Archipelagic English: Literature, History, and Politics 1603-1707Seventeenth-century 'English Literature' has long been thought about in narrowly English terms. Archipelagic English corrects this by devolving anglophone writing, showing how much remarkable work was produced in Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, and how preoccupied such English authors as Shakespeare, Milton, and Marvell were with the often fraught interactions between ethnic, religious, and national groups around the British-Irish archipelago. This book transforms our understanding of canonical texts from Macbeth to Defoe's Colonel Jack, but it also shows the significance of a whole series of authors (from William Drummond in Scotland to the Earl of Orrery in County Cork) who were prominent during their lifetimes but who have since become neglected because they do not fit the Anglocentric paradigm. With its European and imperial dimensions, and its close attention to the cultural make-up of early modern Britain and Ireland, Archipelagic English authoritatively engages with, questions, and develops the claim now made by historians that the crises of the seventeenth century stem from the instabilities of a state-system which, between 1603 and 1707, was multiple, mixed, and inclined to let local quarrels spiral into all-consuming conflict. This is a major, interdisciplinary contribution to literary and historical scholarship which is also set to influence present-day arguments about devolution, unionism, and nationalism in Britain and Ireland. |
Other editions - View all
Archipelagic English: Literature, History, and Politics 1603-1707 John Kerrigan Limited preview - 2010 |
Archipelagic English: Literature, History, and Politics 1603-1707 John Kerrigan No preview available - 2008 |
Common terms and phrases
ancient Anglo-Scottish union anglophone archipelagic audience Bishop border Britain and Ireland British problem Britons Broghill Cambridge University Press century Chapter Charles church Church of Ireland civil claim Clarendon colonies Counter-Reformation court Covenant Covenanters Cromwell crown cultural Cymbeline Defoe Derry drama Drummond Dublin Dutch Earl early modern Edinburgh empire England ethnic Gaelic Henry Henry Vaughan Hiberno-English Highland historians History identity Irish Catholics Jacobean Jacobite James James VI John John Morrill Katherine Philips King king's Landgartha language later Letter literary Literature Llwyd London Lord Macbeth manuscript Marvell Marvell's Milton Mitchelbourne's monarch North Old English Orrery Orrery's Oxford parliament Patrick patriotic Philips Philips's play poem poet poetry political Presbyterian Prince puritan rebellion rebels regal union religion Roman royal royalist satire Scotland Scottish Scottish Literature seventeenth seventeenth-century Shakespeare Siege Stuart texts three kingdoms Treaty Ulster Vaughan Vavasor Powell verse vols Wales Welsh William writing