The Taming of the Turk

Bent Holm, born 1946, MA, Phil.Doc. Until 2014 associate professor, Institute for Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen. Research travels to Italy, France and India. Doctoral dissertation 1991, Solkonge og Månekejser. Ikonografiske studier i Francois Fossards Cabinet (‘Sun King and Emperor of the Moon. Iconographic Studies in Francois Fossard’s Cabinet’), about the Comédie Italienne in an anthropological and iconographic context. Has published interdisciplinary studies on historical and dramaturgical issues in Danish, English, Italian, French and Polish. Dramaturg; published Holberg på tværs. Fra forskning til forestilling (2013; ‘Provoking Holberg. From Study to Stage’) about the interplay between scholarly research and artistic creativity. Translator of plays, among others by Dario Fo and Carlo Goldoni. Received the Holberg Medal 2000. Cavaliere della Stella della Solidarietà Italiana 2006.

Contents
Introduction
Perceptions of ‘the Turk’
Them and Us
The Graveyard of Culture – the Scrapheap of History
The Kaleidoscope of History
Identity and Staging
Images and Voices
Chapter 1
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: Conspiracy and Apocalypse
War and Coronation
The Turk and the Pope
Heresy and Nonbelief
The Tamed Turk
Popular Belief and ‘the Enemy’
Chapter 2
The Eighteenth Century: Parody and Pedagogy
War and Masquerade
Parody and Paranoia
The Commercial Stage
The Theatrical Stage
The New Turk
The Turk in Paris
The Turk in Vienna
The Turk in Copenhagen
The Dane and the Turk
The Christian Knight
Nation at War
The Swede and the Turk
The Turk and the People
The Real Seraglio
Far from Farce?
Chapter 3
The Nineteenth Century: Carnival and Casino
Exotic Romanticism
The Turk in the Cage
Portrait of the Artist as Young Woman
The Near East
The Pope, the Turk and the German
Far from Denmark?
Harem and History
Afterword
Synthesis and Retraction
Interplay and Openness
Symbol and Stereotype
Prophecy and Polyphony
Appendix
Select Bibliography
Index