Rule, Britannia Women and the National Community in Cowley’s Comedies

Abstract

Great Britain in the 1770s was coming to terms with its identity as a colonizer beginning to lose its colonies. In particular, the war with the American colonies, which had to be fought while England was already at war with France, raised questions about national identity and national futures. Playwrights responded to this crisis in definition with new plays like Cumberland’s The West Indian, Coleman the Younger’s Inckle and Yariko (1786) and The Battle of Hexham (1789), Burgoyne’s The Heiress (1786), and Cowley’s The Belle’s Stratagem (1780), which defined the British nation and national character against an international backdrop. Evenings at the theater from 1776 to 1790 often heightened the nationalist flavor of main pieces with patriotic musical and entr’acte entertainment. In addition to Thomson’s “Rule, Britannia,” Henry Purcell’s “Britons Strike Home,” originally for the opera Bonduca, took on a life of its own as a musical interlude.KeywordsNational IdentityNational CommunityEnglish WomanForeign WomanAmerican ColoniThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.