This thesis examines the role of Elizabethan and Jacobean (1558-1625) drama in establishing an English national identity. Englands burgeoning trade relationship with the Ottoman Empire brought merchants into contact with exotic commodities and the mystical religion of Islam. This new relationship with the East caused religious anxieties towards Muslims in an England already engaged in religious warfare with Catholic Spain. These fears towards Islam presented themselves in pamphlets, proclamations, poems, and captivity narratives. To explore the dangers of crossing boundaries, this thesis chronologically examines dramas engaging with the East, published by Thomas Heywood, Robert Daborne, and Philip Massinger. Scenes of piracy, captivity, and conversion demonstrate the dangers of crossing the geographical boundaries from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, and the moral boundaries of illicit piracy and sex. These works also demonstrate the fluidity of conversion by blurring the lines between privateer and pirate, English and Ottoman, and Christian and Muslim.