Ottoman Eurasia in Early Modern German Literature: Cultural Translations (Francisci, Happel, Speer)

Williams, Gerhild Scholz

doi:doi:10.3998/mpub.11784447

Gerhild Scholz Williams

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Even a casual perusal of seventeenth-century European print production makes clear that the Turk was on everyone's mind. Europe's confrontation of and interaction with the Ottoman Empire in the face of what appeared to be a relentless Ottoman expansion spurred news delivery and literary production in multiple genres, from novels and sermons to calendars and artistic representations. The trans-European conversation stimulated by these media, most importantly the regularly delivered news reports, not only kept the public informed but provided the basis for literary conversations among many seventeenth-century writers, three of whom form the center of this inquiry: Daniel Speer (1636-1707), Eberhard Werner Happel (1647-1690), and Erasmus Francisci (1626-1694). The expansion of the Ottoman Empire during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries offers the opportunity to view these writers' texts in the context of Europe and from a more narrowly defined Ottoman Eurasian perspective.

Ottoman Eurasia in Early Modern German Literature: Cultural Translations (Francisci, Happel, Speer) explores the variety of cultural and commercial conversations between Europe and Ottoman Eurasia as they negotiated their competing economic and hegemonic interests. Brought about by travel, trade, diplomacy, and wars, these conversations were, by definition, "cross-cultural" and diverse. They eroded the antagonism of "us and them," the notion of the European center and the Ottoman periphery that has historically shaped the view of European-Ottoman interactions.

Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction
1. Talking about the Enemy
2. The Turk in Fact and Fiction
3. Crossing Borders
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index

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The left half is an illustration showing a battle. Men, many wearing turbans, flee from an overturned cart in the foreground, while men fight and raise flags in the background. An eagle, representing the German Empire, and two cherubs fly over the battle. The right half is the title page in red and black lettering.

Frontispiece of Erasmus Francisci, Adler=Blitz

From Chapter 1

Fig. 1. (left) Frontispiece; (right) title page of Erasmus Francisci, Der blutig-lang=gereitzte/ endlich Sieghafft=entzündte/ Adler=Blitz (Nuremberg: Johann Andreas Endters Seel. Söhne, 1684). Courtesy of Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel: M: QuN 100 (1).