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Character Analysis: Representing Saracens

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Representing Saracens as "Others" in Renaissance Drama During the Renaissance era, the word Saracen has been spread all over England by politicians, social conversations, and also in literary works like drama. This essay intends to discuss the word as an ideology of that age, in which English people consider the Saracens as others, and it will discuss the meaning of "other" and how the Saracens represented in more than one play, also the definition of the word Saracen by talking in brief about its historical roots. The self and other are very obvious in English drama, in which the self is England and the other is the enemy of England. English dramatists tried to satisfy their audiences by performing this ideology on stage. The ideology of otherness includes stereotyping of the other and showing the corruption in their societies, their courts, and even in their mind set. By examining Kyd 's The Spanish Tragedy and relating the play to the war between Spain and England at that time, it is noticed that Kyd reveals the corruption in …show more content…

In The Spanish Tragedy Kyd reveals the destruction of the other, Spain, by defeating them from within, without any fight with England, and this enemy is defeated without a war. Kyd here wants to show the corruption in the court of the enemy of England, which reflexes the corruption of the society as whole; so the corruption of the upper class is a reflection of the corruption in the society, which in its turn leads to the destruction of the other. Unlike the court of England which is shown in Greene 's Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay. Greene praises the court of England and shows the nobility of prince Edward who forgives his friend Lacy, also he shows the King as wise and judicious who gathers all the kings around him and permits the two marriages at the same time, one is the marriage of the prince and the other is the marriage of Lacy, one of a lower

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