Selim I (1512-1520) is one of the most renowned Ottoman sultans, and his legacy in Turkey varies between loathing and admiration, depending on socio-religious context. Though praised for being a strong warrior sultan who paved the way for the conquest of Eastern Europe during the reign of his son, Süleyman the Magnificent, Selim I’s often Machiavellian manoeuvres to secure rule over Eastern Anatolia against the Safavids have been a focal point of criticism of his reign. The awe and fear that surrounded Selim I also made him popular beyond Ottoman realms in the early modern period. In England, depictions of Selim I did not only build upon the fearful image of the Turk but became a generative force furthering that image, especially in early modern English drama. Not only through their sensationalist plots, but also through stage architecture, costume, cosmetics and audio-visual theatrical effects, the image of Selim I performed in various plays between 1582 and 1618 created a versatile and complex envisioning of the Turkish sultan in the early modern English consciousness.

For instance, in the university play Solymannidae (1582), Selim I is portrayed as the spirit of a tormented and cruel ruler who represents a haunted past of fratricide and patricide. The play is about the notorious filicides of Süleyman the Magnificent and traces the legacy of filicide or fratricide in the matters of succession to Selim I. At the very beginning of the play, as the chorus describes, the ground splits open, smoke rises, and a person appears with flaming hair. Demonic cosmetics, Turkish garments, and the smell and smoke of pyrotechnics depict the Turks in hell for their foul and aggressive domestic and foreign policies—this staging capitalises upon the racial othering of the Turks to re-affirm the righteousness of the audience’s Anglican identity. Thus, the historic legacy of Selim I is manipulated into early modern identity politics.

In contrast, the same Selim I is portrayed in George Salterne’s university play Tomumbeius (c. 1592) as an exemplary ruler who managed state affairs with common sense in his conflict with the Mamluk State.

Dr Faustus conjuring Mephistopheles (1620) available via Wikipedia

Almost parodying the appearance of Selim I in the former play, and very reminiscent of Marlovian depictions of conjuration, Selimus’s vision appears after necromantic spells are cast by the Mamluks to spy upon the sultan. Although the Mamluks of the play are certain of Selimus’s warmongery, the scene reveals the contrary and Selimus I is forced to abandon his plans for a peace treaty after the Mamluks kill his envoy in Egypt. Aside from being exceptional in its positive portrayal of Selim I, George Salterne’s play also sheds light onto the fluidity of apparently stereotypical costumes and other stage effects in early modern English drama. 

Reaffirming the general Turco-phobic attitude, Robert Greene’s play Selimus I (1592) presents the Ottoman sultan as a person who sees any route to power as permissible. This drive to reach that power is maintained not only through the future sultan’s dialogue, but also through careful, and often neglected, means of stagecraft.

Title page of Greene’s Selimus (1594) available via Boston Public Library

As the stage directions indicate, while Selimus is surrounded with often non-speaking Janissary characters, Bajazet II remains isolated for most of the time in the play.

Image of a Janissary from Nicolas de Nicolay’s Les Navigations Peregrinationset Voyages, Faicts en La Tvrqvie (1576) available via National Library of Norway

Apart from the several on- and off-stage battles, the very crowdedness of the stage through Selimus’s attendants in Turkish garments becomes a theatrical marker of the feared exotic monarch. 

Reversing that perspective, Thomas Goffe’s The Raging Turke, or Baiazett II (1618) focuses on how the fictional Bayezid, spelled in the play as Bayezet, tried to prevent his son from prematurely ascending the throne. This shift in focus is mainly achieved by almost ignoring the towering presence of the many Selimus characters in early modern English drama.

Image of a Bayezid II I from Richard Knolles’s The Generall Historie of the Turkes (1603, 1621) available via LUNA

Towards the end of the play, Bayezet’s dead family members appear in his dreams through the Nemesis, the goddess of revenge. They torment him until he dies, and, as an authorial reimagining of history, he is succeeded not by Selimus but Süleyman the Magnificent. Solemn music, the cosmetics of the ghosts, and props such as swords and candles create an eerie atmosphere for Bayezet’s exit, further foregrounding him. The fact that Bayezet feels like he is in hell, that the ghosts carry him out after killing him, and that his son Selimus is rarely spoken about, do appear to reflect how the conventionally prominent Selimus character is put into a secondary position throughout the play. However, Selimus’s absence along with Bayezet’s supernatural murder, reminiscent of Selimus’s appearance in the Solymannidae, might have been intentionally employed by Goffe to create a vicious circle of patri-, fili- and infanticide centred on the legacy of Selim I as depicted in early modern English drama.

Selim I had many lives in early modern English drama vacillating between awe and fear, much in line with the sultan’s real legacy in Turkey. The use of audio and visual effects created by the costume, cosmetics, pyrotechnics and stage choreography have been instrumental in the fossilisation of the racial othering of not only the Turkish monarch but also Turks in general.

Selected Bibliography

Öğütcü, Murat. “Materializing Mamluks and Turks in Salterne’s Tomumbeius”. Materializing the East in Early Modern English Drama. Eds. Murat Öğütcü and Aisha Hussain. London: Arden Bloomsbury, 2023. 17-38. [forthcoming] https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/materializing-the-east-in-early-modern-english-drama-9781350300453/

Öğütcü, Murat. “Selimus: Rönesans İngiliz Tiyatrosunda Yavuz Sultan Selim’in Sahnelenmesi”. Proceedings of Yavuz Sultan Selim Conference. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2023. [forthcoming]

 Title Image: Image of Selim I from Richard Knolles’s The Generall Historie of the Turkes (1603, 1621) available via LUNA