Nationalism in the Renaissance

Abstract

Although an influential school of thought locates the origins of nationalism in the late eighteenth century, the Tudor era has long been associated with the rise of English national consciousness. This chapter surveys recent studies of sixteenth-century nationalism and argues that the national community imagined in Tudor literature was in many respects more British than English. Whether or not a developed nationalist ideology was present in sixteenth-century England, the works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries have been crucial to the development and expression of national consciousness in later eras. Indeed, it is precisely where early modern literary texts look forward to the nation as something yet to come that they speak most powerfully to nationalist sensibilities.