An Imaginary England

Nation, Landscape and Literature, 1840-1920
Neuauflage 2005
ISBN: 978-0-7546-5092-8
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 240 Seiten, Format (B × H): 226 mm x 160 mm, Gewicht: 462 g

In his highly theorised and original book, Roger Ebbatson traces the emergence of conceptions of England and Englishness from 1840 to 1920. His study concentrates on poetry and fiction by authors such as Alfred Lord Tennyson, Richard Jefferies, Thomas Hardy, Q, Rupert Brooke and D.H. Lawrence, reading them as a body of work through which a series of problematic English identities are imaginatively constructed. Of particular concern is the way literary landscapes serve as signs not only of identity but also of difference. Ebbatson demonstrates how a sense of cultural rootedness is contested during the period by the experiences of those on the societal margins, whether sexual, national, social or racial, resulting in a feeling of homelessness even in the most self-consciously 'English' texts. In the face of gradual imperial and industrial decline, Ebbatson argues, foreign and colonial cultures played a crucial role in transforming Englishness from a stable body of values and experiences into a much more ambiguous concept in continuous conflict with factors on the geographical or psychological 'periphery'.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ebbatson, Roger

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Contents: Preface; Introduction; Tennyson's English idylls: history, narrative, art; Enoch Arden's other island; The lonely garden: the sonnets of Charles Tennyson Turner; The Dewy Morn: Jefferies, being and history; The authorial double: Hardy and Florence Henniker; 'Trooped apparitions': Hardy and the Boer War; Poison Island: Quiller-Couch's English treasure; Rupert Brooke: the South Seas, Englishness and modernity; The imaginary England of Edward Thomas; 'England, My England': Lawrence, war and nation; Afterword; Notes; Select bibliography; Index.

Über Autor(innen)

Roger Ebbatson is Visiting Professor at Loughborough University, having previously taught at University College Worcester and the University of Sokoto, Nigeria. He is the author of Lawrence and the Nature Tradition (1980), The Evolutionary Self (1982) and Hardy: Margin of the Unexpressed (1992).