Framing 'India': The Colonial Imaginary in Early Modern Culture

This book explores what Columbus searched for but did not find: India. Rather than study the geographical area denoted by that word, it focuses on the figures of India and the East in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century European thought. By analyzing how these figures functioned, Framing India sketches the emergence of a European colonial imaginary: ways of thinking, acting, and representing patterns of behavior that made India productive (in all senses of the word) for early modern Europe. Through careful readings of early modern cartography, Cam>es s The Lusiads, Fletcher s The Island Princess, Dryden s Amboyna, and Shakespeare s A Midsummer Night s Dream, the author reveals the subtle but formative relationships between material practices and artistic representations of India. While placing particular emphasis on England s stage representations, the book also describes England s belated entry into and eventual success in Eastern trade and colonization within broader historical and intellectual contexts. Throughout, the author draws upon a wide range of philosophical and literary texts, maps, and historical documents.