Signs of spectacular resistance

Ranging as it does from Dekker to Stockdale, from the end of the sixteenth to the end of the eighteenth centuries, this book returns us again and again to those moments when the contradictory states of releasing and enslaving become peculiarly enmeshed in each other. In this illuminating work, the Spanish Moors... emerge in all their perplexing 'betweenness' as being capable of enslaving their captors. Bekkaoui convincingly argues that the Spanish Moor fulfills the role of a spectrum mentis on the English stage; to act as simulacrum of fear and loathing, but also of admiration and desire. Abandoned by history, the Spanish Moorʹs liminal nature provides Dekker, Dryden, Congreve, Stockdale and numerous others with a theatrical space where they can entertain and explore ambivalent emotions about nationhood and historical destiny... -- Back cover (abridged).