An Orientalist Reading of Thomas Preston’s Cambyses: A Lamentable Tragedy Mixed Full of Pleasant Mirth

Abstract

The study aims at the application of Edward Said’s views in his seminal work Orientalism (2003) to Thomas Preston’s play Cambyses. After thorough study, the researchers have extracted some of the key and relevant assumptions from Said’s Orientalism and rigorously applied them to the play. The researchers’ main contention is that Preston, like other contemporary writers, has intentionally misrepresented the Orient and Oriental characters with a view to establishing and asserting the Western cultural superiority. The playwright did so due to the pervasive ideology of the period which was based on denigration and demonization of the cultural others. The findings of the research substantiate the researchers’ contention that Preston’s Cambyses explicitly evinces his Eurocentric perspectives which is Said’s focal point in Orientalism.