This study explores Englishness as a 'symbolic form' from the 1920s to the 1940s. Two case studies, focused on J.B. Priestley and Daphne du Maurier, explore crucial ways in which popular 'middlebrow' authors imagine and shape the nation, providing an innovative approach to literary negotiations of cultural identity.

Autorentext
INA HABERMANN is Professor of English at the University of Basel and Director of the Centre of Competence Cultural Topographies founded in 2009. She teaches English literature and culture since the Renaissance and is the author of a study on early modern drama and the law entitled Staging Slander and Gender in Early Modern England (2003).

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Acknowledgements PART I: INTRODUCTION: ENGLISHNESS AS A SYMBOLIC FORM Identity: Englishness and the Reconfiguration of the Nation Myth: Ideology, Symbolic Forms and the 'mythical present' Memory: Shaping the Present out of the Past Media: Challenging Modernism: the 'middlebrow' and Memodrama PART II: J.B. PRIESTLEY: SHAPING COMMUNITIES Steak-and-Kidney Pie in the Land of Cockaigne English Journeys Addressing the People PART III: DAPHNE DU MAURIER: (DE-)FAMILIARIZING THE NATION English Dreamtime in Cornwall From Gothic to Memodrama The Skeleton in the Cupboard Notes Index