Persia in Early Modern English Drama, 1530–1699: The Imagined Empire

Acknowledgements
Praise for Persia in Early Modern English Drama, 1530–1699
Contents
1 Introduction: The Imagined Empire
	Robert Brancetour: The First English Traveller to Safavid Persia
	Early Modern English Theatre and the East: The Place of Persia and Plays of Persia
	Tudor Plays of Persia
	Plays of Persia in the Stuart Period and the Inter-Regnum
	Restoration Plays of Persia
2 ‘In This Noble Region’: Politics and Counsel in The Godly Queene Hester (Anonymous, c. 1530)
	Introduction
		Godly Queene Hester
	Hester: The Political Contexts
	Conclusion
3 ‘[A]dvice Unto a Prince’: Kingship and Counsel in Kyng Daryus (Anonymous, 1565) and Cambises (Thomas Preston, c. 1560)
	Introduction
	Kyng Daryus
	Cambises
4 ‘A Crown Enchas’d with Pearl and Gold’: Wealth and Absolute Rule in The Warres of Cyrus (Richard Farrant, 1576–1580) and Tamburlaine the Great Parts 1 and 2 (Christopher Marlowe, 1587–1588)
	Introduction: Persian Gold
	The Warres of Cyrus
	Tamburlaine the Great Parts 1 and 2
	Conclusion
5 ‘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
	Introduction: Perceptions of Persia at the Turn of the Century
	Alexander, Daniel, and the Revival of Classical Persia
	The Sherley Brothers and Persia in Early Modern English Travel Writing
	The Travailes of the Three English Brothers (1607)
	Conclusion
6 ‘Read[ing] Philosophy to a King’: Ideals of Monarchy in William Cartwright’s The Royall Slave (1636)
	Introduction: The Sherleys and the Failure of a ‘Diplomatic Fiction’
	William Cartwright and The Royall Slave
	Kingship in The Royall Slave
	Conclusion: Detaching from Contemporary Persia
7 ‘[R]eally Acted in Persia’: Counsel, Regicide and Restoration in John Denham, the Sophy (1642) and Robert Baron, Mirza (1655)
	Introduction: Persia and the Divine Right of Kings
		The Sophy
		Mirza
	Conclusion
8 To ‘Dispose of Crowns’: Conversion, the Authority of Monarchy and the Issue of Succession: Elkanah Settle’s Cambyses (1667)
	Introduction: Cambyses’ Dedication
	Conversion and Identity
	Authority in Cambyses
	Conclusion
9 ‘The King, Who Loves the Persian Mode’: Tyranny and Excess in Nathaniel Lee’s The Rival Queens (1677)
	Introduction: The Rival Queens
	Alexander
	Alexander: Effeminacy and Excess
	Alexander: Tyranny in Context
	Conclusion
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)
	Introduction: Crisis of Political Authority
	John Crowne, Darius and Two Modes of Kingship
	Darius and Persia
	Colley Cibber, Xerxes, Rebellion and the Divine Right of Kings
	Conclusion
Bibliography
Index