This book argues that the sixteenth-century preoccupation with rehabilitating English tells the larger story of an anxious nation redirecting attention away from its own marginal, minority status by racially scapegoating the 'barbarous' African.

Autorentext
IAN SMITH is Associate Professor of English at Lafayette College and has published on early modern drama as well as postcolonial literature.

Inhalt
Introduction: Barbarous African, Barbarous English and the Transactions of Race Classical Precedents Race in Perspective Barbarian Genealogies Instructing the English Nation Shakespeare's Africans: Performing Cultural Whiteness Epilogue: Imperialism's Legacy, or The 'Language of the Criminal'