Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage
Jane Hwang Degenhardt
Abstract
This book explores the theme of Christian conversion to Islam in twelve early-modern English plays by Shakespeare, Marlowe, Massinger and others. In these works, conversion from Christianity to Islam is represented as both erotic and tragic: as a sexual seduction and a fate worse than death. The book examines the theatre's treatment of the intercourse between the Christian and Islamic faiths to reveal connections between sexuality, race and confessional identity in early modern English drama and culture. In addition, it shows how England's encounter with Islam reanimated post-Reformation debat ... More
Keywords: Shakespeare, Marlowe, Massinger, confessional identity, post-Reformation, Pauline universalism, Christian martyrdom, relics, rituals, Knights of Malta
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2010 | Print ISBN-13: 9780748640843 |
| Published to Edinburgh Scholarship Online: March 2012 | DOI:10.3366/edinburgh/9780748640843.001.0001 |
