Parution : Englishness Revisited

Englishness Revisited, Edité par Floriane Reviron-Piégay. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009. ISBN (10): 1-4438-0595-5 ; ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-0595-7 (Prix: £ 49. 99)
http://www.c-s-p.org/Flyers/Englishness-Revisited1-4438-0595-5.htm

What is Englishness? Is there such a thing as a national temperament, is there a character or an identity which can be claimed to be specifically English? This collection of articles seeks to answer these questions by offering a kaleidoscopic vision of Englishness since the eighteenth century, a vision that acknowledges stereotypes while at the same time challenging them. Englishness is defined in contrast to Britishness, the Celtic fringe—Scotland in particular—Europe and the Continent at large. The effects of the Empire and of its loss are examined together with other socio-economic factors such as the two World Wars, de-industrialization and the different waves of immigration. Through a careful analysis of the arts, literature, philosophy, historiography, cultural and political studies produced in England and on the Continent over the last three centuries, a composite image of Englishness emerges, somewhere between centre and periphery, tradition and innovation, transience and timelessness, rurality and urbanity, commitment and isolation. Englishness is thus revealed as a protean concept, one which, whether it is a historical or political construct, a genuine emanation of a national desire or a simulacrum, retains its fascination and this volume offers keys to understanding its diverse expressions.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: The Dilemma of Englishness 1 Floriane Reviron-Piégay
Part I: Socio-Cultural Aspects of Englishness
Investigating the Early-Modern English Self 28 Hilary Larkin
Englishness: The Philosophical Backbone 45 Martine Semblat
The Line: An English Trait? 55 Sophie Aymes
/Hugh the Drover /by Ralph Vaughan Williams, or How to Restore the Englishness of English Opera? 68 Jean-Philippe Heberlé
A View of Englishmen from Street Level: Mike Skinner and the Geezer 79 Raphaël Costambeys-Kempczynski
Camping the Nation: Peter Ackroyd’s Mungrell Englishness 97 Jean-Michel Ganteau
Englishness and the Countryside. How British Rural Studies Address the Issue of National Identity 109 Julian Mischi

Part II: The Political Sphere
Empire and National Identity in the United Kingdom.126 Antoine Mioche
Negotiating Englishness 148 Nicholas Deakin
Making the Difference: The Construction of Englishness in Scottish Nationalist Discourse of the Inter-War Period 164 Keith Dixon
Edward Heath and the Europeanisation of Englishness: The Hopes and Failures of a European English Leader 174 Laëtitia Langlois
Reclaiming England for the Left: The Case of Billy Bragg 189 Jeremy Tranmer
British No More? The Political Debate on Englishness (1997-2007) 205 Pauline Schnapper

Part III: Englishness Versus Otherness
Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Rudolf Kassner and English Art: A Viennese Look at English Aestheticism 218 Marie-Claire Méry
Romish and un-English: Nation and Religion in the Decadent Literature of the 1890s in England 232 Claire Masurel-Murray
Wilde, France and Relative Englishness 244 Ignacio Ramos Gay
Dickens and Englishness: A Fundamental Ambivalence 262 Valerie Kennedy
Victorian Englishness and the Continent 276 Marianne Camus
The Complexity of Ford Madox Ford’s Englishness: Loving it as He Left 290 Robert E. McDonough
Owning one’s own self: D. H. Lawrence’s /England, My England/ 301 Milena Kovac(evic'

Part IV: English Fiction or the Fiction of Englishness
A Myth: Being English in /The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater/ by Thomas De Quincey 310 Céline Lochot
Englishness in Kingsley Amis 322 Andrew James
England, Englishness and Class 335 Richard Bradford
> “Unofficial Englishmen”: Representations of the English Gentleman
> in Julian Barnes’s /Arthur and George/ 352
> Elsa Cavalié
> (Dis)locating Englishness: the Case of Graham Greene and V.S.
> Naipaul 365
> Catherine Lanone
> Englishness in Hanif Kureishi’s /The Buddha of Suburbia / 378
> Anna Tomczak
> “Whose Englishness is it anyway?” James Hawes’ Post-Modern Take
> on Englishness in /Speak for England/ 389
> Christine Berberich
>