Literary Englands Versions of 'Englishness' in Modern Writing [Hardcover]

The influence of 'Englishness' - loss, nostalgia and exile - on the work of twentieth-century writers.In our time TEnglishnesst has become a theme for speculation rather than dogma; twentieth-century writers have found it an elusive and ambivalent concept, a cue for nostalgia or for a sense of exile and loss. Literary Englands meditates on the contemporary meanings of TEnglishnesst and explores some of the ways in which a sense of nationality has informed and shaped the work of a range of writers including Edward Thomas, Forster and Lawrence, Leavis and George Sturt, Orwell and Evelyn Waugh, Betjeman, Larkin and Geoffrey Hill.In our time TEnglishnesst has become a theme for speculation rather than dogma; twentieth-century writers have found it an elusive and ambivalent concept, a cue for nostalgia or for a sense of exile and loss. Literary Englands meditates on the contemporary meanings of TEnglishnesst and explores some of the ways in which a sense of nationality has informed and shaped the work of a range of writers including Edward Thomas, Forster and Lawrence, Leavis and George Sturt, Orwell and Evelyn Waugh, Betjeman, Larkin and Geoffrey Hill.In our time Englishness has become a theme for speculation rather than dogma; twentieth-century writers have found it an elusive and ambivalent concept, a cue for nostalgia or for a sense of exile and loss. Literary Englands meditates on modern meanings of Englishness and explores some of the ways in which a sense of nationality has informed and shaped the work of a range of writers including Edward Thomas, Forster and Lawrence, Leavis and George Sturt, Orwell and Evelyn Waugh, Betjeman, Larkin and Geoffrey Hill.Preface; Acknowledgements; Abbreviations; 1. The nineteenth century: pastoral versions of England; 2. Edward Thomas: an England of 'holes and corners'; 3. Forster and Lawrence: exiles in the homeland; 4. Late witness: George Sturt and village England; 5. Contending Englands: F. R. Leavis and T. S. Eliot; 6. EnglandlÃ"