Beyond the crescent: rethinking the Turk in Dryden’s literary oeuvre

This article explores John Dryden’s shifting portrayals of the ‘Turk’ across his plays and prose, showing how the figure oscillates between comic caricature and ideological threat. In Restoration comedies, the Turk appears as a farcical symbol of disguise, lust, or bravado, reflecting the stage’s fascination with cultural masquerade. In contrast, Dryden’s serious works – tragedies, political verse, and religious prose – cast the Turk as a symbol of tyranny and religious otherness. Here, the Ottoman figure becomes a rhetorical tool to contrast English liberty with Eastern despotism. Rather than offering a consistent image of the Turk, Dryden uses the figure to navigate the political, religious, and theatrical tensions of Restoration England, revealing more about domestic anxieties than foreign realities.