
An Empire Nowhere
England, America, and Literature from <i>Utopia</i> to <i>The Tempest</i>
Jeffrey Knapp(Author)
University of California Press
Published on 17. June 1994
Book
Paperback/Softback
387 pages
978-0-520-07362-3 (ISBN)
Description
What caused England's literary renaissance? One answer has been such unprecedented developments as the European discovery of America. Yet England in the sixteenth century was far from an expanding nation. Not only did the Tudors lose England's sole remaining possessions on the Continent and, thanks to the Reformation, grow spiritually divided from the Continent as well, but every one of their attempts to colonize the New World actually failed.
Jeffrey Knapp accounts for this strange combination of literary expansion and national isolation by showing how the English made a virtue of their increasing insularity. Ranging across a wide array of literary and extraliterary sources, Knapp argues that English poets rejected the worldly acquisitiveness of an empire like Spain's and took pride in England's material limitations as a sign of its spiritual strength. In the imaginary worlds of such fictions as Utopia, The Faerie Queene, and The Tempest, they sought a grander empire, founded on the "otherworldly" virtues of both England and poetry itself.
Jeffrey Knapp accounts for this strange combination of literary expansion and national isolation by showing how the English made a virtue of their increasing insularity. Ranging across a wide array of literary and extraliterary sources, Knapp argues that English poets rejected the worldly acquisitiveness of an empire like Spain's and took pride in England's material limitations as a sign of its spiritual strength. In the imaginary worlds of such fictions as Utopia, The Faerie Queene, and The Tempest, they sought a grander empire, founded on the "otherworldly" virtues of both England and poetry itself.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Berkerley
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Weight
544 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-520-07362-3 (9780520073623)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Jeffrey Knapp is Associate Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley.