England: The Making of the Myth from Stonehenge to Albert Square - Hardcover

Duffy, Maureen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1841151661 ISBN 13: 9781841151663

Publisher: Fourth Estate, 2001

Synopsis

In the style of ‘Longitude’ and ‘Fermat’s Last Theorem’, a narrative history of the making of the myth of the English. Three thousand years of our island history from Boadicea to Blair, from the acclaimed author of ‘Restitution’.

In 75,000 words Maureen Duffy covers three thousand years of history to show where the idea of the English has come from. The myth begins with the idea that the English were the original inhabitants of this island, that the ‘real’ natives of Britain are the English and anyone else is somehow a foreigner. The idea is captured by G K Chesterton in his popular poem of 1912 which begins ‘Before the Romans came to Rye or out to Severn strode/The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road’.

The first British heroes Boadicea and Caractacus ruled parts of an island that was divided into princedoms with names that sound like modern European football teams: the Iceni, Brigantes, Coritani and Catuvellauni. Boadicea was one of the many charismatic female leaders of the time. Tacitus, the Roman historian wrote that ‘the Britons make no distinction of sex in their appointment of commanders’. Not much evidence of the myth of the English rose here. Even in 1500 an anonymous Italian visitor described the English women as ‘very violent in their passion’.

The myth of the English woman is just one of the many threads in this fascinating book which explores the political, religious, environmental and physical influences that have arrived at the myth that is England. The Norman takeover; how the English became upper class and oppressed the rest of Britain; England becomes the Church of England; the contribution of Shakespeare to the myth; the Garden of England; the identification of class in dialect; the faking of the English working class, the British Bulldog – all are elements of the myth.

As Britain debates its future in Europe, this book – which shows how we have always been continentals – could hardly be more timely.

About this title

About the Author

A prolific poet and playwright, Maureen Duffy published her first novel, That’s How It Was, in 1962. She is the author of Wounds, Capital and Londoners: An Elegy (the Londoners trilogy) and has written biographies of Purcell and Aphra Behn.

From the Back Cover

Before there was the English rose, there was bloodthirsty Boudicca. Before there was BBC English, there were Germanic dialects and Norman French. Before there was the English football fan running amok in Europe, there were the warring tribes of the Iceni, Brigantes, Coritani and Catuvellauni, none of them "English". Behind everything that we now consider to be indisputably English are a host of other stories, other traditions. In this fascinating study, acclaimed author Maureen Duffy takes us through three thousand years of English and British history, illuminating the myths that have come to be such an important part of our national identity.

She begins with the settlement of our cold and rainy island, pointing out that the "English" were far from its first inhabitants. In fact, they didn't arrive until long after the Romans, when the Britons shipped over Germanic mercenaries, Saxons, Angles and Jutes, to help them in the fight against the unruly Picts. The English, as they eventually became known, never left, and a myth was born. In her quest to track down how that myth evolved over the centuries, the author encourages us to look again at what we learnt at school, from King Alfred burning the cakes to Shakespeare's nationalistic history plays, from the signing of the Magna Carta to Gray's Elegy Written in A Country Churchyard, and from the emergence of Victorian values to Margaret Thatcher’s famous assertion that "There is no such thing as society". And at a time when "this England" is becoming increasingly allied to Europe, she provides some startling insights into the nature of our island race. Written with great erudition, perception and humour, England: The Making of the Myth will change your view of England’s past – and England’s future.

Edition details

• Publisher: Fourth Estate
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1841151661
• ISBN 13: 9781841151663
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288