Before Orientalism: London's Theatre of the East, 1576-1626

by Richmond Barbour

Overview

This volume examines early Anglo-Indian relations through trade (with the establishment of the East India Company), tourism, and diplomacy and reveals important differences between traveller reports and the representations of London's press and stage. Richmond Barbour looks closely at exotic visions of "the East," as staged in the playhouses, at court, and on the streets of Shakespeare's London. He follows the efforts of the newly established East India Company, and the careers of England's first tourist and first ambassador in India, Thomas Coryate and Sir Thomas Roe.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521650472
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	10/16/2003
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture , #45
Pages:	254
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.67(d)

About the Author

Richmond Barbour is Associate Professor of English at Oregon State University. His published articles have appeared in Criticism, Publications of the Modern Language Association (PMLA), Journal of English and German Philology (JEGP) and The Huntington Library Quarterly.

Table of Contents

Prelude: the cultural logistics of England's Eastern initiative; Part I. Staging 'the East' in England: 1. 'The glorious empire of the Turks, the present terrour of the world'; 2. Exotic persuasions in the playhouse: Tamburlaine the Great; Antony and Cleopatra; 3. Imperial poetics in royal and civic spectacle; Interlude: imaging home and travel; Part II. Inaugural Scenes in the Eastern Theatre: 4. Thomas Coryate and the invention of tourism; 5. Sir Thomas Roe and the embassy to India, 1615–19; Afterword.

Editorial Reviews

"Barbour's work is an important contribution to colonial discourse analysis and the (orientalized?) cultural history of the early modern period." Sixteenth Century Journal

From the Publisher