Writing the Early Modern English Nation

Writing the Early Modern English Nation PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004489339
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Book Description
While there is overwhelming evidence that nationalism reached its peak in the later nineteenth century, views about when precisely national thinking and sentiment became strong enough to override all other forms of collective unity differ considerably. When one looks for the historical moment when the concept of the nation became a serious – and subsequently victorious – competitor to the monarchic dynasty as the most effective principle of collective unity, one must, at least for England, go back as far as the sixteenth century. The decisive change occurred when a split between the dynastic ruler and “England” could be widely conceived of and intensely felt, a split that established the nation as an autonomous – and more precious – body. Whereas such a differentiation between king and country was still imperceptible under Henry VIII, it was already an historical reality during the reign of Queen Mary. That the most important factors in this radical change were the Reformation and the printing press is by now well known. The particular aim of this volume is to demonstrate the pivotal role of pamphleteering – and the growing importance of public opinion in a steadily widening sense – within the process of the historical emergence of the concept of the nation as a culturally and politically guiding force. When it came to the voicing of dissident opinions, above all under Queen Mary and later during the reign of King James and Charles I, the printed pamphlet proved to be a far superior form of communication. This does not mean that books played no role in the early development and dissemination of the concept of an English nation. Especially the compendious new English histories written at the time did much to support the growth of cultural identity.

Writing the Early Modern English Nation

Writing the Early Modern English Nation PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004489339
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 215

Get Book Here

Book Description
While there is overwhelming evidence that nationalism reached its peak in the later nineteenth century, views about when precisely national thinking and sentiment became strong enough to override all other forms of collective unity differ considerably. When one looks for the historical moment when the concept of the nation became a serious – and subsequently victorious – competitor to the monarchic dynasty as the most effective principle of collective unity, one must, at least for England, go back as far as the sixteenth century. The decisive change occurred when a split between the dynastic ruler and “England” could be widely conceived of and intensely felt, a split that established the nation as an autonomous – and more precious – body. Whereas such a differentiation between king and country was still imperceptible under Henry VIII, it was already an historical reality during the reign of Queen Mary. That the most important factors in this radical change were the Reformation and the printing press is by now well known. The particular aim of this volume is to demonstrate the pivotal role of pamphleteering – and the growing importance of public opinion in a steadily widening sense – within the process of the historical emergence of the concept of the nation as a culturally and politically guiding force. When it came to the voicing of dissident opinions, above all under Queen Mary and later during the reign of King James and Charles I, the printed pamphlet proved to be a far superior form of communication. This does not mean that books played no role in the early development and dissemination of the concept of an English nation. Especially the compendious new English histories written at the time did much to support the growth of cultural identity.

Indography

Indography PDF Author: J. Harris
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137090766
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 498

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Book Description
In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Europeans invented 'Indians' and populated the world with them. The global history of the term 'Indian' remains largely unwritten and this volume, taking its cue from Shakespeare, asks us to consider the proximities and distances between various early modern discourses of the Indian. Through new analysis of English travel writing, medical treatises, literature, and drama, contributors seek not just to recover unexpected counter-histories but to put pressure on the ways in which we understand race, foreign bodies, and identity in a globalizing age that has still not shed deeply ingrained imperialist habits of marking difference.

The Genius of the English Nation

The Genius of the English Nation PDF Author: Anna Suranyi
Publisher: Associated University Presse
ISBN: 9780874139983
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
Travel literature was one of the most popular literary genres of the early modern era. This book examines how concepts of national identity, imperialism, colonialism, and orientalism were worked out and represented for English readers in early travel and ethnographic writings.

Writing the Forest in Early Modern England

Writing the Forest in Early Modern England PDF Author: Jeffrey S. Theis
Publisher: Penn State University Press
ISBN: 9780820704234
Category : Ecocriticism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"An ecocritical study of forests in early modern English literature, this book is the first to identify 'sylvan pastoral' as a distinct literary form and thus makes an important contribution to the growing field of ecocriticism and the history of environmentalism"--Provided by publisher.

Plague Writing in Early Modern England

Plague Writing in Early Modern England PDF Author: Ernest B. Gilman
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226294110
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
During the seventeenth century, England was beset by three epidemics of the bubonic plague, each outbreak claiming between a quarter and a third of the population of London and other urban centers. Surveying a wide range of responses to these epidemics—sermons, medical tracts, pious exhortations, satirical pamphlets, and political commentary—Plague Writing in Early Modern England brings to life the many and complex ways Londoners made sense of such unspeakable devastation. Ernest B. Gilman argues that the plague writing of the period attempted unsuccessfully to rationalize the catastrophic and that its failure to account for the plague as an instrument of divine justice fundamentally threatened the core of Christian belief. Gilman also trains his critical eye on the works of Jonson, Donne, Pepys, and Defoe, which, he posits, can be more fully understood when put into the context of this century-long project to “write out” the plague. Ultimately, Plague Writing in Early Modern England is more than a compendium of artifacts of a bygone era; it holds up a distant mirror to reflect our own condition in the age of AIDS, super viruses, multidrug resistant tuberculosis, and the hovering threat of a global flu pandemic.

Genre and Women's Life Writing in Early Modern England

Genre and Women's Life Writing in Early Modern England PDF Author: Michelle M. Dowd
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317129377
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 195

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Book Description
By taking account of the ways in which early modern women made use of formal and generic structures to constitute themselves in writing, the essays collected here interrogate the discursive contours of gendered identity in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. The contributors explore how generic choice, mixture, and revision influence narrative constructions of the female self in early modern England. Collectively they situate women's life writings within the broader textual culture of early modern England while maintaining a focus on the particular rhetorical devices and narrative structures that comprise individual texts. Reconsidering women's life writing in light of recent critical trends-most notably historical formalism-this volume produces both new readings of early modern texts (such as Margaret Cavendish's autobiography and the diary of Anne Clifford) and a new understanding of the complex relationships between literary forms and early modern women's 'selves'. This volume engages with new critical methods to make innovative connections between canonical and non-canonical writing; in so doing, it helps to shape the future of scholarship on early modern women.

Before Pornography

Before Pornography PDF Author: Ian Frederick Moulton
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195137094
Category : English literature
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
Before Pornography explores the relationship between erotic writing, masculinity, and national identity in Renaissance England. Drawing on both manuscripts and printed texts, and incorporating insights from modern feminist theory and queer studies, the book argues that pornography is a historical phenomenon: while the representation of sexual activity exists in nearly all cultures, pornography does not. The book includes analyses of the social significance of eroticism in such canonical texts as Sidney's Defense of Poesy and Spenser's Faerie Queene.

Women Writing History in Early Modern England

Women Writing History in Early Modern England PDF Author: Megan Matchinske
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521508673
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
This title investigates and documents fascinating accounts written by 17th-century Englishwomen, which explore the shifting relationships between past and future.

Writing at the Origin of Capitalism

Writing at the Origin of Capitalism PDF Author: Julianne Werlin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198869460
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
In the late sixteenth through seventeenth centuries, England simultaneously developed a national market and a national literary culture. Writing at the Origin of Capitalism describes how economic change in early modern England created new patterns of textual production and circulation with lasting consequences for English literature. Synthesizing research in book and media history, including investigations of manuscript and print, with Marxist historical theory, this volume demonstrates that England's transition to capitalism had a decisive impact on techniques of writing, rates of literacy, and modes of reception, and, in turn, on the form and style of texts. Individual chapters discuss the impact of market integration on linguistic standardization and the rise of a uniform English prose; the growth of a popular literary market alongside a national market in cheap commodities; and the decline of literary patronage with the monarchy's loosening grip on trade regulation, among other subjects. Peddlers' routes and price integration, monopoly licenses and bills of exchange, all prove vital for understanding early modern English writing. Each chapter reveals how books and documents were embedded in wider economic processes, and as a result, how the origin of capitalism constituted a revolutionary event in the history of English literature.

On Demand

On Demand PDF Author: David Baker
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804772908
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
In early modern England, while moralists railed against the theater as wasteful and depraved and inflation whittled away at the value of wages, people attended the theater in droves. On Demand draws on recent economic history and theory to account for this puzzling consumer behavior. He shows that during this period demand itself, with its massed acquisitive energies, transformed the English economy. Over the long sixteenth-century consumption burgeoned, though justifications for it lagged behind. People were in a curious predicament: they practiced consumption on a mass scale but had few acceptable reasons for doing so. In the literary marketplace, authors became adept at accommodating such contradictions fashioning works that spoke to self-divided consumers: Thomas Nashe castigated and satiated them at the same time . William Shakespeare satirized credit problems. Ben Jonson investigated the problems of global trade, and Robert Burton enlisted readers in a project of economic betterment.