Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Illustrations

  Chronology

  INTRODUCTION - Albion

  Patterns of Eternity

  CHAPTER 1 - The Tree

  CHAPTER 2 - The Radiates

  Old English

  CHAPTER 3 - Listen!

  CHAPTER 4 - Why Is a Raven Like a Writing Desk?

  CHAPTER 5 - A Rare and Singular Bede

  CHAPTER 6 - The Song of the Past

  CHAPTER 7 - The Lives of Others

  CHAPTER 8 - A Land of Dreams

  CHAPTER 9 - A Note on English Melancholy

  CHAPTER 10 - The Rolling Hills

  CHAPTER 11 - It Rained All Night

  CHAPTER 12 - The Prose of the World

  CHAPTER 13 - The First Initials

  CHAPTER 14 - Anglo-Saxon Attitudes

  Middle English

  CHAPTER 15 - The Alteration

  CHAPTER 16 - He Is Not Dead

  The Piety of England

  CHAPTER 17 - Faith of Our Fathers

  CHAPTER 18 - Old Stone

  CHAPTER 19 - Part of the Territory

  The Poetry of England

  CHAPTER 20 - A Song and a Dance

  CHAPTER 21 - Fathers and Sons

  CHAPTER 22 - The Foolish Giant

  Solitaries and Recusants

  CHAPTER 23 - The Mysterious Voice

  CHAPTER 24 - The Inheritance

  Women and Silence

  CHAPTER 25 - The Female Religion

  A Renaissance

  CHAPTER 26 - But Newly Translated

  CHAPTER 27 - The Italian Connection

  Mungrell Tendencies

  CHAPTER 28 - A Short History of Shakespeare

  CHAPTER 29 - And Now for Streaky Bacon

  Antiquarianism and English History

  CHAPTER 30 - Among the Ruins

  CHAPTER 31 - The Conservative Tendency

  CHAPTER 32 - A Short History Lesson

  In the English Tradition

  CHAPTER 33 - The Song of the Sea

  CHAPTER 34 - A Brief Excursion

  CHAPTER 35 - A Miniature

  CHAPTER 36 - I Saw You, Missis

  An English Bible

  CHAPTER 37 - In the Beginning

  Cockney Visionaries

  CHAPTER 38 - London Calling

  A Wealth of Characters

  CHAPTER 39 - An Essay on the Essay

  CHAPTER 40 - The Hogarthian Moment

  CHAPTER 41 - Some Eminent Novelists

  CHAPTER 42 - A Character Study

  CHAPTER 43 - The Fine Art of Biography

  Women and Anger

  CHAPTER 44 - Femality and Fiction

  Melodrama

  CHAPTER 45 - Blood and Gore

  CHAPTER 46 - Ghosts

  Philosophy, Mockery and Learning

  CHAPTER 47 - Practice Makes Perfect

  CHAPTER 48 - Prolix and Prolific

  CHAPTER 49 - Some More Dunces

  Green England

  CHAPTER 50 - The Secret Garden

  Looking Backwards

  CHAPTER 51 - Forging a Language

  CHAPTER 52 - The Romantic Fallacy

  CHAPTER 53 - English Music

  EPILOGUE - The Territorial Imperative

  Notes

  Acknowledgments

  Bibliography

  About the Author

  Also by Peter Ackroyd

  Copyright Page

  For Murrough O’Brien

  Illustrations

  “Trees V: Spreading Branches,” 1979, by Henry Moore (Tate, London 2002)

  Twelfth-century spiral markings, church of St. Laurence Pittington, County Durham (Peter Burton and Harland Walshaw)

  Ornamental page with the beginning of the Gospel according to John, from the Lindisfarne Gospels (AKG/British Library)

  Photograph of Charles Dickens dreaming, 1861, by John and Charles Watkins (National Portrait Gallery, London)

  Stone portrait of John Donne in his shroud, St. Paul’s Cathedral, London (London UK/Bridgeman Art Library)

  Ornamental page with monogram from the Lindisfarne Gospels (AKG/British Library)

  “Sir Bedivere throws the sword Excalibur into the water.” Manuscript illumination, early fourteenth century (AKG/British Library)

  Arthur, Prince of Wales, eldest son of Henry VII (National Portrait Gallery, London, loan, courtesy of private collection)

  Queen Victoria and Prince Albert dressed as Queen Guinevere and King Arthur, at the Bal Costumé of 12 May 1842, by Edwin Landseer (from the Royal Collection by gracious permission of Her Majesty the Queen)

  “Figure of Guinevere,” circa 1858, by William Morris (Tate, London 2002)

  “Guenever”: illustration to the Arthurian legend, by David Jones (Tate, London 2002)

  “Babooneries”: photographs by Peter Burton/Harland Walshaw and a selection of details from the Luttrell Psalter, c. 1340 (AKG/British Library)

  The Chapter House of Wells Cathedral (Peter Burton and Harland Walshaw)

  “Sir Jeffery Chaucer and the Nine and Twenty Pilgrims on their Journey to Canterbury,” by William Blake, detail (Glasgow Museums, Stirling Maxwell Collection)

  “Longways Dance” by Thomas Rowlandson (Tate, London 2002)

  Thomas Tallis and William Byrd (Lebrecht Music Collection)

  Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, by Nicholas Hilliard (National Portrait Gallery, London)

  Edmund Spenser, engraving by George Vertue, 1727 (National Portrait Gallery, London)

  William Shakespeare, seventeenth-century engraving by Martin Droeshout (National Portrait Gallery, London)

  “Britannia”: frontispiece illustration to William Camden’s Britannia, 1600, by John Stow (Guildhall Library, Corporation of London)

  The Pillars of Hercules, title page of Francis Bacon’s Instauratio Magna, 1620 (The British Museum, London)

  English clowns: Richard Tarlton and Will Kemp

  Title page to the Bible translated into English, 1539 (Fotomas)

  A Harlot’s Progress, plate two, 1732, etching and engraving by William Hogarth (The Trustees of the Weston Park Foundation, UK/Bridgeman Art Library)

  Henry Fielding, engraving after William Hogarth, c. 1762 (National Portrait Gallery, London)

  Bust of Sir Christopher Wren by Edward Pierce, c. 1673 (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)

  Silhouette of Jane Austen (National Portrait Gallery, London)

  The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd, woodcut dating from 1615

  Thomas Hobbes, engraving by Wenceslaus Hollar, after J. B. Caspar

  The Royal Observatory at Greenwich, 1675 (Greenwich Local History Library, London)

  Sketch of Miss Gertrude Jekyll with sunflower, doodle by Sir Edwin Lutyens (RIBA)

  Title page of William Byrd ’s “Psalmes, Sonnets, and Songs of Sadness and Piety,” 1588 (Lebrecht Music Collection)

  COLOUR PLATE SECTIONS

  “Carpet” pattern, from the Lindisfarne Gospels, c. 698–700 (AKG/British Library)

  “King David with Musicians,” Anglo-Saxon illuminated manuscript of the eighth century (AKG/British Library)

  Shoulder clasp from the Sutton Hoo ship burial, Anglo-Saxon, c. 625–30 A.D. (gold, garnet and millefiori glass) (British Museum, London UK/Bridgeman Art Library)

  “King Edgar between the Virgin Mary and St. Peter Dedicates the Charter Christus,” Anglo-Saxon illuminated manuscript, c. 966 (AKG/British Library)

  “Driven by the Spirit into Wilderness”: panel from the “Christ in the Wilderness” series, 1939, by Stanley Spencer (1891–1959) (Stanley Spencer Gallery, Cookham, Berk
shire, UK/Bridgeman Art Library, Copyright © Estate of Stanley Spencer 2002. All Rights Reserved, DACS)

  “And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?,” illustration by Sir John Tenniel for Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll (Copyright © 1911 Macmillan Publishers Limited. Illustrations colored by Harry Theaker and Diz Wallis)

  Sir Ian McKellen in the 2001 film of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings ( Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, New Line/Saul Zaentz/Wing Nut. Courtesy Kobal)

  “Event on the Downs,” c. 1934, by Paul Nash (1889–1946) (Old Admiralty Building, Whitehall, London UK/Bridgeman Art Library)

  “Seascape Study with Rainclouds” by John Constable (1776–1837) (Royal Academy Photographic Archive)

  Durham Cathedral, the nave, c. 1093 (London/Bridgeman Art Library)

  “The Wilton Diptych,” portable altarpiece for the private devotion of Richard II, c. 1395–99 (National Gallery, London)

  The Canterbury Tales: illuminated initial, with a portrait of Geoffrey Chaucer holding a book, c. 1400 (AKG/British Library)

  St. Leonard with crozier and manacles, St. Agnes or St. Catherine with sword and book. Two saints, from a screen in St. John’s Maddermarket, Norwich, mid-fifteenth century (V & A Picture Library)

  Miniature by Nicholas Hilliard: Queen Elizabeth I, 1572 (National Portrait Gallery, London)

  “The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke” by Richard Dadd, unfinished in 1864 (Tate, London 2002)

  “A Hilly Scene” by Samuel Palmer, c. 1826–28 (Tate, London 2002)

  “Daniel Delivered out of Many Waters” by William Blake, c. 1805 (Tate, London 2002)

  “Sir Galahad, Sir Bors and Sir Percival” by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1864 (Tate, London 2002)

  Gawain, production at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Music by Harrison Birtwistle, libretto by David Harsent, based on the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Clive Barda/Performing Arts Library)

  John Milton, c. 1629, artist unknown (National Portrait Gallery, London)

  Edward Gibbon by Henry Walton (National Portrait Gallery, London)

  Mrs. Gaskell, 1851, by George Richmond (National Portrait Gallery, London)

  Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1958–61, by Sir Gerald Kelly (National Portrait Gallery, London)

  “Self-Portrait” by William Hogarth, c. 1757 (National Portrait Gallery, London)

  “The Shrimp Girl” by William Hogarth (National Gallery, London)

  Samuel Johnson by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1756–57 (National Portrait Gallery, London)

  Kemble as Hamlet, 1801, painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence (Tate, London 2002)

  “No reasonable offer refused”: Widow Twankey (V & A Picture Library)

  Front cover of the music score for “The Doctor” sung by Dan Leno (colour litho) by H. G. Banks (nineteenth century) (Private collection/ Bridgeman Art Library)

  “Mr. and Mrs. Andrews” by Thomas Gainsborough (National Gallery, London)

  “Mr. B Finds Pamela Writing,” illustration from Richardson’s Pamela by Joseph Highmore (1692–1780) (V & A Museum, London UK/ Bridgeman Art Library)

  Pegwell Bay, Kent, “A Recollection of October 5th 1858” by William Dyce (Tate, London 2002)

  “Margate from the Sea” by J. M. W. Turner (National Gallery, London)

  “The Great Day of His Wrath,” one of the three pictures in John Martin’s Judgement series, 1851–53 (Tate, London 2002)

  The Death of Chatterton, by Henry Wallis, 1856 (Tate, London 2002)

  “Stroud: An Upland Landscape,” painting of the Malvern hills by Philip Wilson Steer in 1902 (Tate, London 2002)

  “An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump,” 1768, by Joseph Wright of Derby (National Gallery, London)

  Main block, designed by Richard Rogers (photo), Lloyds of London, Lime Street (London UK/Roger Last/Bridgeman Art Library)

  While the publishers have made every effort to trace the owners of copyright, they will be happy to rectify any errors or omissions in further editions.

  Chronology

  BY DATE OF BIRTH

  W = writer

  A = artist

  C = composer

  Arc = architect

  Caedmon (active 670–80) W

  Bede (c. 673–735) W

  Cynewulf (active c. 790–810) W

  King Alfred (c. 848–99) W

  Aelfric (active c. 955–1010) W

  Wulfstan (d. 1023) W

  Geoffrey of Monmouth (d. 1155) W

  Richard Rolle (1295–1349) W

  John Gower (c. 1330–1408) W

  William Langland (c. 1332–c. 1400) W

  Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340–1400) W

  Julian of Norwich (1342–c. 1416) W

  Thomas Malory (c. 1408–71) W

  John Skelton (c. 1460–1529) W

  Thomas More (1478–1535) W

  William Tyndale (c. 1494–1536) W

  Thomas Wyatt (1503–42) W

  Thomas Tallis (1505–85) C

  Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517–47) W

  John Stow (c. 1525–1605) W

  Robert Smythson (c. 1536–1614) Arc

  William Byrd (1543–1623) C

  Nicholas Hilliard (1547–1619) A

  Edmund Spenser (c. 1552–99) W

  Philip Sidney (1554–86) W

  Francis Bacon (1561–1626) W

  Christopher Marlowe (1564–93) W

  William Shakespeare (1564–1616) W

  John Donne (1572–1631) W

  Ben Jonson (1572–1637) W

  Inigo Jones (1573–1652) Arc

  Thomas Browne (1605–82) W

  John Milton (1608–74) W

  Peter Lely (1618–80) A

  Andrew Marvell (1621–78) W

  John Bunyan (1628–88) W

  John Dryden (1631–1700) W

  John Locke (1632–1704) W

  Christopher Wren (1632–1723) Arc

  Aphra Behn (1640–89) W

  Godfrey Kneller (1646–1723) A

  Henry Purcell (c. 1659–95) C

  Daniel Defoe (1660–1731) W

  Nicholas Hawksmoor (1661–1736) Arc

  John Vanbrugh (1664–1726) Arc

  Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) W

  Thomas Archer (c. 1668–1743) Arc

  Joseph Addison (1672–1719) W

  Richard Steele (1672–1729) W

  James Thornhill (1675/6–1734) A

  Colen Campbell (1676–1729) Arc

  James Gibbs (1682–1754) Arc

  John Gay (1685–1732) W

  William Kent (c. 1685–1748) Arc

  Alexander Pope (1688–1744) W

  Samuel Richardson (1689–1761) W

  Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington (1694–1753) Arc

  William Hogarth (1697–1764) A

  Henry Fielding (1707–54) W

  Samuel Johnson (1709–84) W

  Laurence Sterne (1713–68) W

  James Stuart (1713–88) Arc

  Richard Wilson (1714–82) A

  Thomas Gray (1716–71) W

  Nicholas Revett (1720–1804) Arc

  Tobias Smollett (1721–71) W

  Joshua Reynolds (1723–92) A

  William Chambers (1726–96) Arc

  George Stubbs (1724–1806) A

  Paul Sandby (1725–1809) A

  Thomas Gainsborough (1727–88) A

  Robert Adam (1728–92) Arc

  Johann Zoffany (1733–1810) A

  Joseph Wright of Derby (1734–97) A

  James Macpherson (1736–96) W

  Edward Gibbon (1737–94) W

  Benjamin West (1738–1820) A

  James Boswell (1740–95) W

  Henry Fuseli (1741–1825) A

  George Dance (1741–1825) Arc

  Henry Holland (1746–1806) Arc

  James Wyatt (1746–1813) Arc

  Thomas Chatterton (1752–70) W

  John Nash (1752–1835) Arc

  John Soane (1753–1837) Arc

  Thomas Rowlandson (1756–1827) A

 
William Blake (1757–1827) A & W

  Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–97) W

  John Opie (1761–1807) A

  Ann Radcliffe (1764–1823) W

  Thomas Lawrence (1769–1830) A

  William Wordsworth (1770–1850) W

  Walter Scott (1771–1832) W

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) W

  Jane Austen (1775–1817) W

  Charles Lamb (1775–1834) W

  Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) A

  John Constable (1776–1837) A

  William Hazlitt (1778–1830) W

  Robert Smirke (1781–1867) Arc

  David Wilkie (1785–1841) A

  Thomas De Quincey (1785–1859) W

  Lord Byron (1788–1824) W

  C. R. Cockerell (1788–1863) Arc

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) W

  John Clare (1793–1864) W

  John Keats (1795–1821) W

  Charles Barry (1795–1860) Arc

  Mary Shelley (1797–1851) W

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) W

  Samuel Palmer (1805–81) A

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–61) W

  Alfred Tennyson (1809–92) W

  Elizabeth Gaskell (1810–65) W

  William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–63) W

  Sir Gilbert Scott (1811–78) Arc

  Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812–52) Arc

  Charles Dickens (1812–70) W

  Robert Browning (1812–89) W

  William Butterfield (1814–1900) Arc

  Charlotte Brontë (1816–55) W

  George Frederick Watts (1817–1904) A

  Emily Brontë (1818–48) W

  George Eliot (1819–80) W

  John Ruskin (1819–1900) W

  William Powell Frith (1819–1909) A

  Matthew Arnold (1822–88) W

  George Edmund Street (1824–81) Arc

  William Holman Hunt (1827–1910) A

  Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–82) A & W

  John Everett Millais (1829–96) A

  Frederick Leighton (1830–96) A

  Richard Norman Shaw (1831–1912) Arc

  Philip Webb (1831–1915) Arc

  Lewis Carroll (1832–98) W

  Edward Burne-Jones (1833–98) A

  William Morris (1834–96) A & W

  Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) W

  Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) W

  Arthur Seymour Sullivan (1842–1900) C

  Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89) W

  Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94) W

  Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) W

  George Gissing (1857–1903) W

  Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) W