Shaping Spanishness Literary Hispanophobia and Hispanophilia in England and the Netherlands, ca. 1554-1621

This thesis explores the extraordinary interplay between Hispanophobia and Hispanophilia in Dutch and English literature in the period spanning between 1554-1621. In four chapters, it argues that through contact with Spain, Spaniards, and/or Spanish culture (either direct contact within the Spanish Empire and/or places frequented by Spaniards or indirect contact through (translated) Spanish literature and imported Spanish products) ideas of Spanishness evolved in variegated ways in England and the Netherlands. Instead of shaping Spanishness (those distinctive aspects of Spaniards, Spain, and Spanish culture that supposedly are characteristic of Spanish “national” identity) exclusively within a Hispanophobic framework, Englishmen and Netherlanders of the long sixteenth century used a fluid set of representations of Spain and Spaniards in their literary sources. These images could be placed within a gradated spectrum, ranging from fervent Hispanophobia to explicit Hispanophilia, and shaped not only Spanishness but also Englishness and Netherlandishness. The three main arguments of this thesis are: 1) Translations and appropriations of Spanish literary works are essential contributors to the representation of Spanishness in England and the Netherlands; 2) Spanishness is a varied, multi-layered, fluid, transferable notion, and a vital part of both the hetero-image and the self-image of Englishmen and Netherlanders; and 3) Cultural contact between Englishmen, Netherlanders, and Spaniards played a key role in the shaping of Spanishness in Dutch and English literary works. Ultimately, this thesis argues that images of Spain and Spaniards, as well as those of Englishmen and Netherlanders, were unstable in the late sixteenth century and early seventeenth century. They do not offer a consistent or exclusively negative or positive representation of Spanishness, Englishness, or Netherlandishness.