Visions of England

the long version

What does it mean to be English? For centuries, Englishness was synonymous with Britishness, informed first by the political dominance of the English monarchs over the British Isles -- reaching its apogee in the rule of Elizabeth I -- and later by the island's imperial might and expansion. But alongside that tradition, reaching back to medieval times, there has also been a vision of England as the rural arcadia celebrated by painters and poets. While the mythology of empire lingers on in the national psyche, Roy Strong argues that it is the rural tradition -- combining aestheticism, pastoralism and patriotism -- that offers an answer to the present crisis of English identity.