Product Description

Though British history and identity in the early modern period are intensively researched areas, to date, the role of literature in the construction of ‘Britishness’ is under-examined. In the past, English history of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries often overlooked the contribution of Ireland, Scotland and Wales to the formation of the British state. Historians now describe ‘Britain’ as a multiple kingdom, with a long history of conflict. In this volume, a team of leading Renaissance literary critics read a broad range of texts from the period, including plays of Shakespeare, in light of the new British history. Prominent historians respond to the issues raised by the volume. This collection opens up a new kind of literary history and has pressing relevance for discussions of ‘Britishness’ today.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2006148 in Books
• Published on: 2002-05-16
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 314 pages

Review
"The editors have done very well also in shaping the collection of essays to cohere, not only by virtue of the essays' shared interest in using British history to further our understanding of early modern English literature, but also by their having read and learned from one another. It's a rare thing in a collection to find essays that truly are in conversation with one another, and the editors deserve much praise for it." Sixteenth Century Journal

"Invalauble." H-ALBION

"The essays are an excellent introduction into a relatively new field." History

"This is an intellectually engaging [book]." Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History

About the Author
David Baker is Professor in the Department of English at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. He is the author of Between Nations: Shakespeare, Spenser, Marvell, and the Question of Britain (1997). His articles have appeared in Spenser Studies, English Renaissance Literature and Critical Inquiry.

Willy Maley is Professor of Renaissance Studies at the University of Glasgow. He is the author of Representing Ireland: Literature and the Origins of Conflict (Cambridge, 1993), A Spenser Chronology (1994), Salvaging Spenser: Colonialism, Culture and Identity (1997), Post-Colonial Criticism (1997) and Nation, State, and Empire in the English Renaissance: Colonising Culture (2002). He also co-edited an edition of Edmund Spenser’s A View of the Present State of Ireland (1997).