Author Description

"This interdisciplinary collection is a first step in the process of dismantling the imperial and unionist dominance of the discipline of English Literature and building a literary history and national literature of England. The collection brings together some of the best known and most incisive commentators on England, Englishness and English Literature from political and literary fields in order to rethink the relationship between Britain, England and English literary culture. It is premised on the importance of devolution, the uncertainty of the British Union, the place of English Literature within the Union, and the need for England to become a self-determining literary nation. The collection comprises fifteen essays, organised into four parts, moving from political discussions of the form of a devolved or independent England, through a consideration of England in canonical and contemporary literature, to an exploration of the role of the national in English Literature's disciplinary logic"--