English representations of Islam at the turn of the century: Islam imagined and Islam experienced, 1575--1625

This thesis analyzes English representations of Muslims between 1575 and 1625, charting a chronology of intersections of material, political, and cultural interests. Although the focus is upon representations of Islam drawn from the general culture of London, in order to decode these consideration is given to representations of Islam made in the course of commercial and diplomatic contact between the English and Muslims of the Ottoman and Moroccan empires.; In 1575 the English were engaged in an ongoing struggle with Spain, a struggle which had cultural as well as commercial, diplomatic, and military consequences. On account of repeated embargoes at Spanish-controlled Antwerp, the trading hub of Western Europe, the English were forced to take their wares directly to northern and southern Europe, and beyond. Queen Elizabeth, through a canny use of conditions attached to grants of monopoly, imposed upon the emerging commercial infrastructure a network of diplomatic contacts. Among these were embassies established at Istanbul and Marrakech, through which Elizabeth attempted to create anti-Spanish military alliances with the Ottoman and Sa'adian sultans.; The breadth of vision of Elizabethan commercial culture is impressive, but Elizabethan literary culture was even more aggressively innovative and expansive. As writers such as Christopher Marlowe, George Peele, and William Shakespeare transformed the literary forms of their homeland they captured the farthest reaches of English travel and commerce, granting Islam a prominent place in the symbolic landscape of English general culture. In keeping with the openness towards Islam demonstrated in Elizabethan commerce and diplomacy, literary representations of Islam of the last quarter of the sixteenth century were by turns positive and affiliating.; Even prior to the death of Elizabeth I Anglo-Islamic relations had cooled. With a stable commercial infrastructure in place and the Spanish threat in decline, English culture became amenable to engagement with Catholic Europe. Under King James I English foreign policy became more conciliatory towards the Spanish, a shift in policy which resonated with the increasingly negative representations of Islam that appeared in English general culture during the first quarter of the seventeenth century.