Spenser, Drayton, and the question of Britain

Abstract

Late Tudor and early Stuart English authors were haunted by the question of Britain and attempts to unify the four nations of the British Isles. Many were aware that contemporary developments would require England and Englishness to change, and viewed the future with a mixture of realism and trepidation Edmund Spencer's. The Faerie queene acknowledges the transformation of Englishness to Birtishness, culminating in the figure of Mutabilitie. Who forces Jove and those he supports and endorses—including Cynthia (Elizabeth)—to admit that thier authority relies on conquest rather that right. Spenser is pointing out that territorial expansion results in the loss of a pristine identity and moral authority, as well as gains Michale Drayton's Poly-Olbion, a work inspired by many of the key passages of Spenser's poem, shares such fears Although often read as a patriotic celebration of England and Englishness, Drayton's poem highlights the potential dangers manifest and hidden in the landscape of the British Isles, and the problems of a series of competing identities and races laying claim to the same territory. While Spenser argued that drastic action might stave off the forces of chaos, Drayton seemed to regard chaos as as inevitability.