The Beauties of the Land: Bale's Books, Aske's Abbeys, and the Aesthetics of Nationhood

Although often ignored in studies of nationalism, beauty is a central feature of every imagined nation. The conflicts surrounding the dissolution of the monasteries can be read as hinging on the question of what makes a nation beautiful. For the traditionalist rebel Robert Aske, "the beauties o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inRenaissance quarterly Vol. 57; no. 1; pp. 99 - 125
Main Author Schwyzer, Philip
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Cambridge Renaissance Society of America 22.03.2004
Cambridge University Press
Subjects
Aesthetics
Aske, Robert
Bale, John (1495-1563)
Beauty
Churches
Conflicts
Desire
Dissolution
European literature
Libraries
Monasteries
Nationalism
Nostalgia
Pilgrimages
Renaissance art
Renaissance literature
Renaissance, 1450-1600
The 2003 Josephine Waters Bennett Lecture
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Summary:Although often ignored in studies of nationalism, beauty is a central feature of every imagined nation. The conflicts surrounding the dissolution of the monasteries can be read as hinging on the question of what makes a nation beautiful. For the traditionalist rebel Robert Aske, "the beauties of this realm" were the abbeys themselves. For John Bale, by contrast, the books ransacked from monastic libraries were the true "beauty of our nation." Whereas Aske offers a vision of timeless feudal harmony, Bale's idea of national beauty, rooted in Petrarchan motifs of loss and nostalgia, inaugurates new ways of imagining the nation.
ISSN:0034-4338
1935-0236