Introduction
-
Patrick Collinson
Abstract
Shakespeare being Shakespeare, the ringing stanzas found in ‘This England’ still have the capacity to move, and they resonated with episodes in the history of the centuries to come, to the extent that whatever they may have meant, in the 1590s, becomes irrelevant. But patriotism has now all but vanished from English culture, except in the painted faces of those following the so-called beautiful game, and at the more unacceptable fringes of our politics. It appears that if English nationhood continues to retain any scholarly mileage, it is not with the new British historians but with those who read English literature. This chapter examines religion, nationalism, patriotism, language and history in this context.
Abstract
Shakespeare being Shakespeare, the ringing stanzas found in ‘This England’ still have the capacity to move, and they resonated with episodes in the history of the centuries to come, to the extent that whatever they may have meant, in the 1590s, becomes irrelevant. But patriotism has now all but vanished from English culture, except in the painted faces of those following the so-called beautiful game, and at the more unacceptable fringes of our politics. It appears that if English nationhood continues to retain any scholarly mileage, it is not with the new British historians but with those who read English literature. This chapter examines religion, nationalism, patriotism, language and history in this context.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of abbreviations vi
- Acknowledgments vii
- Introduction 1
- 1 The politics of religion and the religion of politics in Elizabethan England 36
- 2 The Elizabethan exclusion crisis and the Elizabethan polity 61
- 3 Servants and citizens 98
- 4 Pulling the strings 122
- 5 Elizabeth I and the verdicts of history 143
- 6 Biblical rhetoric 167
- 7 John Foxe and national consciousness 193
- 8 Truth, lies and fiction in sixteenth-century Protestant historiography 216
- 9 One of us? 245
- 10 William Camden and the anti-myth of Elizabeth 270
- 11 John Stow and nostalgic antiquarianism 287
- Index 309
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of abbreviations vi
- Acknowledgments vii
- Introduction 1
- 1 The politics of religion and the religion of politics in Elizabethan England 36
- 2 The Elizabethan exclusion crisis and the Elizabethan polity 61
- 3 Servants and citizens 98
- 4 Pulling the strings 122
- 5 Elizabeth I and the verdicts of history 143
- 6 Biblical rhetoric 167
- 7 John Foxe and national consciousness 193
- 8 Truth, lies and fiction in sixteenth-century Protestant historiography 216
- 9 One of us? 245
- 10 William Camden and the anti-myth of Elizabeth 270
- 11 John Stow and nostalgic antiquarianism 287
- Index 309
