Jo Beverley/Incidental Shakespeare

In Jo Beverley's The Stanforth Secrets, Shakespeare appears as cultural shorthand for the hero's perceptions of his own feelings of jealousy. Of course, when Justin, Lord Stanforth, alludes to Othello he also encodes the innocence of his beloved Chloe, who falls under suspicion when they search her room and find a steamy love letter and a handerkerchief:

In a moment the madness passed, leaving a sour miasma to disgust him. It was only a handkerchief. Anyone could have put it there. Anyone could have written the letter. He would have to trust them both. It was that or go mad. It occurred to him that the next time he saw Othello performed, he would have much more sympathy for the vengeful Moor (206).

This reference is fleeting and truly incidental to the plot and the characters more generally. Here Shakespeare functions almost as a cultural touchstone, a reference to the greatest extreme of jealousy and its consequences. Justin almost immediately mediates and reunderstands his own consuming passion with reference to Shakespeare's play--a play which incidentally also reveals the innocence of the beloved.

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