A miasma of plague hangs around Shakespeare's dramatic corpus, and Othello is a topical response to its occasional outbreak in 1603. Inevitably, its textual body is not only a palimpsest of traces recording epidemic outbreaks, but it is also a field of politico-clinical discourses that attempt to govern, quarantine, and direct the disease toward certain controllable ways. In other words, Othello is a representation of the rise of modern medical science. We know that as a medical term "Othello Syndrome" indicates a pathological and delusional jealousy, which is not primarily, however, the clinical subtext of the play that interests me; rather, the play's metaphoric depictions of the plague-stricken corpus politicum and its safety measure that is encapsulated by the word "immunization" fascinates me. (1) The reason I would like to read Othello as a plague narrative by focusing on its representation of an immunitary crisis is not just because the play's semantic features obsessively revolve around words such as "plague," "infection," "pestilence," and "contamination." (2) It is also because the play was produced in the heavy referential web of the plague visit in (and around) 1603--the year that Thomas Dekker called "The Wonderfull Yeare" when the Tudor-Stuart dynastic shift occurred. (3) It is a truism to say that the history of English Renaissance is also the history of the plague, and inevitably literature produced between Shakespeare's birth and Milton's death provides records of pandemic outbreaks. It is quite intriguing, however, to remember that, as Richelle Munkhoff points out, the dynastic transitions in early modern England accompanied massive outbreaks--from Elizabeth to James in 1603 and from James to Charles in 1625. (4) In particular, around the time of Elizabeth's death and James's accession, England had a severe outbreak, and James's passage through London did not happen until March 1604 because he remained in the north by ordering the Privy Council to bury Elizabeth without him. (5) Thus the situation was very much as though, as Rebecca Totaro puts it, "the plague itself took the throne in the interim." (6) The plague, which people simply called "death," was not just an unwelcome visitor in the suburbs and the ghettos of the metropolitan margins; rather, in popular imagination, even though Elizabeth's own death was not directly related to the plague, it was vested with regicidal power. Its presence is vicinal with the rise and fall of the nations body politic. Othello was produced during such a period, and the apocalyptic circumstance created by the dynastic shift along with the lingering sense of fin de siecle defines the general tenor of the play. Othello remarks, "Methinks it should be now a huge eclipse / Of sun and moon, and that th'affrighted globe / Should yawn at alteration" (5.2.108-9). These metatheatrical comments wittingly evoke the reactions of the audience watching a spectacular scene of uxoricidal slaughter. Yet we need to remember that the "huge eclipse" that backdrops Othello's final scene is repeated in both King Lear and Macbeth--two of Shakespeare's regicidal tragedies written in the time of the dynastic shift and plague; in other words, the total disintegration of the social bond effected by the "huge eclipse" accompanies the "deconsecration of sovereignty." (7) The political "alteration" created right after Elizabeth's death and James's accession includes the effect of the plague. For early modern minds, a pandemic outbreak was usually considered an expression of divine disfavor and punishment. (8) Insofar as the plague was the will of the Sovereign and the kingship was considered His earthly deputy, to properly control or quarantine it was the work of the crown; consequently, proclaiming the "plague orders" was an expression of the queen's and king's sovereign immunity. (9) Yet there are some inevitable differences between Elizabethan and Jacobean plague politics as, during his accession, English society understood James I, a Scottish monarch, as a foreign body visiting with the plague. …

中文翻译：

---

奥赛罗中的瘟疫和免疫

瘟疫的瘴气笼罩着莎士比亚戏剧性的语料库，而《奥赛罗》则是对 1603 年瘟疫偶尔爆发的一种话题性回应。不可避免地，它的正文不仅是记录流行病爆发的痕迹的翻版，而且还是政治-临床话语的领域试图控制、隔离并将疾病导向某些可控制的方式。换句话说，奥赛罗是现代医学兴起的代表。我们知道，作为医学术语，“奥赛罗综合症”表示一种病态和妄想的嫉妒，但这主要不是我感兴趣的戏剧的临床潜台词；相反，该剧对瘟疫肆虐的政治语料库及其安全措施的隐喻描述，被“免疫”一词所包含，这让我着迷。(1) 我之所以想把《奥赛罗》看成是一部瘟疫叙事，着眼于它对免疫危机的表现，不仅仅是因为该剧的语义特征过分地围绕着“瘟疫”、“感染”、“瘟疫”等词。和“污染”。(2) 也因为该剧是在 1603 年（及前后）瘟疫访问的沉重参考网络中制作的——当都铎-斯图亚特王朝更替发生时，托马斯·德克 (Thomas Dekker) 将这一年称为“美妙的一年”。(3) 英国文艺复兴的历史也是瘟疫的历史，这是不言而喻的，莎士比亚出生到弥尔顿逝世之间产生的文学不可避免地提供了大流行爆发的记录。然而，很有趣的是，要记住，正如 Richelle Munkhoff 指出的那样，近代早期英格兰的王朝变迁伴随着大规模的爆发——从 1603 年的伊丽莎白到詹姆斯，以及从 1625 年的詹姆斯到查尔斯。 (4) 特别是在伊丽莎白去世和詹姆斯登基前后，英格兰有一场严重的爆发，詹姆斯直到 1604 年 3 月才通过伦敦，因为他留在北方，命令枢密院在没有他的情况下埋葬伊丽莎白。(5) 因此，情况就像丽贝卡·托塔罗所说，“瘟疫本身在此期间占据了王位。” (6) 人们简单地称之为“死亡”的瘟疫，不仅仅是郊区和大都市边缘贫民区的不受欢迎的访客；相反，在大众的想象中，尽管伊丽莎白 他自己的死与瘟疫没有直接关系，它被赋予了统治权。它的存在与国家政治机构的兴衰密切相关。《奥赛罗》就是在这样一个时期产生的，王朝更替所创造的世界末日环境以及世纪末的挥之不去的感觉定义了该剧的总体基调。奥赛罗评论道，“我认为现在应该是一次巨大的日食/太阳和月亮，那个受惊的地球/应该在改变时打哈欠”（5.2.108-9）。这些超戏剧性的评论机智地唤起了观众在观看壮观的杀戮场景时的反应。然而，我们需要记住，作为奥赛罗最后一幕的背景的“巨大日食”在李尔王和麦克白——莎士比亚的两部作品中都重复出现过” 在王朝更替和瘟疫时期写下的弑君悲剧；换言之，“巨大日蚀”造成的社会纽带的彻底瓦解伴随着“主权的亵渎”。(7) 伊丽莎白死后和詹姆斯继位后立即产生的政治“变化”包括瘟疫的影响。对于早期的现代人来说，大流行的爆发通常被认为是上帝不喜欢和惩罚的表现。(8) 如果瘟疫是君主的意志，而王权被认为是他在地上的副手，那么适当地控制或隔离它是王室的工作；因此，宣布“瘟疫令”是女王和国王主权豁免权的体现。(9) 然而，伊丽莎白时代和詹姆士一世的瘟疫政治之间存在一些不可避免的差异，因为在他即位期间，英国社会将苏格兰君主詹姆斯一世理解为一个带着瘟疫来访的异物。…