Elizabethans believed Africans were monstrous creatures with deformed features

Evidence

Othello is a hybrid monster of sorts, doubly cursed with African and other monstrous bloodlines. The belief that Africans were demons and monsters still dominated Europe during Shakespeare’s time. In Stephen Bateman’s study of monsters published in 1581, Africans are called “Black Monsters” and are described as such: “Ethiopes, a people in the West part of Ethiopia: also there are those black men, that have four eyes: and it is said that in Eripia be found very comely bodied men, notwithstanding they are long necked, and mouthed as a crane, the other part of the head like a man.” These fantasies were associated with all Africans, including Moors like Othello, whose black skin was associated with perdition and evil. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 309

Categorization

• DEFINE: Documents the specific ‘Black Monster’ monster-literature category behind the Othello figure — one of the reader’s three recurring figures.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s guiding question about the recurring monster figure — this is a concrete 1581 source of that category.