The Renegado

the long version

"The Renegado is one of the most shamelessly entertaining plays of its age: taking its inspiration from a number of works by Cervantes, based on his own experiences as a captive in Algiers, it looks forward to such better known oriental extravaganzas as Mozart's The Abduction from the Seraglio. Even as it indulges in romantic fantasy, The Renegado engages with contentious issues of national and international polities, offering a provocative response to the sectarian feuds dividing England in the 1620s, while exploiting wider European fears of the expansionist Muslim empire of the Ottomans. The conflict with Turkey, which centred on competition for control of Eastern commerce, was typically interpreted as an extension of the long war between Christendom and Islam. Thus The Renegado, through its treatment of commercial confrontation and religious conversion, offers important insights into early modern constructions of the Islamic world, and emerges as a play with unexpected resonances for our own time." "Arden Early Modern Drama editions offer the best in contemporary scholarship, providing a wealth of helpful and incisive commentary and guiding the reader to a deeper understanding and appreciation of the play."--Jacket.