Ottoman_(Pua+Trice)

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Ottoman/Ottomites

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Pua Trice

The Ottoman Empire was one of malice and brutality- at least in the Shakespeare’s point of view. Shakespeare displays a very dark side of the Ottomites, “Twice Shakespeare uses the current idiom ‘to turn Turk’ to express an evil change of fortune. So often, moreover, did the Elizabethans associate the Truks with the barbarous Tartars, whom the Sultan subsidized to help him against the Christian Hungary” (Draper 523). “To turn Turk” is quite derogatory to the Ottoman Empire, as it is Turkey that was the Ottoman Empire. Ottomites, based off of Shakespeare’s depiction, were known as an “evil change of fortune.” They were not wanted, desired, nor found to be good to society. Shakespeare described them as “evil-” an ultimate version of bad. The Ottoman people were not simple bad, they were villainous and likened to the devil. Moreover, “ Some of the more culturally discerning amongst the Elizabethan audience would have been aware of the Janissaries, a feared cadre of the Ottoman elite corps consisting of highly-trained ex-Christian soldiers who had been conscripted into the Ottoman forces and converted to Islam in their youth” (Timol 9). The radical difference between these Shakespeare and the Ottomites was religion. Islamic and Christian religion and doctrine separated these two peoples and caused a great riff. The Ottomites were “feared” because of their “conversion to Islam.” The danger here is the Islamic belief- the “evil change of fortune” being conversion to an ideal other than Christianity. From this description, the audience was forced into believing that the people of Islam, Turkey, the Ottoman Empire were detrimental. They were the kind of people that should be feared and fought, as //Othello// does make a point of fighting and defeating the Turkish people. The Ottomites were used to further the agenda of the Christian Church to try and prove the damaging effects of conversion. The Christian Church oppressed the spread of Islamic Religion by putting down the culture of the Ottoman Empire.

Draper, John W. “Shakespeare and the Turk.” //The Journal of English and Germanic Philology// 55.4 (1956): 523-532. Web. 12 February 2013. Timol, Riyaz. "Putting the Shaykh into Shakespeare." //The Journal of// //English and Germanic Philology//. 120.2 (1972): 3-17. Web. 12 February 2013.