Robert Greene, Selimus

Brinda Charry (Keene State College)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.03: English Writing and Culture: Renaissance (Elizabethan and Jacobean periods) , 1485-1625.
Vol. editors: William M. Hamlin (Washington State University), J A Roe (University of York), Virginia Mason Vaughan (Clark University), Ema Vyroubalova (Trinity College Dublin)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1595

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Play

Resources

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Selimus, Emperour of the Turks

was published anonymously in a quarto edition in 1594. Most scholars agree that the play was written by Robert Greene, though sections of it are attributed to unknown collaborators. Greene probably composed the play in early 1588 when it was added to the repertoire of the Queen's Men.

Today Selimus is often categorized among one of the “Turk plays” of the English Renaissance. These plays draw their inspiration from European accounts of Turks and the Ottoman Empire – which was expanding through North Africa and Eastern Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and would besiege Vienna in 1683 – and make Euro-Muslim (or more specifically Euro-Turkish) encounters their central theme. The “Selimus” of the title of Greene's play is a reference

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850 words

Citation: Charry, Brinda. "Selimus". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 August 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=21667, accessed 23 May 2024.]

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