This book is a study of the representation of the Persian empire in English drama across the early modern period, from the 1530s to the 1690s. The wide focus of this book, encompassing thirteen dramatic entertainments, both canonical and little-known, allow it to trace the changes and developments in the dramatic use of Persia and its people across one and a half centuries. It explores what Persia signified to English playwrights and audiences in this period; the ideas and associations conjured up by mention of ‘Persia’; and where information about Persia came from. It also considers how ideas about Persia changed with the development of global travel and trade, as English people came into people with Persians for the first time. In addressing these issues, this book provides an examination not only of the representation of Persia in dramatic material, but of the broader relationship between travel, politics and the theatre in early modern England.
Author(s): Chloë Houston
Series: New Transculturalisms, 1400–1800
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 299
City: Cham
Acknowledgements
Praise for Persia in Early Modern English Drama, 1530–1699
Contents
1 Introduction: The Imagined Empire
Robert Brancetour: The First English Traveller to Safavid Persia
Early Modern English Theatre and the East: The Place of Persia and Plays of Persia
Tudor Plays of Persia
Plays of Persia in the Stuart Period and the Inter-Regnum
Restoration Plays of Persia
2 ‘In This Noble Region’: Politics and Counsel in The Godly Queene Hester (Anonymous, c. 1530)
Introduction
Godly Queene Hester
Hester: The Political Contexts
Conclusion
3 ‘[A]dvice Unto a Prince’: Kingship and Counsel in Kyng Daryus (Anonymous, 1565) and Cambises (Thomas Preston, c. 1560)
Introduction
Kyng Daryus
Cambises
4 ‘A Crown Enchas’d with Pearl and Gold’: Wealth and Absolute Rule in The Warres of Cyrus (Richard Farrant, 1576–1580) and Tamburlaine the Great Parts 1 and 2 (Christopher Marlowe, 1587–1588)
Introduction: Persian Gold
The Warres of Cyrus
Tamburlaine the Great Parts 1 and 2
Conclusion
5 ‘I Wish to Be None Other but as He’: Friendship and Counsel in The Travailes of the Three English Brothers (1607) by John Day, William Rowley, and George Wilkins and Contemporary Closet Drama
Introduction: Perceptions of Persia at the Turn of the Century
Alexander, Daniel, and the Revival of Classical Persia
The Sherley Brothers and Persia in Early Modern English Travel Writing
The Travailes of the Three English Brothers (1607)
Conclusion
6 ‘Read[ing] Philosophy to a King’: Ideals of Monarchy in William Cartwright’s The Royall Slave (1636)
Introduction: The Sherleys and the Failure of a ‘Diplomatic Fiction’
William Cartwright and The Royall Slave
Kingship in The Royall Slave
Conclusion: Detaching from Contemporary Persia
7 ‘[R]eally Acted in Persia’: Counsel, Regicide and Restoration in John Denham, the Sophy (1642) and Robert Baron, Mirza (1655)
Introduction: Persia and the Divine Right of Kings
The Sophy
Mirza
Conclusion
8 To ‘Dispose of Crowns’: Conversion, the Authority of Monarchy and the Issue of Succession: Elkanah Settle’s Cambyses (1667)
Introduction: Cambyses’ Dedication
Conversion and Identity
Authority in Cambyses
Conclusion
9 ‘The King, Who Loves the Persian Mode’: Tyranny and Excess in Nathaniel Lee’s The Rival Queens (1677)
Introduction: The Rival Queens
Alexander
Alexander: Effeminacy and Excess
Alexander: Tyranny in Context
Conclusion
10 ‘[D]evour’d by Luxury’: Gender, Governance and Absolute Kingship in John Crowne’s Darius, King of Persia (1688) and Colley Cibber’s Xerxes (1699)
Introduction: Crisis of Political Authority
John Crowne, Darius and Two Modes of Kingship
Darius and Persia
Colley Cibber, Xerxes, Rebellion and the Divine Right of Kings
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
