Early Modern Transatlantic Encounters and the Formation of English National Identity

Analyzing an array of contributions by English and Anglo-American preachers, polemicists, poets, and printers, Elizabeth Sauer demonstrates to literary critics and cultural historians alike just how vital the transatlantic context, the writing of the New World, and the traffic in books were to the formation of early modern English nationhood.

In the crucible of New World encounters - discursive, ideological, and experiential – there developed multiple forms of English nationhood. Elizabeth Sauer showcases the value of a literary critical and cultural account thereof, uncovering, historicizing, and reviewing a rich array of contributions by British, English, and Anglo-American poets, preachers, polemicists, and printers. The casebook studies and alternative canon that make up her study reveal just how vital the transatlantic context and the traffic in books were for the development of the nascent English nation. Among the authors examined are Edmund Spenser, Richard Hakluyt, Francis Bacon, John Winthrop, John Eliot, Roger Williams, Anne Bradstreet, John Milton, John Bunyan, George Fox, William Penn, and Daniel Defoe. Over a century's worth of literary and cultural evidence confirms that research into the early modern wave of nation formation, with its ideological coordinates and cultural mythmaking, enriches understanding of England's protean identity.