Sway of the Ottoman Empire on English identity in the long eighteenth century / by Emily M.N. Kugler.

• Superior document: Brill's studies in intellectual history, v. 209
• Author: Kugler, Emily M. N.
• Year of Publication: 2012
• Language: English
• Series: Brill's studies in intellectual history ; v. 209.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (224 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

This book challenges concepts of an ahistorically powerful England and shows both that the intermingling of Islamic and English Protestant identity was a recurring theme of the eighteenth century, and that this cultural mixing was a topic of debate and anxiety in the English cultural imagination. It charts the way representation of England and the Ottomans changed as England grew into an imperial power. By focusing on texts dealing with the Ottomans, the author argues that we can observe the turning point in public perceptions, the moments when English subjects began to believe British imperial power was a reality rather than an aspiration.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The 'other' England: Ottoman influence on English identity -- Captivity, apostasy, and imperial anxieties: English fantasies and fears of the Ottoman influence -- Arabic castaways in the high and low churches: debating English Protestantism in the seventeenth-century Ibn Tufayl translations -- The Ottoman influence in Robinson Crusoe: failures of English imperial identity -- Race and romance: Othello, Oroonoko and the decline of the Ottoman influence -- "I am not what I am": reimagining Shakespeare's Moor of Venice, 1603-1787 -- Oriental princes and noble slaves: romance models of race in Oroonoko, 1688-1788 -- Conclusion: The continued anxieties of empire: after the Ottoman influence.