What is my nation*?..': England, Britain and the Other’
(*Llewellyn, in Shakespeare, Henry V.)

C. W. R. D. Moseley (Studies in English, Hughes Hall, Cambridge) [BIO]

Email: cwrdm2@cam.ac.uk

 

ABSTRACT:

In the entrance of the University Library in Cambridge stands a life size marble stature of George II, dressed (highly improbably) as a Roman Imperator. In 1600 Michael Drayton calls London 'New Troy', and Elizabeth I's family tree traces her descent from Brutus. This paper will attempt to explore the uses of myths of origin in the definition and conceptualization of what constitutes a peculiar Englishness, or more problematically, Britishness.