Introduction: visions of Britain

This introductory essay situates Poly-Olbion (1612, 1622), Michael Drayton's vast chorographical and historical poem of England and Wales, in terms of its development as a poetic project, its structural choices, and its reception by early readers. It sets the tension in the text between the loc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Seventeenth century Vol. 33; no. 4; pp. 377 - 391
Main Authors Cattell, Daniel, Schwyzer, Philip
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Durham Routledge 08.08.2018
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
17th century
chorography
Drayton, Michael (1563-1631)
Historical text analysis
Michael Drayton
nation and region
Picts
Poetry
Poly-Olbion
United Kingdom > UK
England
Wales
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Summary:This introductory essay situates Poly-Olbion (1612, 1622), Michael Drayton's vast chorographical and historical poem of England and Wales, in terms of its development as a poetic project, its structural choices, and its reception by early readers. It sets the tension in the text between the local and the national against the backdrop of a more fundamental seventeenth-century shift from national to regional description. By exploring the text's depiction of the ancient Picts, it also considers some of the difficulties that Drayton might have faced, had he managed to extend his poem north to Scotland.
ISSN:0268-117X
2050-4616
DOI:10.1080/0268117X.2018.1490514