Albion : the origins of the English imagination by Ackroyd, Peter, 1949- instant download

Albion : the origins of the English imagination by Ackroyd, Peter, 1949- instant download

xxii, 516 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : 24 cm, Covers the whole of English cultural history from the Anglo-Saxon period to the present day--from the Venerable Bede through English myths such as the legends about King Arthur and Albion to C.S. Lewis; from Chaucer through Spenser to George Eliot; from the English mystics through the philosopher Locke to Iris Murdoch; from Purcell through Elgar to Michael Tippett; from Hogarth through Constable to Turner; from mystery plays through Shakespeare to music hall. Ackroyd's favourite themes are here: the visionary poetry of Blake, the theatrical novels of Dickens, the humanism of Thomas More--and there are also explorations of forgery and plagiarism, Romanticism, artificiality, farce and pantomime, assimilation and energy.--From publisher description, Includes bibliographical references and index, Introduction : Albion -- Patterns of eternity -- Old English -- Middle English -- Piety of England -- Poetry of England -- Solitaries and recusants -- Women and silence -- Renaissance -- Mungrell tendencies -- Antiquarianism and English history -- In the English tradition -- English Bible -- Cockney visionaries -- Wealth of characters -- Women and anger -- Melodrama -- Philosophy, mockery and learning -- Green England -- Looking backwards -- Epilogue : the territorial imperative