SCEMS | Lecture | Andrew McRae, University of Exeter

Sheffield Centre for Early Modern Studies

“This strange herculean toyle”: the degeneration of Drayton’s Poly-Olbion

<p>Michael Drayton’s 15,000-line poem Poly-Olbion was published in two parts (1612, 1622), and composed over a period of roughly twenty-five years. Much of the criticism of Poly-Olbion has centred on the first part, in which the focus on historical narratives of British nationhood is underscored by John Selden’s learned annotations. But in this paper I want to consider how the project changed over time, and specifically how Drayton reassessed the question of how a person may know one’s country. I expect to argue that the degeneration of the poem is not due to the quality of writing, nor entirely (as some have suggested) due to a preference for localism, but more a product of a dissipation of national myths. In recognition of the location, I will spend some time with Song 28 (Yorkshire), which might make for easier preparatory reading than the entire poem.</p>

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SCEMS | Lecture | Andrew McRae, University of Exeter

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SCEMS | Lecture | Andrew McRae, University of Exeter

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