Doppelgänger dilemmas : Anglo-Dutch relations in early modern English literature and culture / Marjorie Rubright.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rubright, Marjorie, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English literature--Early modern, 1500-1700--History and criticism.

English literature.

Cultural relations in literature.

Ethnicity in literature.

National characteristics, English, in literature.

Great Britain--Relations--Netherlands.

Great Britain.

Netherlands--Relations--Great Britain.

Netherlands.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (351 p.)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2014]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The Dutch were culturally ubiquitous in England during the early modern period and constituted London's largest alien population in the second half of the sixteenth century. While many sought temporary refuge from Spanish oppression in the Low Countries, others became part of a Dutch diaspora, developing their commercial, spiritual, and domestic lives in England. The category "Dutch" catalyzed questions about English self-definition that were engendered less by large-scale cultural distinctions than by uncanny similarities. Doppelgänger Dilemmas uncovers the ways England's real and imagined proximities with the Dutch played a crucial role in the making of English ethnicity. Marjorie Rubright explores the tensions of Anglo-Dutch relations that emerged in the form of puns, double entendres, cognates, homophones, copies, palimpsests, doppelgängers, and other doublings of character and kind. Through readings of London's stage plays and civic pageantry, English and Continental polyglot and bilingual dictionaries and grammars, and travel accounts of Anglo-Dutch rivalries and friendships in the Spice Islands, Rubright reveals how representations of Dutchness played a vital role in shaping Englishness in virtually every aspect of early modern social life. Her innovative book sheds new light on the literary and historical forces of similitude in an era that was so often preoccupied with ethnic and cultural difference.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Introduction: Double Dutch

Chapter 1. Going Dutch in London City Comedy

Chapter 2. ''By Common Language Resembled'': Anglo-Dutch Kinship in the Language Debates

Chapter 3. Double Dutch Tongues: Language Lessons of the Stage

Chapter 4. Dutch Impressions: The Narcissism of Minor Difference in Print

Chapter 5. London as Palimpsest: The Anglo-Dutch Royal Exchange

Chapter 6. Doppelganger Dilemmas: The Crisis of Anglo-Dutch Interchangeability in the East Indies and the Imperfect Redress of Performance

Coda: A View from Antwerp

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgments

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780812290066

0812290062

OCLC:

896890228