Whitaker, Cord J. "Blackness as metaphor." Throughlines. www.throughlines.org/suite-content/blackness-as-metaphor. [Date accessed].

Blackness as metaphor

The metaphor of Blackness deployed in medieval epics was a rhetorical tool that aided early racial formation.

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Cord J. Whitaker
Wellesley College

Many medieval epics regale their audiences with the phenomenon of skin color change, often in the context of religious conversion. The metaphor of Blackness at play in these epics offers a way to understand how phenotypic traits were used as markers of good or evil in the literature and culture of medieval Europe. The long history of racial construction has its roots in how Blackness is leveraged as a metaphor over hundreds of years.

Further learning

Video

Where were the Black people in the Middle Ages?

Records and texts from the period offer insight into a rich and cosmopolitan medieval Europe, where there were not only Black people, but they held positions of power and prestige.

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Syllabus

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