Shakespeare through Islamic Worlds

Shakespeare through Islamic Worlds explores the absence of Islam and Muslims from Shakespeares canon, arguing that Islam and Muslim cultures function as an alternate or shadow text in his works. By focusing on the Muslims at the margins of Shakespeares works, Dadabhoy reveals that Islam and its cultures informed the plots, themes, and intellectual investments of his plays. This innovative book will be of interest to scholars working on race, religion, global and cultural exchange within Shakespeare, as well as people working on Islamic, Mediterranean, and Asian studies in literature and the early modern period.

Format: Hardback
Length: 250 pages
Publication date: 29 February 2024
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Shakespeare's omission of Islam and Muslims from his canon is a topic of exploration in Shakespeare through Islamic Worlds. Despite the setting of many of Shakespeare's plays in the Mediterranean region, which was occupied by Muslim empires and cultures, his work lacks direct engagement with the religion and its people. This absence is particularly striking when compared to the prevalence of this topic in the plays of Shakespeare's contemporaries.

In order to understand the reasons of this erasure, Ambereen Dadabhoy delves into the limited ways in which Shakespeare employs Islamic and Muslim trop cultures and trop. She argues that Islam and Muslim cultures serve as an alternate or shadow text in Shakespeare's works, spanning from his staged Mediterranean plays to his histories and comedies. By excluding the diverse cultures of the Islamic regimes that occupied and populated the early modern Mediterranean, Shakespeare constructs a Europe and Mediterranean that is free from the presence of non-white, non-European, and non-Christian Others, which contradicts the reality of the world in which he lived.

Focusing on the Muslims at the margins of Shakespeare's works, Dadabhoy reveals that Islam and its cultures informed the plots. She restores Islam and Muslims to the geographies and stories from which Shakespeare had evacuated them. This innovative book will appeal to scholars working on race.

Race, religion, global and cultural exchange within Shakespeare, as well as those engaged in Islamic, Mediterranean, and Asian studies in literature and the early modern period.

Weight: 650g
Dimension: 198 x 129 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781032100883