Virginia Mason Vaughan: Performing Blackness on English Stages, 1500–1800.

In the first quarto of John Webster’s The White Devil (1612), one stage direction mentions an obscure character referred to as “little Iaques the Moore”. This silent figure, like the Indian boy kept by Titania in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, appears among the entourage of a female aristocrat but, unlike the Indian boy, plays no part whatsoever in the plot. He simply adds a touch of colour and exotic flavour to indicate her social standing and thus, while offering a visual contrast to his lady’s whiteness, serves as an item of display.

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