Overview

"""In the wake of the fear that gripped Europe after the fall of Constantinople (1453), the English dramatists joined most continental artists (literary and visual) in representing the Ottoman Turks in plays inspired by historical events. As the many subjective elements involved in the stereotyping of the Turks in these plays—revolving around complex themes such as tyranny, captivity, war, and conquests—arose from their perception of Islam, Ottoman milieu as a dramatic setting provided for the English audiences a common experience of fascination and fear of the Other. The Ottomans' failure in the second siege of Vienna (1683), however, became a factor in the reversal of trends in the representation of the Turks on stage. As the ascending strength of a web of European alliances began to check further the Ottoman expansion, what then began to dazzle the aesthetic imagination of the eighteenth century England was the sultan's seraglio with images of extravaganza and decadence. In this book, Esin Akalın draws upon a selective range of seventeenth and eighteenth century plays to reach an understanding, both from a non-European perspective and Western standpoint how one culture represents the other through discourse, historiography, and drama. The book explores a cluster of issues revolving around identity and difference in terms of history, ideology, and politics of representation. In contextualizing political, cultural, and intellectual roots in the ideology of representing the Ottoman/Muslim as the West’s Other, the author, ultimately, tackles with the questions of how history serves literature and to what extent literature creates history. """

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9783838209197

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One of the very few works of expertise in its field. Prof. Dr. Yusuf Eradam, Istanbul Kultur University

“One of the very few works of expertise in its field.”—Prof. Dr. Yusuf Eradam, Istanbul Kultur University “Undoubtedly a major scholarly contribution to the discussion and analysis of the European perceptions and stereotyping of the Turkish image and the Turkish Orient. … A very useful study that will certainly appeal not only to students of English literature but also to historians, students of cultural studies, and those interested in Orientalism in general and the Ottoman Orient in particular.”—Prof. Dr. Himmet Umunç, Başkent University, Ankara “Akalin’s Staging the Ottoman Turk gives wonderfully helpful and detailed background on the long history of the Ottoman Empire as well as biographical information about the various sultans as context for their appearance in plays. […] Akalin plausibly challenges Edward Said and his critical afterlife.”—Cynthia Wall, SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900, Vol. 58 no. 3, Summer 2018

Author Information

Esin Akalın, PhD, teaches at Istanbul Kültür University, Department of English Language and Literature. She has written and directed several bilingual plays in Canada. Her research interests include early modern drama, modern drama, and gender studies.

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