Gendering the archipelago: nation, state and empire in the prophetic writings of Lady Eleanor Davies

Ivic, C and Maley, W (2018) 'Gendering the archipelago: nation, state and empire in the prophetic writings of Lady Eleanor Davies.' In: Orgis, R and Heim, M, eds. Fashioning England and the English: literature, nation, gender. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, pp. 97-118. ISBN 9783319921259

Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92126-6_5

Abstract

This essay makes a strong call to reconsider women’s writing in the context of nation, state and empire. It situates the mid-seventeenth-century prophetic writings of Lady Eleanor Davies within the four-nation, three-kingdom archipelagic context from which they emerged and upon which they critically reflect. Through her family and marital connections, Lady Eleanor was well placed to comment on the political, religious and social crises that historians and literary historians are currently reinvestigating within a wider archipelagic framework. Like Milton, Lady Eleanor gives powerful voice to an English nationalism grounded in a Protestant confessional identity; she does so, however, as a female prophet of an angelic English nation at risk of being incorporated into a brutish British state.

Item Type: Book Chapter or Section
Subjects: P Language and Literature > PR English literature
Divisions: School of Writing, Publishing and the Humanities
Identification Number: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92126-6
Related URLs:
Date Deposited: 17 Oct 2017 14:23
Last Modified: 01 Apr 2022 15:36
URI / Page ID: https://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/id/eprint/10030
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