggested that the use of cosmetics was an indirect form of interracial sex (Poitevin 78).
In both discourses that regard cosmetics as tools of the devil and those that consider it a dangerous foreign good, women were forced to confront the hypocrisy of white beauty standards. When women use cosmetics to achieve the beauty and whiteness described in lyrical and sometimes religious poetry, they are condemned and villanized by the church. In the anti-cosmetic rhetoric that reinforces the supposed “dangers” and anxieties of consuming foreign goods, similar hypocrisy is observable. Women depend on foreign exports to create or maintain their white appearances. Although the nature of cosmetics is to have an appearance that is not your own, this “deception” is something that Tuke condemns but instructional pamphlets, written during the period, support, as “lovers actually want to be deceived” (Karim-Cooper 17). It is this hypocrisy, this fear of being deceived, that is at the heart of the racial fluctuation of characters like Quisara. The deceptive nature of cosmetics and its condemnation parallels the dangers associated with explicitly foreign women., Despite their allure and beauty, these non-white, non-Christian women, in the period’s drama, are condemned by their white, Christian male lovers. Foreign women may appear fair and beautiful, and they may fit the physical characteristics of renaissance beauty standards, but the moment their “otherness” is revealed, they are understood as “ugly” and akin to the devil. Quisara in The Island Princess falls prey to this pattern of “deception” and exposure at the hands of her white, Christian lover, Armusia.
The play opens with a scene of all of the Portuguese soldiers occupying Tidore (which in modern understanding is Indonesia) discussing the beauty of the Tidoran princess, Quisara. Very quickly, many of the soldiers define her beauty as “fair” and “noble.” Pinheiro, a Portuguese soldier, remarks to the rest of his comrades “She is a princess and she must be fair:/ That’s the prerogative of being royal” (TIP 1.1.45-46). Here, Pinheiro is displaying an acute awareness of the beauty standards of his time. He tries to instill in his fellow soldiers that she is beautiful and fair because she is a princess. The cause of her beauty is her high status. This is a great illustration of what I have established previously, that those who are “fair” and white are those who are of high social status. It would not be far-fetched to then discern that royalty, the highest of society, would be the fairest of all. Furthermore, Fletcher is writing in the post-Elizabethan era and lived when Queen Elizabeth I was the pinnacle of beauty and commonly depicted as having extremely pale skin, thus operating on the understanding that those of royalty are fair and beautiful (Karim-Cooper 6). Pinheiro further displays this acute awareness of beauty standards and their unstable, conditional state later on in the scene:
CRISTÓFERO. The very sun, I think, affects all her sweetness
And dares not, as he does to all else, dye it
Into his tawny livery.
PINHEIRO. She dares not see him,
But keeps herself at a distance from his kisses
And wears her complexion in a case: let him but like it
A week or two, or three, she would look like a lion. (1.1.61-66)
First, Cristófero, a comrade of Pinheiro, appears to have a much weaker understanding of the complexities of Quisara’s beauty. Cristófero does not consider if, perhaps, her “sweetness” has already been “dyed” because she is an inhabitant of the island. Cristófero is operating under the assumption that anything beautiful has been untainted by the sun. What might be interesting to include, however, is the renaissance understanding of being sunburnt as being sunburnt means that one could “move between the strict dichotomies of black and white” as well as moving between the “racial absolutes between them” (“Fair Texts/ Dark Ladies” 97). Thus, Quisara most likely appears sunburnt, allowing her to be beautiful and white while being unaffected by the darkening of the skin that comes with being in the sun. Furthermore, whether Cristófero is aware of it or not, describing her appearance as “sweetness” implies that she is something to be consumed, much like foreign exports at the time like sugar cane. He suggests her beauty is tangible enough to consume, choosing to ignore the anxieties that come with her consumption.
Pinheiro responds to Cristófero by remarking how Quisara “wears her complexion in a case,” a direct reference to her possible use of cosmetics, her possible deception. He suggests here that Quisara is not truly beautiful and that her beautiful traits are artificial, and constructed, much like how her royal status is a social construction. Pinheiro also notes that once a man spends enough time with her she may be revealed to “look like a lion,” perhaps remarking upon the fact that she is of another race. Understandings of other races, and other colors, at the time, remarked that foreign people (specifically “black-mores”) as a “different species,” “some kinde of strange beastes” (Das et al. 42). Pinheiro categorizes her true nature, her appearance under her case, as animalistic, making a distinct comment on her foreignness. Choosing specifically to call her a “lion” also comments on her danger as a foreign person, a foreign export. Lions are particularly aggressive and brutal, thus Pinheiro paints her as a predator, something antithetical to her femininity and beauty. Although Pinheiro suggests he is aware of the artificiality and the instability of her whiteness, his comrades ignore his comments and continue pursuing her affection and praising her fairness.
At the climax of the play, the warnings that Pinheiro gives at the start of the play take center stage. Quisara, at the advisement of her brother, the King, asks Armusia– a Portuguese soldier, the King’s rescuer, and Quisara’s betrothed–to convert to her religion (most likely Islam) and leave his Christian faith. At the sound of this, Armusia relents:
ARMUSIA. Now I contemn ye and I hate myself
For looking on that face lasciviously:
And it looks ugly now, methinks,
QUISARA. How, Portugal?
ARMUSIA. It looks like death itself, to which ‘twould lead me.
Your eyes resemble pale despair: they fright me,
And in their rounds a thousand horrid ruins
Methinks I see, and in your tongue hear fearfully
The hideous murmurs of weak souls have suffered.
Get from me: I despise ye! And know, woman,
That for all this trap you have laid to catch my life in,
To catch my immortal life, I hate and curse ye,
Contemn your deities, spurn at their powers; (4.5.104-115)
The moment that Quisara makes it explicit that she is not Christian, the moment Armusia can not ignore her “otherness,” Armusia calls her ugly and likens her appearance, her person, to hellish imagery. Quisara is now an other. She is no longer fair. She is “black.” Her true nature is revealed to Armusia and he, suddenly, instantaneously, sees “death,” “pale despair,” and “a thousand horrid ruins.” All of these horrific images paint a picture that is not unlike the rhetoric that Tuke uses in his arguments against cosmetics. Quisara’s beauty is now an affront to God, to Christianity, because it is deceptive. Additionally, Armusia determines that Quisara has laid a “trap” for him, an act that is explicitly deceptive, adding credence to the anxieties that surrounded engaging with foreign goods and populations.
By the resolution of the play, however, Quisara returns to being characterized as fair. After the display of Armusia’s commitment to Christianity, Quisara renounces her old faith, and commits herself to Christianity, offering to die alongside Armusia at the hands of her brother, the King (5.2.121-134). Once she renounces her old faith, she suddenly has a strong effect on the Governor, the villain of the play, when he remarks “This woman makes me weary of my mischief:/ She shakes me and she staggers me” (5.2.139). Now that her beauty represents Christian virtue, as Italian essayists have written is the key to beauty, her virtue is so powerful that it “staggers” the villain of the play, a non-Christian character. If her beauty is so strong that it affects those who are not Christian, then she begins to embody renaissance beauty standards, as her beauty is now an extension of the word of God. Now that she is converted, her beauty is no longer deceptive, she truly does reflect Christian virtue, the correct spirit, in her beauty. Furthermore, Loomba has noted that the conversion of foreign women to Christianity was “widely considered one way of vanquishing the enemy” (Loomba 26). Armusia ascribes to this notion as he exclaims after her conversion, “Since thou art won, let me begin my triumph” (5.2.127). Now that the “enemy,” her foreignness, has been purged from her, she can fit the renaissance beauty standards as a white, fair woman.
By analyzing this play and the written criteria for beauty during the early modern period, we see the amorphous nature of beauty standards and racial categorization at work. Beauty standards were not rigid, but fluid instead, changing from moment to moment. With the edition of cosmetics, the nature of beauty is even more muddled, as someone who is beautiful may not be “truly” beautiful in the Christian sense of the term. Fusing Christian values into beauty standards created an environment where Europeans understood skin color and race in terms of the Christian binary of light reflecting god and dark reflecting hell. Thus, in early modern drama, when a character goes from being a good character to an evil character and is then redeemed, their race tends to fluctuate rapidly throughout the plot. Along with Quisara’s beauty fluctuating, her race fluctuates as well.
We can see the impact of this understanding on our modern understanding of beauty and cosmetics. “Fairness” was prioritized as a must for appearing beautiful which is reflected in the “wide” shade range of foundations you can purchase at any drugstore or makeup store like Ulta and Sephora. There are usually twice as many shades for the different tints and undertones in people with paler skin. Yet, when it comes to the selection of foundation for those with darker skin, there are maybe five to six with little to no variation in tint and undertone. This glorification of white skin can also be observed by the names directly given to each shade of foundation. All of the whiter shades are usually described as “porcelain” or “ivory,” materials used to create luxury goods. When it comes to the darker shades, the colors are marked as “desert,” “sand,” or even “chocolate,” “java,” “espresso,” words that point to things that are “exotic.” These beauty labels point to a division between white and dark skin in terms of “who belongs” or who is domestic in origin. But it goes even further with the “food” words. Women of color who use these foundations become consumable goods, exports that boost the economy, industrial things. The limited range of foundation shades, and their assigned names, demonstrate one thread of the white supremacist legacies our society has inherited from the early modern Europe.
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