Despite the popularity of plays about the East, the representation of the East in early modern drama has been either overlooked, marginalized as footnotes or generalized into stereotypes. Materializing the East in Early Modern English Drama focuses on the multi-layered, often conflicting and changing perceptions of the East and how dramatic works made use of their respective theatrical space to represent the concept of the East in drama.
This volume re-examines the (mis)representation of the East on the early modern English outdoor and indoor stage and broadens our understanding of early modern theatrical productions beyond Shakespeare and the European continent. It traces the origin of conventional depictions of the East to university dramas and explores how they influenced the commercial stage. Chapters uncover how conflicting representations of the East were communicated on stage through the material aspects of stage architecture, costumes and performance effects.
The collection emphasizes these material aspects of dramatic performances and showcases neglected plays, including George Salterne’s Tomumbeius, Robert Greene's The Historie of Orlando Furioso and Joseph Simons' Leo the Armenian, and puts them in conversation with William Shakespeare's The Tempest and John Fletcher's The Island Princess.
List of Illustrations
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
Murat Ögütcü (Adiyaman University, Turkey) and Aisha Hussain (University of Salford, UK)
Part I. Civility, Commonality, and the Classics
1. Materializing Mamluks and Turks in Salterne’s Tomumbeius
Murat Ögütcü (Adiyaman University, Turkey)
2. Cultural and Celestial Representations in Goffe’s The Courageous Turk
Daniel Blank (Durham University, UK)
3. Byzantines in English Jesuit Drama: Performing Joseph Simons’ Leo the Armenian
Mark Chambers (Durham University, UK) and Johnny Ignacio (Durham University, UK)
Part II. Costume, Space, and Place
4. Dramatising Borders and Behaviours of the Eastern ‘Other’ in Greene’s Alphonsus and Orlando Furioso
Aisha Hussain (University of Salford, UK)
5. Staging a Multicultural World in Daborne’s A Christian Turned Turk
Hana Ferencová (Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic)
Part III. Sight, Smell, and Blood
6. ‘Seat of Merchandise’: Staging Indian Trade in The Triumphs of Honour and Industry
Lubaaba Al-Azami (University of Liverpool, UK)
7. Scent of the Orient: The King’s Men and the Corporatization of Smell
Nour El Gazzaz (Royal Holloway, University of London, UK)
8. Fat Falstaffs and Sullied Flesh in Dryden’s Amboyna
Marianne Montgomery (East Carolina University, USA)
Afterword: Journeys into the ‘Orient’
Jyotsna G. Singh (Michigan State University, USA)
Notes
Bibliography
Index
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