The undiscovered country: The impact of contemporary France on the archipelagic discourse of nation,1590--1604.
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文摘
This dissertation sheds light on how the English reaction to Frances sixteenth--century civil and religious wars ultimately contributed to the discourse of nation. It draws on English literature and French history to show how these wars inspired and influenced plays at the turn of the seventeenth century, and how such plays then helped shape the contemporaneous discourse of nation. Presently, this discourse of nation is seen as archipelagic in nature---that is, shaped by the interrelations between Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and England. The dissertation does not dispute the archipelagos primacy in shaping national identity in the period. But it argues that contemporary France also played a significant role. France complicates perceptions of the nation in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and for that reason deserves recognition. The project shows how, in plays by Shakespeare, Marlowe and Chapman, Frances civil wars served to reframe and unsettle audiences sense of national identity, particularly with regard to the shift from Elizabethan England to Jacobean Britain. This reframing comes through in these dramatists allusions to the wars, which took advantage of audiences knowledge to re--contextualize what they saw on the stage. In the late sixteenth century, the English were fascinated by Frances struggles, which were meticulously recounted in English--published pamphlets and detailed historical accounts. That fascination ensured that London audiences had a high degree of familiarity with events in contemporary France. Shakespeare, Marlowe and Chapman capitalized on this knowledge by incorporating contemporary French themes into plays about both English history and more recent French events. Plays like Henry V, Edward II, The Massacre at Paris, and Bussy DAmbois therefore resonate with and respond to contemporary English perceptions of the French wars. But Frances civil strife serves a further purpose: it becomes a counter--context that challenges otherwise comforting conceptions of nation. The examination of French resonances in English plays therefore permits the capture of a wider--ranging and more accurate sense of how international interrelationships shaped the discourse of nation as England was becoming Britain.