Demonization and Détente: Christian Identity and the Elizabethan Foreign Policy in The Jew of Malta

Lihui Liu, Zakeria Kamal

Abstract


Demonization, in Western literature, is most often enacted against so-called “Others” and/or religious minorities. The Jew of Malta challenges this tendency and exposes Christian hypocrisy against other faiths in the Renaissance period. One reason is the Catholic-Protestant opposition, which fractured Europe during the sixteenth century and provoked Elizabeth I to ally with the Ottoman Empire to enhance England's geopolitical position in the face of Spanish anxieties. Employing the New Historicist and constructivist frameworks, the discussion contextualizes the play historically to investigate how Marlow critiques Christian morality and the Elizabethan détente that masked political and economic capital. The religious rhetoric serves as an instrument of power. Both Ferneze and Elizabeth 1 manipulate it to justify their corrupt acts against their rivals. Friars deceive one another, and the nuns' chastity is also called into question. The study suggests the play as a diplomatic theatre, a space where identities are constructed and literature and global politics are mediated.


Keywords


demonization; Christian identity; Elizabethan foreign policy

Full Text:

PDF

References


Babb, Howard S. "Policy in Marlowe's The Jew of Malta." ELH, vol. 24, no. 2, 1957, pp. 85-94.

Badé, Michée. "Demonization of Christians: Missiological Perspectives and Implications." Journal Of Adventist Mission Studies 18.1 (2022): 1-27.

Bajetta, Carlo, Guillaume Coatalen, and Jonathan Gibson. Elizabeth I's Foreign Correspondence: Letters, Rhetoric, and Politics. Springer, 2016.

Bauer, Olivia. "Conditions for Successful Relations: Elizabeth I’s Foreign Policy Towards Muslim Rulers." The UC Santa Barbara Undergraduate Journal of History 3.1 (2023): 1-16.

Bevington, David M. From Mankind to Marlowe: Growth of Structure in the Popular Drama of Tudor England. Harvard University Press, 1962.

Brotton, Jerry. The Sultan and the Queen: The Untold Story of Elizabeth and Islam. Penguin, 2017.

Çakırlar, Ali Özkan. "The Tragedy of Humanity: Christopher Marlowe’s the Jew of Malta Revisited." RumeliDE Dil ve Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi.40 (2024): 841-53.

Calendar of State Papers, Spanish, Elizabeth, 1558–1567, ed. Martin A. S. Hume, vol. 1 (London: HMSO, 1892), p. 48.

Calendar of State Papers, Spanish, Elizabeth, 1558–1567. Edited by Martin A. S. Hume, vol. 1, HMSO, 1892, p. 543.

Cobham, Henry. Letter to Francis Walsingham, 3 Mar. 1582. State Papers Foreign, France, SP 78/7/65. The National Archives, Kew, UK.

Cobham, Henry. Letter to Francis Walsingham. 12 Mar. 1582. State Papers Foreign, France, SP 78/7/70. The National Archives, Kew, UK.

Davis, David J. Seeing Faith, Printing Pictures: Religious Identity During the English Reformation. Vol. 25: Brill, 2013.

Dickason, C. Fred. Demon Possession and the Christian: A New Perspective. Crossway Books, 1989.

Divines, Westminster. The Westminster Confession of Faith. LibriVox, 2010.

Emily, Carolyn. “Malta, the Jew, and the Fictions of Difference: Colonialist Discourse in Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta.” English Literary Renaissance, vol. 20, no. 1, 1990, pp. 1–16.

Finnemore, Martha, and Kathryn Sikkink. "International Norm Dynamics and Political Change." International organization 52.4 (1998): 887-917.

Foxe, John, and George Townsend. The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe: With a Life of the Martyrologist, and Vindication of the Work. Vol. 3: Seeley, Burnside, and Seeley, 1844.

Gallagher, Catherine, and Stephen Greenblatt. Practicing New Historicism. University of Chicago Press, 2000.

Giner-Sorolla, Roger, Bernhard Leidner, and Emanuele Castano. "Dehumanization, Demonization, and Morality Shifting: Paths to Moral Certainty in Extremist Violence." Extremism and the psychology of uncertainty (2012): 165-82.

Great Britain. Public Record Office. Calendar of State Papers, Foreign Series, of the Reign of Elizabeth. Edited by Sophie Crawford Lomas, vol. 20, His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1921, p. 557.

Greenblatt, Stephen J. "The Will to Absolute Play: The Jew of Malta (1589)." Staging the Renaissance. Routledge, 2013. 114-21.

Greenblatt, Stephen. Shakespearean Negotiations: The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England. University of California Press, 1988, p. 12.

Hamilton, Donna B. Anthony Munday and the Catholics, 1560–1633. Routledge, 2017.

Hergert, Balazs. "Ridiculing Hypocrisy in Cultural Differentiation: A Satirical Portrayal on Essentialist Identity Formation in Christopher Marlowe's the Jew of Malta." Itä-Suomen yliopisto, 2023.

Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan, or, the Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill. Vol. 21: Oxford: J. Thornton, 1881.

Hunter, GEORGE K. "The Theology of Marlowe's the Jew of Malta." Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 27.1 (1964): 211-40.

Kraft, Charles H. Defeating Dark Angels: Breaking Demonic Oppression in the Believer's Life. Baker Books, 2011.

Machiavelli, Niccolo. "The Prince (1513)." Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions (1993).

McAdam, Ian. "Carnal Identity in the Jew of Malta." English Literary Renaissance 26.1 (1996): 46-74.

Menpes, B. R. “The Bondage of Barabas: Thwarted Desire in The Jew of Malta.” Parergon, vol. 20, no. 1, 2003, pp. 65–84. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/pgn.2003.0087

Miltimore, Jon. “Queen Elizabeth’s Savvy Response to a Sultan Who Demanded Homage.” Intellectual Takeout: Feeding Minds, Pursuing Truth, 21 Dec. 2016, https://intellectualtakeout.org/2016/12/queen-elizabeths-savvy-response-to-a-sultan-who-demanded-homage/.

Minshull, Catherine. "Marlowe's" Sound Machevill"." Renaissance Drama 13 (1982): 35-53.

Miola, Robert S. Early Modern Catholicism: An Anthology of Primary Sources. OUP Oxford, 2007.

Montrose, Louis A. "Professing the Renaissance: The Poetics and Politics of Culture." The New Historicism. Routledge, 2013. 15-36.

More, Thomas, and RR McCutcheon. "The Responsio Ad Lutherum: Thomas More's Inchoate Dialogue with Heresy." The Sixteenth century journal 22.1 (1991): 77-90.

Morgenthau, Hans J. "The Question of Detente." Worldview 19.3 (1976): 7-13.

Preedy, Chloe. "Bringing the House Down: Religion and the Household in Marlowe's Jew of Malta." Renaissance Studies 26.2 (2012): 163-79.

Questier, Michael C. Conversion, Politics and Religion in England, 1580-1625. Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Quinn, David B, and Anthony N Ryan. England's Sea Empire, 1550-1642. Routledge, 2023.

Roma Gill, David Fuller, Edward J Esche "The Complete Works of Christopher Marlowe Volume Iv: The Jew of Malta." A Clarendon Press Publication, Oxford University Press (1995).

Scheffler, Eben. "Reflecting on (non-) violence in the book of Deuteronomy in (Old Testament) canonical context." Old Testament Essays 27.2 (2014): 579-596.

Smith, Lacey Baldwin. English History Made Brief, Irreverent, and Pleasurable. Chicago Review Press, 2012.

Smith, Lacey Baldwin. Treason in Tudor England: Politics and Paranoia. Princeton UP, 1986.

Susan Doran, Elizabeth I and Foreign Policy, 1558–1603 (London: Routledge, 2000), 118.

Unger, Merrill. What Demons Can Do to Saints. Moody Publishers, 1991.

Wendt, Alexander E. "The Agent-Structure Problem in International Relations Theory." International organization 41.3 (1987): 335-70.

Williams, Raymond. Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. Fountain Press, 1976.

Woodhead, Christine. "England, the Ottomans and the Barbary Coast in the Late Sixteenth Century." State Papers Online: The Government of Britain, 1509 1714 (2009).



View Counter


Abstract - 122
PDF - 36

Refbacks



Copyright (c) 2025 Lihui Liu, Zakeria Kamal

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

                                                       

ISSN: 2454-2296

E-ISSN: 2395-0897