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RICE UNIVERSITY "Kin with Kin and Kind with Kind Confound": Pity, Justice, and Family Killing in Early Modern Dramas Depicting Islam by Joy Pasini A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE Doctor of Philosophy ~--- Meredith Skura, Libbie Shearn Moody Professor ofEnge~6) a u avid Cook, Associate Professor, Religious Studies Houston, Texas DECEMBER 2011 Abstract "Kin with Kin and Kind with Kind Confound": Pity, Justice, and Family Killing in Early Modem Dramas Depicting Islam By Joy Pasini This dissertation examines the early modem representation of the Ottoman sultan as merciless murderer of his own family in dramas depicting Islam that are also revenge tragedies or history plays set in empires. This representation arose in part from historical events: the civil wars that erupted periodically from the reign of Sultan Murad I (1362-1389) to that of Sultan Mehmed III (1595-1603) in which the sultan killed family members who were rivals to the throne. Drawing on these events, theological and historical texts by John Foxe, Samuel Purchas, and Richard Knolles offered a distorted image of the Ottoman sultan as devoid of pity for anyone, but most importantly family, an image which seeped into early modem drama. Early modem English playwrights repeatedly staged scenes in the dramas that depict Islam in which one member of a family implores another for pity and to remain alive. However, family killing became diffuse and was not the sole province of the Ottoman sultan or other Muslim character: the Spanish, Romans, and the Scythians also kill their kin. Additionally, they kill members of their own religious, ethnic, and national groups as family killing expands to encompass a more general self destruction, self sacrifice, and self consumption. The presence of the Muslim character, Turk or Moor, serves to underscore the political and religious significance of other characters' family killing. Part of the interest of English playwrights in the Ottoman history of family killing is that England had suffered its own share of family killing or the specter of it during the Wars of the Roses, the Babington Plot against Queen Elizabeth's life, and the martyrdom of many English during the Protestant Reformation. Through an analysis of such plays as Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy, William Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, and Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine I and II, among others, I argue that English playwrights represented family killing to contend with England's past of civil war, its Protestant Reformation present, and its political future. The dramas that depict Islam portray rulers who elevate empire building above kinship bonds and who feel no pity for those in their own kinship, national, or religious groups. The plays illustrate that the emotion, pity, leads a ruler to the just action of extending mercy and that the converse, lack of pity, leads a kingdom or empire to injustice and destruction. The plays ultimately declare empire building unjust because it is pitiless, creating an argument against empire for English audiences. Acknowledgments The completion of this dissertation would not have been possible without the support of the Rice University English department, my family, and a wide circle of friends. First, I am grateful to my committee members. Dr. Meredith Skura's graduate seminars initially inspired me to explore the topic of this project, and her feedback over the years encouraged me to continue it to completion. Dr. Edward Snow's astute questions have provided a basis for improving the project in the future, and Dr. David Cook's attention to detail and meetings over the years have undoubtedly made this a better dissertation. As I worked on this project, I was often acutely aware of the absence of Dr. Elizabeth Dietz who would have been one of my committee members were it not for her passing in 2005. I know that her feedback would have been an invaluable resource for me. Thanks are also due to the professors from my M.A. program at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Dr. Sara Deats and Dr. Lagretta Lenker, who initially sparked my interest in studying the early modem period and who supported me from afar. My parents, Peter and Suzanne Pasini, influenced this project through their conviction that a college education was important, despite (or perhaps because) of the fact that they did not have one themselves. My father also used to quote from Shakespeare's plays and sonnets, although I am positive that he never read any of them nor saw them performed. My sister, Jana Gaspard's early advice about doctoral education rang true many times throughout my completion of this project, and I definitely should have listened to her from the beginning. I know that she wanted me to finish this. v One of the best parts of graduate school is being surrounded by so many brilliant and wonderful people whom you can call friends. I owe special thanks to my friends who provided emotional support during these years, and I will never forget the help they provided me when I was hospitalized in 2008-9: Teresa Wei, Jill Delsigne, Jayme Yeo, Sophie Weeks, Amelia Scholtz, Basak Demirhan, and Elizabeth Womack. During the fmal stretch, getting together with Heba Khan alleviated my stress. Also, over the last year or so, it has been great to reconnect with Shelley Deblasis, with whom I share many memories ofPalm Lake apartments in Tampa, Florida and many of the same dissertation/graduate school challenges. Although I have already mentioned Elizabeth Womack, she deserves to be singled out: she is my closest friend who has supported me through every difficulty I have had in the last eight years, which includes the death of my father in 2007. She also introduced me toTe, House of Tea, the teashop with the ideal ambiance for completing dissertations and theses. Since I find it almost impossible to work at home, it is doubtful I would ever have written a word without going there. Finally, I would like to thank Loren Buckner. She has taught me that relationships can endure and even grow stronger across a distance, and in the moments when I could not see it, she continued to believe that it was meaningful to finish this dissertation. Table of Contents Introduction . 1 Chapter 1: "Justice, oh justice! Oh, my son, my son": the Turk as Argument against Empire in The Spanish Tragedy . 31 Chapter 2: "Let Not Your Sorrows Die though I am Dead": The Anti-Imperial Function of the Moor in Titus Andronicus ........................................................................ 82 Chapter 3: "Conquest Ruthlessly Pursued": The Image of the Turk and Kin Killing in the Argument against Empire in Tamburlaine I and II . 136 Chapter 4: Patricide and Protestant Ascendance in Non Canonical Dramas depicting Islam ............................................................................................. 182 Conclusion: ...................................................................................... 230 Bibliography ..................................................................................... 233 1 INTRODUCTION When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!" --Genesis 22: 9-12 Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one's enemies will be those of his household.' --Matthew 10: 34-6 For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life. --John, 3: 161 This project explores the intersections between early modem drama representing Islam and revenge tragedy by analyzing a subset of the Islamic dramas that are either revenge tragedies or that focus heavily on revenge. In this intersection lies the representation of the Ottoman sultan as pitiless murderer of fellow Muslims and his own family members in pursuit of power within an empire. As the epigraph indicates, Biblical instances of the sacrifice or killing of family members hold out these deeds as proof of one's devotion to God. However, kin killing in 2 the Islamic dramas is proof of devotion to imperial aims and is negative. The emperors and other rulers, whether Muslim or not, destroy family, religious, and national bonds to forge elective bonds of friendship across cultures in order to build an empire. The plays explore the tenuous quality of these bonds and how they fail to endure. The Muslim characters and the imperial settings are then associated with betrayal, vengeance, and kin killing. In some of the plays, the Muslim characters are the kin killers. But in others, the Muslim characters are used to draw attention to the injustice of the kin killing and do not commit this atrocity themselves. The narratives circulating in early modern England about the Ottoman sultan made this function possible. These narratives recounted the wars among him and his sons over the succession to the sultanate. In them, the sultan killed his own sons, and his own sons killed one another. The themes and plot of a subset of the Islamic dramas are influenced by these narratives that portray the Ottoman sultan as a merciless kin killer. Examples of dramas that belong to this subset are Tamburlaine I, II (1587-8), Titus Andronicus (1592?), The Spanish Tragedy (1588), The City Night Cap (1624), The Raging Turk (1618), The Courageous Turk (1619), The Renegado (1624), Selimus (1592), Othello (1604), Osmond, the Great Turk (1619), the Travels of the Three English Brothers (1607), the closet dramas, Mustapha(1594) and Alaham,(1600) and an anonymous play written in Latin called Solymannidae Tragoediae (1581).

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