English nationalism: Deindustrialisation and powerlessness – ENGLAND

2021 ◽  
pp. 283-285
Author(s):  
Theo Gavrielides
Keyword(s):  
Babel ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-75
Author(s):  
Jorge L. Bueno-Alonso

The poetic insert known as <i>The Battle of Brunanburh</i> (<i>Anglo-Saxon Chronicle</i> 937) constitutes by no means one of the most interesting texts for the building of the Old English heroic geography. Its author, as Marsden states (2005: 86), “builds a sense of national destiny, using style, diction and imagery of heroic poetry”. There are many interesting issues to deal with when you want to revise how the elements Marsden quotes are used in the construction of a poem that uses history as a narrative device to build the inner story of the poem experimenting with the topics (style, diction, imagery) of heroic poetry. If the poem constitutes such a crucial text, if its emphasis is on “English nationalism” in an historical perspective rather than on individual heroics, as Marsden points out (2005: 86), it seems most evident that a careful consideration of these topics has to be made when translating the text into other languages. The aim of this article is to revisit the poem and its topics and to see how that careful consideration has been accomplished in several important English (Treharne 2004, Hamer 1970, Rodrigues 1996, Garmonsway 1953, Swanton 2000) and Spanish (Lerate & Lerate 2000, Bravo 1998, Bueno 2007) translations that consider the poem in isolation, in the context of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle or as an excuse for poetic inspiration, i.e. the case of Borges’ 1964 and 1975 poems and Tennyson’s 1880 text.


Author(s):  
Ailsa Henderson ◽  
Richard Wyn Jones

For a topic that until recently was presumed not to exist, English nationalism has transformed into an apparently obvious explanation for the Brexit result in England. Subsequent opinion polls have also raised doubts about the extent of continuing English commitment to the union of the United Kingdom itself. Yet, even as Englishness is apparently reshaping Britain’s place in the world and—perhaps—the state itself, it remains poorly understood, in part because of its unfamiliarity. It has long been assumed that nationalism is a feature of political life in the state’s periphery—Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland—but not its English core. Another barrier to understanding bas been the relative lack of public attitudes data with which to explore the nature of English nationalist sentiment.This book draws on data from a survey vehicle—the Future of England Survey—specially established in 2011 to facilitate the exploration of patterns of national identity in England and their political implications. On the basis of these data, Englishness offers new arguments about the nature and effect of English nationalism on British politics, as well as how Britishness operates in different parts of Britain. Crucially, it demonstrates that English nationalism is emphatically not a rejection of Britain and Britishness. Rather, English nationalism combines a sense of grievance about England’s place within the UK with a fierce commitment to a particular vision of Britain’s past, present, and future. Understanding its Janus-faced nature—both England and Britain, as it were—is key not only to understanding English nationalism, but also to understanding the ways in which it is transforming British politics.


Author(s):  
Alison Morgan

The words ‘liberty’ or ‘freedom’ feature in forty-three poems in this collection, indicative of the centrality of this theme to the radical discourse of the day. In an era of almost unprecedented repression and the curtailment of rights, working people wished to rid themselves of their chains and reclaim their lost liberties, as a way of asserting English nationalism in the face of a ‘foreign’ monarchy. The twelve poems and songs in this section celebrate both the forthcoming return of liberty, presented as a goddess, and Henry Hunt as liberty’s human representative. The restoration of liberty as an end to slavery is a common trope within English radical discourse and poems often depict the radical patriot endeavouring to rescue his country from an imposed and unnatural tyranny and return it to its true state of liberty; however, this trope predates the era of revolution when such rhetoric was common currency and this section explores the prevalence of the theme of liberty in the mid-eighteenth century and the subsequent influence of William Collins and Thomas Gray on the poems in this collection. The introduction also seeks to explain the lack of references to the transatlantic slave trade in these poems at a time when the issue of rights was at the fore. It includes poems written by Samuel Bamford and the Spencean Robert Wedderburn.


Englishness ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 167-194
Author(s):  
Ailsa Henderson

Following from these primarily data-driven chapters, Chapter 7 assesses the political challenges that arise in the context of the rise of English nationalism. In particular, we discuss the ways in which three constraints—the pattern of public attitudes in England, the institutional fusion of English and all-UK institutions, as well as the overwhelming size of England relative to the other constituent territories of the union—all serve to shape, limit, or undermine attempts to accommodate England within the post-devolution UK. The chapter then examines in detail the various efforts of political parties to answer ‘the English question’.


2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 896-897
Author(s):  
Ben Wellings

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 373-377
Author(s):  
Ben Wellings
Keyword(s):  

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 234-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arturo Ezquerro

This article tries to make sense of Brexit, or otherwise, from a group attachment perspective. It provides a historical analysis of the fluctuating and highly ambivalent relationship of the United Kingdom (UK) with the European Union (EU), so far the most ambitious supranational and transnational group project in the world. But the EU has failed to keep up with some of its founding principles of openness, solidarity and compassion, in the handling of immigration—which has been the most determinant factor in the Brexit vote of June 2016, against a background of financial and migratory crises, as well as unacceptable inequality, nostalgia of sovereign British Empire and rise of English nationalism. The article aims to engage the reader to explore with the author some of the complexity of Brexit thinking and feeling, in the context of a developing EU.


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