Imagining Anglo-Saxon England: Utopia, Heterotopia, Dystopia

This book explores the ways in which early medieval England was envisioned as an ideal, a placeless, and a conflicted geography in works of art and literature from the eighth to the eleventh century and in their modern scholarly and popular afterlives. It argues that the political and ideological violence that was a part of the origins of England as a place and the English as a people has never been fully acknowledged, and that this violence continues to haunt English history and culture.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 282 pages
Publication date: 27 May 2022
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd

A novel perspective on the construction of Anglo-Saxon England and its portrayal in art and literature from the eighth to the eleventh century, as well as in their modern scholarly and popular afterlives, is presented in this book. It contends that Anglo-Saxon England has always been an imaginary place, an empty space into which ideas of what England was, or should have been, or should be have been inserted from the arrival of peoples from the Continent in the fifth and sixth centuries to the arrival of the self-named alt-right in the twenty-first century. The book argues that the political and ideological violence that was a part of the origins of England as a place and the English as a people has never been fully acknowledged; instead, the island was reimagined as a chosen land home to a chosen people, the gens Anglorum. Unacknowledged violence, however, continued to haunt English history and culture. Through her examination of the writings of Bede and King Alfred, the Franks Casket and the illuminated Wonders of the East, and the texts collected together to form the Beowulf manuscript, the author demonstrates how this continues to haunt Anglo-Saxon Studies as a discipline and Anglo-Saxonism as an ideology, from the antiquarian studies of the sixteenth century through to the nationalistic and racist violence of today.

Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781783276981