With the conversion of the house of Osman into a great empire between the 14th and 15th centuries, the Ottoman Turks became one of the principal preoccupations of the Spanish, whose rival empire meant conflict between the two superpowers...
moreWith the conversion of the house of Osman into a great empire between the 14th and 15th centuries, the Ottoman Turks became one of the principal preoccupations of the Spanish, whose rival empire meant conflict between the two superpowers of their time was inevitable. The Ottomans were a subject of utmost interest in all parts of society from the king’s courtyard to the local marketplace. As the ‘Turkish problem’ manifested itself in historical treatises, autobiographical accounts of captivity, exhortations and travel writing, the Turkish theme’s popularity in literary fiction became more and more apparent, above all in chivalric romances. As Spanish drama developed in the 16th century, it was inevitable that the Turks would figure in an art that frequently drew upon recent or past historical events. From the first known appearance of a Turk in a play performed in 1519 that dealt with the election of the next Habsburg emperor, there were many dramas in which the Ottoman theme played an important part. The present research studies the Turkish theme in Spanish drama of the 16th and 17th centuries when the majority of «Turk plays» were produced. Researchers of the early modern English drama use this term to designate a specific genre. Its boundaries are not always well-defined, yet it helps situate the Turk better within a broader frame such as Orientalism. In a similar vein, this dissertation proposes the denomination «obras turquescas» for the plays it analyses in order to differentiate them from other works such as «obras moriscas», in which these works are often included. This separation aims to consolidate further the place of the Turk in Spanish drama and facilitate a detailed and far reaching critical study of this genre.
In order to further focus our definition, the genre needs to be understood in the context of the turquerie movement studied by Albert Mas studies in his seminal work Les Turcs dans la littérature espagnole du Siècle d'Or, which only considers those comedias, in which Turks play a central role and the Turkish identity of characters is more or less clear, are taken into consideration. Through a comparison with the Moor and Morisco plays, it is shown that Turk plays in Spanish drama demonstrate a clearly definable set of tendencies from the representation of historical events of the 16th century to the calamities of Christian captives in Ottoman territories. The study of these themes and motifs, as well as the image of the Turk, through the analysis of each play constitute the central methodology of this project. Its aim is to show the prominence of the Turkish theme within the Spanish drama of the 16th and 17th centuries and analyse the principal themes and motifs found in Turk plays and so contribute to advancing the study of this fascinating question. After making concrete how to define Turk plays in Spanish drama, the individual dramas are analysed one by one, some grouped together thematically, to facilitate their comparative historical understanding.
The background of each work is taken into consideration, their connection to historical fact and sources, since often they reflect on events from the past rather than recent news. Surprisingly, only two of the plays, the Prodigioso príncipe transilvano (1596) and La nueva victoria del marqués de Santa Cruz (1604), take contemporary events as their subject matter. This is related to the attenuation of the conflict between the Spanish and Ottoman empires after the truce of 1578. Paradoxically, interest in the Turkish theme began in earnest only after this date. There are a number of possible explanations for this; one is the state of development of the Spanish stage itself which was undergoing rapid development at just this time. Turk plays in Spain treating battles or sieges would have been difficult to stage before the establishment of the permanent theatres. Secondly, the time for the emergence of a playwright who would immerse himself in Turkish themes and help it become popular among the companies and theatregoers alike, was propitious, producing none other than Miguel de Cervantes, touched so closely and personally by the theme, and followed by other eminent figures such as Lope de Vega and Luis Vélez de Guevara. Thirdly, the popularity of the Turkish theme might have been related to its usefulness as a tool of propaganda. Despite the truce of 1578, the Turks continued their advance into Christian territories, especially in the Balkans. The Turkish threat, although diminished, didn’t cease until the second siege of Vienna in 1683. The Spanish Empire had lost its lustre as a superpower by the turn of the 16th century, owing to constant bankruptcies and the insoluble and exhausting wars in the Low Countries. The playwrights looked back on the great victories of the past century, when the Holy Roman emperor, Charles V, and his son Philip II had ruled Spain and they cherished the splendour of their country and sought to remind the public of its past greatness. Although Spain was in reality no longer the Antemurale Christianitatis, that is, the bulwark of Christianity, against the forces of the Ottoman Empire, its legacy as such lived on in the field of drama.
The major Turk plays of Spanish drama were performed between 1595 and 1610. The posterior works are mostly adaptations, except for a few like El tirano castigado (1671). It is possible to divide these plays in three major categories: captivity narratives, conflicts between the Spanish and Ottoman empires, and conflicts between the Ottoman Empire and other Christian states. Aside from these themes, there are a number of plays that revolve around infamous Turk and anti-Turk figures such as Barbarossa, Skënderbeu, and Timur. Captivity plays can be divided into two subcategories: the representation of Christian captives at the hands of the Ottomans and the rise to power of a Christian at the Ottoman court. Works based upon a conflict between the two empires, restaging specific battles and sieges such as Vienna in 1529 or the naval battle of Lepanto of 1571, are less common, along with the third type dealing with the conflicts between the Turks and other Christian states. The Spanish presence, through a central or subsidiary character, is a common feature of all these plays. Although some of the plays fall into more than one category, this method helps us see the major movements within the genre of Turk plays and tease out the common features in similar subgenres. Within the category of captivity plays there are a number of plays that are set in the Ottoman-Safavid war where a Christian subject of the Ottomans goes to fight against the Persians.
The body of analysis offers a number of conclusions. Firstly, the common features of the image of the Turk. The Great Turk, the archetypal figure presented as a mirror of Ottoman society, develops across the corpus of plays and although the evolution is at times erratic, common elements can be identified, a common image made up of a series of elements adding up to a figure who is arrogant, lustful, dastardly, and effeminate. This image derives from four major sources available to the playwrights; treatises on the history of the Ottoman Empire, exhortations, travel books and captivity accounts. A second element of great importance is the presence of Christians in almost all of the Turk plays in Spain. They are introduced in three distinct ways, as adversaries, captives or subjects of the Great Turk. As enemies of the Ottoman Empire, they fight against the Turks on various fronts ranging from the Western Mediterranean to the Balkans. When they appear as captives, their adversities and misfortunes are the centre of attention, either physical or spiritual. Christian subjects of the house of Osman are not safe from these calamities and the focus of their representation is the ill treatment they receive from the Turks in return for their loyalty. All in all, Turkish society is shown as a perilous and treacherous place where Christians must hold firm to their faith in order to survive. Thus, even though the mocking of the Great Turk and through him his subjects is a recurrent theme in these plays, the real fear and threat that the Ottoman Empire posed for Christians is also always present. The analysis also lets us see the general characteristics of a Muslim of Turkish nationality – absolute loyalty to his tyrannical monarch and obstinacy in following a vicious sect, that is, Islam. All of these aspects of Ottoman Turkish society are contrasted at every opportunity with the Christian world. Therefore, although there are a few works that are exceptional, Turk plays serve as antithetical pieces that act like a seesaw, with the Turk sitting on one side and the Christian on the other.
The study of the Turk plays as a standalone genre within this dissertation helps to pinpoint the place of the Turk within Spanish drama and Spain’s imaginary parcelling off the broader theme of Moors and Moriscos. Moreover, with this approach it is possible to see how these major plays and their themes and motives affected one another and other minor works of the turquerie movement. This method, as well as the data gathered from the analyses, are expected to help future studies tackle the issue of the Turk play and on a broader scale, the image of the Turk in European literature.
