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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.
List of contents
1. Introduction: the imagined empire.- 2. 'In this noble region': politics and counsel in The Godly Queene Hester (Anonymous, c. 1530).- 3. '[A]dvice unto a Prince': kingship and counsel in Kyng Daryus (Anonymous, 1565) and Cambises (Thomas Preston, c. 1560).- 4. 'A crown enchas'd with pearl and gold': wealth and absolute rule in The Warres of Cyrus (Richard Farrant, 1576-80) and Tamburlaine the Great Parts 1 and 2 (Christopher Marlowe, 1587-8).- '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.- 6. 'Read[ing] philosophy to a king': ideals of monarchy in William Cartwright's The Royall Slave (1636).- 7. '[R]eally acted in Persia': counsel, regicide and restoration in John Denham, The Sophy (1642) and Robert Baron, Mirza (1655).- 8. To 'dispose of Crowns': Conversion, the Authorityof Monarchy and the Issue of Succession: Elkanah Settle's Cambyses (1667).- 9. 'The king, who loves the Persian mode': tyranny and excess in The Rival Queens (1677).- 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).
About the author
Chloë Houston is Associate Professor in the Department of English Literature at the University of Reading, UK.
