Not What England Is

This essay compares two pieces of Renaissance travel literature created in England, A Christian Turned Turk, by Robert Daborne, and The Copy of a Speech I made to a Mahometan in the Italian Tongue, by Thomas Coryat, to eachother. The comparrison this paper makes is in how Coryat and Daborne present their Enlgish sensibilities when interacting with Ottoman culture. Daborne interacts with Ottoman culture through characters in a fictional play, while Coryat is writing about a real life personal experience he had. In comparing how both writers react to the East I argue that these two pieces are early entries into the discouse that would become Orientalism.