Title: Myth, memory and the middlebrow : Priestley, du Maurier and the symbolic form of Englishness /
Authors: Habermann, Ina, 1965-
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan,
Year: 2010
Subjects: Priestley, J. B. Criticism and interpretation.; Du Maurier, Daphne, Criticism and interpretation.; English literature History and criticism; National characteristics, English, in literature.; Nationalism and literature England History; Group identity England History; English literature; Group identity; LITERARY CRITICISM European English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh.; Literary studies: general English.; Literary theory English.; Literature.; Literature; National characteristics, English, in literature.; Nationalism and literature; England In literature.
Abstract: Globalization, devolution and the challenges of a postcolonial and multicultural society have fuelled the debate about national identity in Britain in recent years. Notions of individual and collective identity have revolved around a number of stereotypes of ̀Britishness' or ̀Englishness' which appear ever more incongruous. This study suggests that these debates still draw on discourses of Englishness which were shaped in the interwar period and amplified in Second World War propaganda. From the 1920s to the 1940s, Englishness as a form of collective and cultural identity can be described as a ̀symbolic form', comprising specific notions of the people and their relationship to the country, most powerfully visualized in landscapes embodying a ̀mythical present'.
Contents: Cover; Contents; Acknowledgements; Part I: Introduction: Englishness as a Symbolic Form; 1 Identity: Englishness and the Reconfiguration of the Nation; 2 Myth: Ideologies, Symbolic Forms and the 'Mythical Present'; 3 Memory: Shaping the Present out of the Past; 4 Media: Challenging Modernism -- the 'Middlebrow' and Memodrama; Part II: J.B. Priestley: Shaping Communities; 5 Steak-and-Kidney Pie in the Land of Cockaigne; 6 English Journeys; 7 Addressing the People; Part III: Daphne du Maurier: (De- )Familiarizing the Nation; 8 Dreamtime in Cornwall; 9 From Gothic to Memodrama.