Review by Choice Review
In this ambitious book, Kerrigan (Univ. of Cambridge, UK) argues that English literature is best understood as the product of an "archipelagic" tension between several kingdoms and numerous confessional and local allegiances. According to the author, the development of a distinctly national identity, especially after the Acts of Union of 1707 (which joined England and Scotland), requires a new "devolution of analysis" that redraws the map of 17th-century literature to recognize this antecedent hybridity. Kerrigan deals with the theoretical questions underpinning this approach in the first and final chapters, and in the intervening ten chapters he draws out the implications of the thesis in clever readings of an unusual selection of texts and figures. Shakespeare, the Stuarts, and Defoe predictably appear, but Kerrigan also argues persuasively for the importance of neglected figures, e.g., William Drummond and minor Irish dramatists. He traces the idea of union into the 19th century, profitably including recent historical research in his marvelous synthesis of materials from four centuries of cultural history. Unfortunately, Kerrigan's vast notes are awkward and occasionally inaccurate, and at many points his conclusions are contestable. The result is an intellectually formidable, revisionist book best suited to advanced scholars. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, and faculty. C. S. Vilmar Salisbury University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
