Images of a Nation. Literature and Nationhood in Tudor and Stuart England

DEIDDA, ANTIOCO ANGELO

2012-01-01

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Abstract

The article investigates how, in early modern England, the literature of the period contributed to imagine, invent, support and diffuse the idea of the “English nation”, at the onset of British imperialism. The texts discussed show the cultural and political efforts of a small and self-contained community to find in itself legitimacy and good reasons for its own expansion.