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Staging Islam in England: Drama and Culture, 1640-1685
Author(s): Matthew Birchwood (Author)
- Publisher: D. S. Brewer
- Publication Date: 20 Sept. 2007
- Edition: First Edition
- Language: English
- Print length: 216 pages
- ISBN-10: 1843841274
- ISBN-13: 9781843841272
Book Description
Exploration of the ways in which Islam manifested itself in the writings of the seventeenth century. `This stimulating book will be welcomed by historians, literary scholars, and anyone interested in the history of the English fascination with Islam and the cultural exoticism associated with the East.’ PROFESSOR GERALD MACLEANTransmitted via the mechanisms of trade and diplomacy and reflected through stage and press, England’s cultural encounters with Islam – its peoples, its history, its territories – were fundamental to the ways in which the nationconstructed itself through all the tribulations of the seventeenth century; a preoccupation with Islam permeated religious, political, diplomatic and commercial discourses to a degree that has not been recognised by standard accounts of the period. This book traces engagement with Islam in English political and dramatic life from the inauguration of the Long Parliament until the death of Charles II. It explores the reception and representation ofIslam in a wide range of English writings of the period, employing close textual and historical research to trace the development of the ‘Turk’ from the archetype of cruelty and treachery to the complex and often contradictory figure of mid-century discourse. Throughout, it argues that Islam provided a repository of meanings ripe for transposition to Revolutionary and Restoration England, a process that transfigured the ‘East’ through the lens of English politics and vice-versa.
Editorial Reviews
Review
A valuable contribution to the ongoing reassessment of the political and cultural relations between early modern Western Europe and the Islamic Orient. — RENAISSANCE QUARTERLY
A very useful study of English drama and its allusions to the Ottoman and Safavid Empires. —
JOURNAL OF ISLAMIC STUDIES, vol 19, no 3, September 2008Convincingly demonstrates how writers of this period engaged the “Turk” in ways that were distinct and dynamic. —
JOURNAL OF BRITISH HISTORY, October 2008 vol. 47 4Review
Convincingly demonstrates how writers of this period engaged the “Turk” in ways that were distinct and dynamic.
