Mimesis and Empire
The New World, Islam, and European Identities

This 2001 book offers a comparative look at European and New World early modern culture.

Barbara Fuchs (Author)

9780521801027, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 August 2001

228 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.451 kg

'An intelligent and balanced book - and a necessary eye-opener on the triangulation of Europe, the Mediterranean and America in the early modern period.' Seventeenth Century News

As powerful, pointed imitation, cultural mimesis can effect inclusion in a polity, threaten state legitimacy, or undo the originality upon which such legitimacy is based. In Mimesis and Empire , first published in 2001, Barbara Fuchs explores the intricate dynamics of imitation and contradistinction among early modern European powers in literary and historiographical texts from sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Spain, Italy, England and the New World. The book considers a broad sweep of material, including European representations of New World subjects and of Islam, both portrayed as 'other' in contemporary texts. It supplements the transatlantic perspective on early modern imperialism with an awareness of the situation in the Mediterranean and considers problems of reading and literary transmission; imperial ideology and colonial identities; counterfeits and forgery; and piracy.

Introduction
1. Truth, fictions, and the New World
2. Literary loyalties, imperial betrayals
3. Lettered subjects
4. Virtual Spaniards
5. Faithless empires
6. Pirating Spain
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]