The Poetics of English Nationhood, 1590–1612 (Cambridge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture, Series Number 13) - Hardcover

McEachern, Claire

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 052157031X ISBN 13: 9780521570312

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1996

Synopsis

The Poetics of English Nationhood is a study of the formation of English national identity during the early modern period. Claire McEachern shows how the representation of faith, fatherland and crown in Tudor texts continually personified English political institutions. Those texts we traditionally label literary, she argues, already encode and personify power relations, thereby reinforcing the idea of the nation as an imaginary force. McEachern's study revises our understanding of the term "literary" through an examination of Spenser, Shakespeare and Drayton, tracing the means by which an English national identity was inscribed as part of an enduring social order.

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From the Back Cover

The Poetics of English Nationhood is a study of the formation of English national identity during the early modern period. Claire McEachern argues for the role of Reformation religious culture in the shaping of a Tudor-Stuart nation, and examines its presence in the writings of Spenser, Shakespeare, and Drayton. She shows how in their work the concept of nationality is always fluid; it crucially depends on a sense of intimacy that seeps across and above hierarchies and boundaries. McEachern shows how different kinds of language - literary, exegetical, parliamentary - personify power, thereby sealing the intimacy which binds the nation as an imagined community. The representation of faith, motherland, and crown in Tudor-Stuart texts, she argues, continually personified English political institutions, promoting both social order and collective unity. By focusing on the rhetorical forms of cultural unity in the Reformation era, McEachern traces a profound shift from a monarchically defined Englishness to a system based within the cultural institution of the common law.

Review

"McEachern's Nationhood offers tightly focused analyses and contextual discussions...." Arthur Williamson, 16th Century Jrnl

"...fascinating study of the intersections of history and literature.... The poetics of English nationhood, 1590-1612 is an important book. Its readings, bold and imaginative, are informed by an impressive scholarly breadth and by a layering of historical material daunting in its depth. It is...likely to be read by...the most advanced students of the early modern period...." James C. Bulman, Shakespeare Quarterly

"The poetics of ENglish nationhood, 1590-1612 is an important book. Its readings, bold and imaginative, are informed by an impressive scholarly breadth and by a layering of historical material daunting in its depth." James C. Bulman, Shakespeare Quarterly

"The Poetics of English Nationhood is a valuable contribution to our as yet rather limited understanding of the complexities of early modern national identity and nationalism....this is an important book..." Andrew Hadfield, Modern Philology

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 052157031X
• ISBN 13: 9780521570312
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 254