ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as background to the two centuries on which this survey focuses. It shows how popular ballads in Samuel Pepys’ collection depicted Turks (which denoted Muslims) as enemies, womanizers and even as idol worshippers who cannot be trusted. Even as some Protestants linked Islam and Catholicism as similar heresies, others hoped for a Protestant-Muslim alliance against Catholics. As trade with the Ottomans developed, many items found their way into British homes while coffee houses became places where modern civil society discourse emerged. It examines the iconic Turk plays of Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare which broke ranks with the popular demonization of Muslims by rejecting the automatic assumption that Christians are good, Muslims bad. Marlowe and Shakespeare thought that mutually beneficial trade and cultural exchange would reduce the likelihood of conflict and unhealthy competition.
