The subject of Britain, 1603-25 / Christopher Ivic.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ivic, Christopher, 1968- author.

Contributor:

Manchester University Press, provider, publisher.

Series:

Manchester University Press.

Manchester University Press

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jonson, Ben, 1573?-1637.

Bacon, Francis, 1561-1626.

English literature--17th century--History and criticism.

English literature.

Criticism and interpretation.

Great Britain--In literature.

Great Britain.

Bacon, Francis, 1561-1626--Criticism and interpretation.

Bacon, Francis.

Jonson, Ben, 1573?-1637--Criticism and interpretation.

Jonson, Ben.

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Criticism and interpretation.

Shakespeare, William.

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 242 pages) : illustrations (black and white); digital file(s).

Place of Publication:

Manchester, UK : Manchester University Press, 2020.

Language Note:

In English.

System Details:

data file

Summary:

<i>The subject of Britain</i> analyses key seventeenth-century texts by Bacon, Jonson and Shakespeare within the context of the English reign of King James VI and I, whose desire to create a united Britain prompted serious reflection on questions of nationhood. This book traces writing on Britain and Britishness in succession literature, panegyric, Union tracts and treatises, play-texts and atlases. Focusing on texts printed in London and Edinburgh, as well as manuscript material that circulated within and across Britain and Ireland, this book sheds valuable light on texts in relation to the wider geopolitical context that informed their production. Combining literary criticism with political analysis and book history, <i>The subject of Britain</i> offers a fresh approach to a significant moment in British history, and will appeal to postgraduates and undergraduates of early modern British literary history.

"<i>The subject of Britain</i> reads key early-seventeenth-century texts by Bacon, Daniel, Drayton, Hume, Jonson, Shakespeare and Speed within the context of the English reign of King James VI and I, whose desire to create a united Britain prompted serious reflection on questions of nationhood and national sovereignty. This book traces writing on Britain and Britishness in a variety of discursive forms: succession literature, panegyric, Union tracts and treatises, play-texts and atlases and histories. Attending to the emergence of new ideologies and new ways of thinking about collective identities, <i>The subject of Britain</i> seeks to advance knowledge by foregrounding instances of fruitful cultural production in this period. Bacon's and Hume's pronouncements on the common ancestry, the cultural proximity of Britain's inhabitants, for instance, bear witness to Jacobean imaginings of peoples and nations joining together, however tenuously. Focusing on texts printed not only in London but also in Edinburgh, as well as manuscript material that circulated within and across Britain and Ireland, this book sheds valuable light on literary and extra-literary texts in relation to the wider British and Irish context that informed, indeed enabled, their production. By combining the historical study of literary and non-literary texts with the history of political thought and the history of the book broadly defined, this book offers a fresh approach to a signal moment in British history. Given this interdisciplinary nature, it will appeal to early modern British literary historians and undergraduates and postgraduates." -- Back cover.

Contents:

Introduction: accession, union, nationhood

1. '<i>Englands King</i> is comming to be Croun'd': English responses to the accession of King James VI and I

2. 'This mighty worke of vnion': imagining union in early Jacobean panegyric

3. 'But when this island shall be made Britain': Hume, Bacon, Britain and Britishness

4. 'Our downfall Birthdome': reimagining nationhood in <i>Macbeth</i>

5. Conclusion: the Jacobean writing of Britain

<i>Bibliography</i>

<i>Index</i>

Notes:

Made available via: manchesterhive.

MUP Shakespeare.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher-supplied metadata and print version record.

Other Format:

Print version: Ivic, Christopher. The subject of Britain, 1603-25.

ISBN:

9781526152701

9781526152695

Publisher Number:

www.manchesterhive.com/view/9781526152701/9781526152701.xml

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.