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Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination
Highly original and magnificent in scope, Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination discovers the roots of English cultural history in the Anglo-Saxon period, and traces it through the centuries.
What does it mean to be English? This dazzling book demonstrates that a quintessentially English quality can be discovered in all forms of English culture, not only in literature but also in painting, music, architecture, philosophy and science.
Just as London: The Biography guided the reader through the capital city with a mixture of narrative and theme, so Albion, employing the same techniques, engages the reader with stories and surprises - From Beowulf to King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, via Chaucer and Shakespeare, to the Bronte sisters, Alice through the Looking Glass and Lord of the Rings
Witty, provocative and anecdotal, this is Peter Ackroyd at his most brilliant and exuberant.
What does it mean to be English? This dazzling book demonstrates that a quintessentially English quality can be discovered in all forms of English culture, not only in literature but also in painting, music, architecture, philosophy and science.
Just as London: The Biography guided the reader through the capital city with a mixture of narrative and theme, so Albion, employing the same techniques, engages the reader with stories and surprises - From Beowulf to King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, via Chaucer and Shakespeare, to the Bronte sisters, Alice through the Looking Glass and Lord of the Rings
Witty, provocative and anecdotal, this is Peter Ackroyd at his most brilliant and exuberant.
512 pages, Paperback
First published December 10, 2002
73 people are currently reading
1562 people want to read
About the author
Peter Ackroyd
184 books1,493 followersPeter Ackroyd CBE is an English novelist and biographer with a particular interest in the history and culture of London.
Peter Ackroyd's mother worked in the personnel department of an engineering firm, his father having left the family home when Ackroyd was a baby. He was reading newspapers by the age of 5 and, at 9, wrote a play about Guy Fawkes. Reputedly, he first realized he was gay at the age of 7.
Ackroyd was educated at St. Benedict's, Ealing and at Clare College, Cambridge, from which he graduated with a double first in English. In 1972, he was a Mellon Fellow at Yale University in the United States. The result of this fellowship was Ackroyd's Notes for a New Culture, written when he was only 22 and eventually published in 1976. The title, a playful echo of T. S. Eliot's Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948), was an early indication of Ackroyd's penchant for creatively exploring and reexamining the works of other London-based writers.
Ackroyd's literary career began with poetry, including such works as London Lickpenny (1973) and The Diversions of Purley (1987). He later moved into fiction and has become an acclaimed author, winning the 1998 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the biography Thomas More and being shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1987.
Ackroyd worked at The Spectator magazine between 1973 and 1977 and became joint managing editor in 1978. In 1982 he published The Great Fire of London, his first novel. This novel deals with one of Ackroyd's great heroes, Charles Dickens, and is a reworking of Little Dorrit. The novel set the stage for the long sequence of novels Ackroyd has produced since, all of which deal in some way with the complex interaction of time and space, and what Ackroyd calls "the spirit of place". It is also the first in a sequence of novels of London, through which he traces the changing, but curiously consistent nature of the city. Often this theme is explored through the city's artists, and especially its writers.
Ackroyd has always shown a great interest in the city of London, and one of his best known works, London: The Biography, is an extensive and thorough discussion of London through the ages.
His fascination with London literary and artistic figures is also displayed in the sequence of biographies he has produced of Ezra Pound (1980), T. S. Eliot (1984), Charles Dickens (1990), William Blake (1995), Thomas More (1998), Chaucer (2004), William Shakespeare (2005), and J. M. W. Turner. The city itself stands astride all these works, as it does in the fiction.
From 2003 to 2005, Ackroyd wrote a six-book non-fiction series (Voyages Through Time), intended for readers as young as eight. This was his first work for children. The critically acclaimed series is an extensive narrative of key periods in world history.
Early in his career, Ackroyd was nominated a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1984 and, as well as producing fiction, biography and other literary works, is also a regular radio and television broadcaster and book critic.
In the New Year's honours list of 2003, Ackroyd was awarded the CBE.
Peter Ackroyd's mother worked in the personnel department of an engineering firm, his father having left the family home when Ackroyd was a baby. He was reading newspapers by the age of 5 and, at 9, wrote a play about Guy Fawkes. Reputedly, he first realized he was gay at the age of 7.
Ackroyd was educated at St. Benedict's, Ealing and at Clare College, Cambridge, from which he graduated with a double first in English. In 1972, he was a Mellon Fellow at Yale University in the United States. The result of this fellowship was Ackroyd's Notes for a New Culture, written when he was only 22 and eventually published in 1976. The title, a playful echo of T. S. Eliot's Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948), was an early indication of Ackroyd's penchant for creatively exploring and reexamining the works of other London-based writers.
Ackroyd's literary career began with poetry, including such works as London Lickpenny (1973) and The Diversions of Purley (1987). He later moved into fiction and has become an acclaimed author, winning the 1998 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the biography Thomas More and being shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1987.
Ackroyd worked at The Spectator magazine between 1973 and 1977 and became joint managing editor in 1978. In 1982 he published The Great Fire of London, his first novel. This novel deals with one of Ackroyd's great heroes, Charles Dickens, and is a reworking of Little Dorrit. The novel set the stage for the long sequence of novels Ackroyd has produced since, all of which deal in some way with the complex interaction of time and space, and what Ackroyd calls "the spirit of place". It is also the first in a sequence of novels of London, through which he traces the changing, but curiously consistent nature of the city. Often this theme is explored through the city's artists, and especially its writers.
Ackroyd has always shown a great interest in the city of London, and one of his best known works, London: The Biography, is an extensive and thorough discussion of London through the ages.
His fascination with London literary and artistic figures is also displayed in the sequence of biographies he has produced of Ezra Pound (1980), T. S. Eliot (1984), Charles Dickens (1990), William Blake (1995), Thomas More (1998), Chaucer (2004), William Shakespeare (2005), and J. M. W. Turner. The city itself stands astride all these works, as it does in the fiction.
From 2003 to 2005, Ackroyd wrote a six-book non-fiction series (Voyages Through Time), intended for readers as young as eight. This was his first work for children. The critically acclaimed series is an extensive narrative of key periods in world history.
Early in his career, Ackroyd was nominated a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1984 and, as well as producing fiction, biography and other literary works, is also a regular radio and television broadcaster and book critic.
In the New Year's honours list of 2003, Ackroyd was awarded the CBE.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 63 reviews
January 25, 2020
Proficient literary history. Traces specific thematics and elements from the earliest of Ole English to the Romantics, such as British melancholia and blue humour, the marvellous and oneirics and devotion, incipient post-apocalyptics, nationalism & territorial imperatives, and so on. Coverage of most major authors and movements, though I wanted more on Milton. Author wants to emphasize a continuity from the ancient post-roman world.
Some cool observations such as how "the Anglo-Saxon word 'wolcen' means both cloud and sky as if they were synonyms" (73). Or how Pelagius "refused to countenance the orthodox belief that humankind had inherited the primal guilt of Adam and that 'original sin' thereby damned the world to perdition without the intervention of divine grace; he was a thoroughly English heretic" (127). Or that "for many centuries, translation itself was the characteristic activity of the English imagination" (199). Or that "Goethe mocked the English obsession with the ruined fabric of the past" (242). Or that in the vernacular Bible "lies one of the sources of the English imagination, rooted as it is in the speech of the people" (293). The gothic as representing "once more the fear of an ancient but not forgotten past" (373). The admixture of "the artificial and the genuine, the blurring of distinction between fact and fiction, is a truly English joke" (403). And so on. Overall, "the history of the English imagination is the history of adaptation and assimilation. Englishness is the principle of diversity itself" (448)--an ideology fit for an empire on which the sun may never set.
Plenty of interest and complexity here, nothing so much sustained, more a collection of interrelated vignettes.
Some cool observations such as how "the Anglo-Saxon word 'wolcen' means both cloud and sky as if they were synonyms" (73). Or how Pelagius "refused to countenance the orthodox belief that humankind had inherited the primal guilt of Adam and that 'original sin' thereby damned the world to perdition without the intervention of divine grace; he was a thoroughly English heretic" (127). Or that "for many centuries, translation itself was the characteristic activity of the English imagination" (199). Or that "Goethe mocked the English obsession with the ruined fabric of the past" (242). Or that in the vernacular Bible "lies one of the sources of the English imagination, rooted as it is in the speech of the people" (293). The gothic as representing "once more the fear of an ancient but not forgotten past" (373). The admixture of "the artificial and the genuine, the blurring of distinction between fact and fiction, is a truly English joke" (403). And so on. Overall, "the history of the English imagination is the history of adaptation and assimilation. Englishness is the principle of diversity itself" (448)--an ideology fit for an empire on which the sun may never set.
Plenty of interest and complexity here, nothing so much sustained, more a collection of interrelated vignettes.
Read
September 1, 2023Immensely self-indulgent (no kidding, it's Ackroyd) roll around in myths, artists, writers, schokars, musicians and creatives of all sorts, attempting to find a thing that can be defined as the English imagination. He does acknowledge that English lit and lang are magpies that endlessly accrete from other languages and influences, but mostly focuses on Europe. I'd have been really interested on an application of the thesis to, say, japonisme or chinoiserie, let alone Indian influence in the Georgian/Victorian period--all huge in art, design, fashion, and architecture.
We'll just bypass the tendency of massive books to have one chapter entitled 'women' shall we.
I found it worth reading in that he does have a lot of interesting things to say especially about Old English up to early modern. And there are some really good observations--about the serpentine line, the clash of low humour and high literature, the tendency towards flat melodrama over deep feeling. Dickens looms large over these pages. Whether one can say any of those are primarily let alone exclusively English I don't know. Can one draw meaningful conclusions from the fact that no other Euro country has a national portrait gallery, or is that just a quirk of history?
Some good points. I initially rolled my eyes when he attempted to trace a line from the little grotesque figures in illuminated manuscripts to the golden age detective novel, with its grotesque goings on in an idyllic but enclosed often country setting. But then I remembered Jane Austen's comments about how she worked on 'two inches of ivory', ie creating miniatures of country life, and then I remembered that the word 'miniature' actually comes from the red lead used in manuscript illumination, and okay, that's quite nice.
Entirely self indulgent, as I say, and the thesis is the epitome of shonky but if this is the sort of thing you like there's plenty of interesting nuggests.
We'll just bypass the tendency of massive books to have one chapter entitled 'women' shall we.
I found it worth reading in that he does have a lot of interesting things to say especially about Old English up to early modern. And there are some really good observations--about the serpentine line, the clash of low humour and high literature, the tendency towards flat melodrama over deep feeling. Dickens looms large over these pages. Whether one can say any of those are primarily let alone exclusively English I don't know. Can one draw meaningful conclusions from the fact that no other Euro country has a national portrait gallery, or is that just a quirk of history?
Some good points. I initially rolled my eyes when he attempted to trace a line from the little grotesque figures in illuminated manuscripts to the golden age detective novel, with its grotesque goings on in an idyllic but enclosed often country setting. But then I remembered Jane Austen's comments about how she worked on 'two inches of ivory', ie creating miniatures of country life, and then I remembered that the word 'miniature' actually comes from the red lead used in manuscript illumination, and okay, that's quite nice.
Entirely self indulgent, as I say, and the thesis is the epitome of shonky but if this is the sort of thing you like there's plenty of interesting nuggests.
December 27, 2012
Irresponsible, scattershot cultural criticism. The book is vaguely chronological, and composed of discrete essays on a theme. This suits Ackroyd's discursive, wayward style; even when he wanders off on a tangent, he can only go as far as the end of the essay. The level of criticism varies from illuminating and insightful, to the equivalent of jumping up and down in front of a monument and pointing. Even then, he's usually pointing at something worthy of attention.
Here's an example of him at his best. We compare translations of the opening verse of the Bible in Old English.
Then in Middle English
Then in the 14th century
Then in a medieval play
Then Tyndale
It's a worthwhile comparison, and allows the language, and the people who spoke it, to grow and change before your imagination.
Here's an example of him at his best. We compare translations of the opening verse of the Bible in Old English.
Her aerest gesceop ece drihten,
helm eallwihta, heofon and eorthan
(Now first the everlasting lord, protector of all things, made heaven and earth)
Then in Middle English
In firme biginning of noght
was hevene and erthe samen wroght
Then in the 14th century
how god, that beldes in endlese blyse,
all only with hys word hath wroght,
heuyn on heght for hym and hys,
this erth and all the euer is oght
Then in a medieval play
At my bydding now made be light!
Light is goode, I see in sighte
Then Tyndale
In the beginnying God created heaven and erth.
The erth was voyde and emptye
and darcknesse was upon the depe
& the spirite of God moved upon the water
It's a worthwhile comparison, and allows the language, and the people who spoke it, to grow and change before your imagination.
July 7, 2017
Albion traces ideas, images and patterns across the centuries to consider what it means to be English. Any Anglophile will enjoy the many and varied cultural references linked within Ackroyd's dense but fascinating text. Beginning and ending with Englishmen I admire (historian the Venerable Bede (d. 735) and composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (d. 1958)), these two disparate personalities were brought together in one memorable statement:
To me, reading this book was like examining the contents of an ancient attic trunk, ruminating on the people, places, and things that made you who you are. When you come to the end of your literary pilgrimage, you're better for having experienced it.
"The embrace of present and past time, in which English antiquarianism becomes a form of alchemy, engenders a strange timelessness. It is as if the little bird which flew through the Anglo-Saxon banqueting hall, in Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, gained the outer air and became the lark ascending in Vaughan Williams's orchestral setting. The unbroken chain is that of English music itself."
To me, reading this book was like examining the contents of an ancient attic trunk, ruminating on the people, places, and things that made you who you are. When you come to the end of your literary pilgrimage, you're better for having experienced it.
January 19, 2018
This is a grab bag of riffs on the "English imagination," whatever that means -- frankly, I'm not sure Ackroyd himself knows, as his definition seems to bounce back and forth between Englishness as something unique and exceptional and, on the other hand, a "mongrel" blend of Celtic/Anglo-Saxon/continental/etc. influences. On the plus side, the text was studded with interesting little nuggets of information that were new to me, and Ackroyd traces often intriguing (though not always convincing) connections between a variety of texts and art forms across the centuries, inspiring me to search out more of the original sources that he is citing.
July 1, 2016
Depending upon the subject matter, Ackroyd can be hit or miss with me. He can go off on the windiest of tangents, some of which can be blindingly boring or mildly interesting. Although I mostly enjoyed London and Thames, there were broad sections of the book that I struggled to get through to get to the parts that interested me.
Albion is not such a book since I am an impassioned Anglican culturalist. Although this book focuses heavily on pre-20th century English culture, it makes such fervid and stark connections about where the English genius for literature, art, song, and history sprang that I found it hard to put down. That is the very definition of "five stars" to me. Heavily recommended for cultural Anglophiles and especially English majors who are fascinated by Anglo-Saxon through nineteenth century English literature.
Albion is not such a book since I am an impassioned Anglican culturalist. Although this book focuses heavily on pre-20th century English culture, it makes such fervid and stark connections about where the English genius for literature, art, song, and history sprang that I found it hard to put down. That is the very definition of "five stars" to me. Heavily recommended for cultural Anglophiles and especially English majors who are fascinated by Anglo-Saxon through nineteenth century English literature.
July 29, 2016
The sweeping generalizations here are often absurd in their sweepingness, and anyone who considers Tom Jones's journey to London a "pilgrimage" has either misread the book or misused the word. Good tidbits here and there, but it added up to a rather tiresome, overwrought whole, I thought.
January 19, 2018
So, are you English? Or are you very interested in being English? This is a book about what Englishness is all about, so anyone who really wants to dig down into being English will probably find it interesting. It's a book primarily for English people to indulge in self-reflection. Unfortunately, for any outsider listening to insiders discuss with each other what makes themselves unique and wonderful can seem very boring and self-indulgent. Not to say anything against the English in particular for doing so - I'm sure it's just as bad when done by Americans or Canadians or Chinese or anyone else. This book just happens to be for and about the English in particular. It's basically Ackroyd's own opinions and reflections, presented as kind of dreamy essays rather than cold hard facts, so you get connections drawn between TS Eliot and Chaucer and older sources for example as a kind of intangible, spiritual inheritance. A lot of the ideas and information are interesting in themselves, but it is Very Long and many more pages about its one core theme (which again, to a non-English person is not all that interesting) than I really cared to read. Some people will undoubtedly find every bit of it fascinating, and I wish them all the best enjoyment. I just hope I don't have to hear too much more about it.
October 12, 2015
Although I was initially unsure of whether I would enjoy reading this book or not, I think it was a very intriguing and thought-provoking read. I can see how some people may not like the text - I myself would not have picked this up if it hadn't been required for my British Studies minor - but I'd recommend this to anyone genuinely interested in English culture, including the literature, architecture, art, language, and history of the country.
What I liked:
Ackroyd identified numerous qualities of England and it's history that apply to various aspects of the country's culture, including: a sense of melancholy, a taste for blood and gore in drama and literature (as well as ghost stories), a mix of high and low culture, the durability of Catholicism, a sentimental attachment to the past, the role of geography and environment, and the art of assimilation, to name just a few. The author provides multiple examples, from the medieval ages to today. His descriptions of physical places (gardens, the ocean, crumbling ruins, forests, and foggy moors) are illustrated beautifully by his writing style and are especially memorable.
What I didn't:
Unfortunately, Ackroyd tends to mention more examples than are necessary, often distracting from the point he is intending to make in the chapter and giving readers the feel of an info-dump. If the reader is unfamiliar with some of the works or figures he is referencing, it can be frustrating and lead to a tendency to skim through some paragraphs. Another issue I noticed was that some aspects of his argument for the English Imagination are easier to see and understand (such as those listed above), but others are less understandable and are lacking in evidence (the use of alliteration, for instance).
Overall, however, I did enjoy reading this book and will most likely reread it sometime in the future.
What I liked:
Ackroyd identified numerous qualities of England and it's history that apply to various aspects of the country's culture, including: a sense of melancholy, a taste for blood and gore in drama and literature (as well as ghost stories), a mix of high and low culture, the durability of Catholicism, a sentimental attachment to the past, the role of geography and environment, and the art of assimilation, to name just a few. The author provides multiple examples, from the medieval ages to today. His descriptions of physical places (gardens, the ocean, crumbling ruins, forests, and foggy moors) are illustrated beautifully by his writing style and are especially memorable.
What I didn't:
Unfortunately, Ackroyd tends to mention more examples than are necessary, often distracting from the point he is intending to make in the chapter and giving readers the feel of an info-dump. If the reader is unfamiliar with some of the works or figures he is referencing, it can be frustrating and lead to a tendency to skim through some paragraphs. Another issue I noticed was that some aspects of his argument for the English Imagination are easier to see and understand (such as those listed above), but others are less understandable and are lacking in evidence (the use of alliteration, for instance).
Overall, however, I did enjoy reading this book and will most likely reread it sometime in the future.
September 6, 2012
A lot of research clearly went into this book, which aims to trace various subjects and motifs throughout 1000 years of British art, literature, and music. This intriguing premise, however, outstrips its end result, which is superficial and verges on circular logic. A fair summary of the book might be something like "Britons are influenced by the sea, and appreciate alliteration, and experience the other-wordly, and enjoy contrasts, and oh gardens are great too! Since always! Because it's England! Genius loci!" (Except overwritten and with no exclamation points whatsoever.) Maybe valuable as an anthology of name-checks, but not much else.
June 27, 2019
2,5 stars.
This book is marketed explicitly a covering English cultural history from Anglo-Saxon times to the present, including literary movements but also other areas such as music and architecture. This is what I expected going into it. It does start in the Anglo-Saxon times, which was nice, however it does not really go much further than the 19th century, with the 20th century only getting a few mentions and, finally, a more prominent role in the final chapter of eight pages. Moreover, although music and architecture were definitely featured, the main focus was on the familiar literary canon with Milton, Donne, Shakespeare, Dickens and so on.
Although this book has a nice sense of continuity because several general tendencies among the English are followed from the Anglo-Saxon times to the 19th century, the lay-out of the book itself felt a bit scattered, with short chapters on certain specific topics which were sometimes loosely bound together by these general tendencies. Within the chapters themselves I also sometimes got lost in the examples he gives without quite getting the overall topic, or simply found the topic a bit self-indulgent. Some chapters were really interesting and it was definitely well researched, but all in all this wasn’t what I expected or hoped for and so I was left a bit disappointed.
This book is marketed explicitly a covering English cultural history from Anglo-Saxon times to the present, including literary movements but also other areas such as music and architecture. This is what I expected going into it. It does start in the Anglo-Saxon times, which was nice, however it does not really go much further than the 19th century, with the 20th century only getting a few mentions and, finally, a more prominent role in the final chapter of eight pages. Moreover, although music and architecture were definitely featured, the main focus was on the familiar literary canon with Milton, Donne, Shakespeare, Dickens and so on.
Although this book has a nice sense of continuity because several general tendencies among the English are followed from the Anglo-Saxon times to the 19th century, the lay-out of the book itself felt a bit scattered, with short chapters on certain specific topics which were sometimes loosely bound together by these general tendencies. Within the chapters themselves I also sometimes got lost in the examples he gives without quite getting the overall topic, or simply found the topic a bit self-indulgent. Some chapters were really interesting and it was definitely well researched, but all in all this wasn’t what I expected or hoped for and so I was left a bit disappointed.
January 2, 2025
Second reading. An outstanding history.
The English imagination:
✔️ Interlacing
✔️ No first principles
✔️ Medley
✔️"Streaky bacon" (Dickens)
The English imagination:
✔️ Interlacing
✔️ No first principles
✔️ Medley
✔️"Streaky bacon" (Dickens)
February 8, 2013
I was going to rate this one three stars for its glaring lack of attention to the twentieth century, but it convinced me to start learning Old English. Begrudging fourth star, hmph.
Ackroyd's goal is to trace the continuity of various key elements of "the English imagination". While the book presents plenty of fascinating ideas and opinions, and both its depth and its breadth satisfied me, I feel like Ackroyd pulled his punch, big time. The changes of the twentieth century offered plenty of challenges to the idea of Englishness and Britishness. Exploring the relationships and tensions between these changes and "the English imagination" would have both tested Ackroyd's assertion and made for a more interesting book. For example, how do diasporic communities within England and in its former colonies contribute to, challenge, or seek inspiration from the collective English imagination? How did pop music, or the punks, or any English people of color at all, or the art world, or anarchist squats, or the sensational fear of knife attacks relate to this shared imagination? This list is just a scattering of a few English phenomena that might be as culturally relevant as other topics Ackroyd addressed at length. Even if lacked the intense familiarity with these subjects that characterized much of the rest of his work, he could have said something.
That said, I thought this book was engaging and really interesting. Despite other reviewers' reservations, this book is readable. You've just got to really want to see it through and get yourself excited about the details.
Ackroyd's goal is to trace the continuity of various key elements of "the English imagination". While the book presents plenty of fascinating ideas and opinions, and both its depth and its breadth satisfied me, I feel like Ackroyd pulled his punch, big time. The changes of the twentieth century offered plenty of challenges to the idea of Englishness and Britishness. Exploring the relationships and tensions between these changes and "the English imagination" would have both tested Ackroyd's assertion and made for a more interesting book. For example, how do diasporic communities within England and in its former colonies contribute to, challenge, or seek inspiration from the collective English imagination? How did pop music, or the punks, or any English people of color at all, or the art world, or anarchist squats, or the sensational fear of knife attacks relate to this shared imagination? This list is just a scattering of a few English phenomena that might be as culturally relevant as other topics Ackroyd addressed at length. Even if lacked the intense familiarity with these subjects that characterized much of the rest of his work, he could have said something.
That said, I thought this book was engaging and really interesting. Despite other reviewers' reservations, this book is readable. You've just got to really want to see it through and get yourself excited about the details.
July 11, 2023
When I was in my last year of undergrad and casting about for some grand project that I could possibly use to fuel funding for my graduate studies I came across an enormously ambitious idea. I would compare Beowulf and a few of the other early stories left in Old English, Old Norse, and Old Welsh and see what sorts of connections I could make. Was there any evidence that Beowulf was the result of some sort of assimilation of the earlier Celtic peoples of the British Isles and the near contemporaneous Nordic traders in the north and their stories into one unified story type? Was Beowulf the first multi-national epic for the social entity we now call “England”?
At the time (and even now) I think this is a pretty cool project idea.
Even if I would need to learn enough of two completely new languages to translate works well enough to detect the differences between the originals and whatever other translations I might be consulting. Even if I would need to dedicate myself to the research while teaching and heading up this and that administrative committee or initiative. Even if I would need to be some sort of PhD or Professor-track contract worker to even be within reach of the archives necessary for all of the research ahead of me.
But to extend that kind of cultural dissection across the entirety of English literature, art, music, and architectural history? That’s just a fool’s errand. There’s too much material to try to cover with any one definition. Any notion of “Englishness” gleaned from such a project just won’t hold up to the slightest scrutiny.
Well, luckily enough for me, Peter Ackroyd must have been itching to also grab a jangly jester’s hat as he reached for his pen to draft this book.
Of course, he definitely has the advantages of academic experience and past scholarship on his side. The man has plenty of points of reference to draw as dots in various configurations. He then gleefully connects said dots and comes to conclusions about the English imagination.
And, to be fair, I think what comes out of these connections has some merit.
His conclusions about “Englishness” being more about place than people and more about understanding and adapting what is not English seems to be very accurate (and, not unlike a spookily correct horoscope, helpfully broad). This notion of Englishness explains how deftly the English were able to colonize so much of the world and adapt those peoples’ resources for the enrichment of that place called England.
But like an English treasure galley sailing heavily home, I think the overall project suffers from Ackroyd’s using far too many reference points to demonstrate something throughout time that really does not have that much range. The book is about the “origins” of the English Imagination after all. But here we are with an entire career path for the thing. And Ackroyd definitely shows his biases when he passes the point in time where the printing press was common in England (especially London) and the amount of published expression explodes.
Despite this superabundance of material he never addresses whether or not those things in the 16th century and onwards that he claims further defined/shaped the English imagination were truly some sort of genius loci speaking the tongue of the realm or just the result of people seeing where the money was and following it. As time goes on it becomes increasingly unclear to me (as a non-resident reader and as someone whose formal studies never really went beyond William Blake) who all of the major points of the “English imagination” even are. Speaking of Blake, Ackroyd makes little room for the visionary poet. Though perhaps that was merely because his popular-er, Englishness, sorry, only grew after his death.
Despite these misgivings about Ackroyd’s efforts here, I did enjoy my time with the book.
It was fun to anticipate the next point he was about to bring up, to refute him in the margins, and just generally engage with the text in a way that I seldom do when reading non-fiction. I can credit much of this fun to the text being strewn with bits like those about Englishness mentioned above as well as nuggets like when he writes on page 359 that novels “reside in the domain of lived experience...guided by the promptings of observation or sentiment” so women are better at writing them than they are at writing poetry which, though the text only implies this connection, relies more on “the precepts of reason or theory.” A notion that knocked the active reader in my head on his bum for a few minutes. During that time I tried to make heads or tails of how anyone who had set out to classify and identify a whole national imagination could stumble over what goes into poetry and novels, not to mention make such a broad generalization without any acknowledgement of societal factors that might have also contributed to the apparent lack of women’s poetry in English. Perhaps there is a bit of a pattern in these generalizations? Or maybe I’m just falling into an English major bad habit here and interpreting what’s implied but not meant rather than what is said.
Also, since this was a book about the English Imagination’s “origin” I consider everything in it after the introduction of the printing press to be like a post-game story addendum in a Dragon Quest or Pokemon game. Within this included DLC I have to shout out the chapters on humour; women writers; the novel itself; and the intersection of plagiarism, forgeries, and Romanticism. Each of these four were illuminating looks at aspects of English culture and history that would enliven even the dullest of undergraduate courses, even if just for the space of their reading.
No doubt you have a favourite English author if you’re reading this review. Maybe they’re the only one you like, or maybe they’re just the brightest star in your personal galaxy of English authors you read/have read. Despite my problem with the lack of honesty in the title, this book is, appropriately enough, the box of wall-ready, glow-in-the-dark star stickers of literary histories. If you rifle through it maybe you’ll only find one that really speaks to you or maybe you’ll stick several on your wall (even the ones with bent arms or that were cut crooked). Either way, this is a book that may not light you up the way it did me, but parts of it will at least glow.
At the time (and even now) I think this is a pretty cool project idea.
Even if I would need to learn enough of two completely new languages to translate works well enough to detect the differences between the originals and whatever other translations I might be consulting. Even if I would need to dedicate myself to the research while teaching and heading up this and that administrative committee or initiative. Even if I would need to be some sort of PhD or Professor-track contract worker to even be within reach of the archives necessary for all of the research ahead of me.
But to extend that kind of cultural dissection across the entirety of English literature, art, music, and architectural history? That’s just a fool’s errand. There’s too much material to try to cover with any one definition. Any notion of “Englishness” gleaned from such a project just won’t hold up to the slightest scrutiny.
Well, luckily enough for me, Peter Ackroyd must have been itching to also grab a jangly jester’s hat as he reached for his pen to draft this book.
Of course, he definitely has the advantages of academic experience and past scholarship on his side. The man has plenty of points of reference to draw as dots in various configurations. He then gleefully connects said dots and comes to conclusions about the English imagination.
And, to be fair, I think what comes out of these connections has some merit.
His conclusions about “Englishness” being more about place than people and more about understanding and adapting what is not English seems to be very accurate (and, not unlike a spookily correct horoscope, helpfully broad). This notion of Englishness explains how deftly the English were able to colonize so much of the world and adapt those peoples’ resources for the enrichment of that place called England.
But like an English treasure galley sailing heavily home, I think the overall project suffers from Ackroyd’s using far too many reference points to demonstrate something throughout time that really does not have that much range. The book is about the “origins” of the English Imagination after all. But here we are with an entire career path for the thing. And Ackroyd definitely shows his biases when he passes the point in time where the printing press was common in England (especially London) and the amount of published expression explodes.
Despite this superabundance of material he never addresses whether or not those things in the 16th century and onwards that he claims further defined/shaped the English imagination were truly some sort of genius loci speaking the tongue of the realm or just the result of people seeing where the money was and following it. As time goes on it becomes increasingly unclear to me (as a non-resident reader and as someone whose formal studies never really went beyond William Blake) who all of the major points of the “English imagination” even are. Speaking of Blake, Ackroyd makes little room for the visionary poet. Though perhaps that was merely because his popular-er, Englishness, sorry, only grew after his death.
Despite these misgivings about Ackroyd’s efforts here, I did enjoy my time with the book.
It was fun to anticipate the next point he was about to bring up, to refute him in the margins, and just generally engage with the text in a way that I seldom do when reading non-fiction. I can credit much of this fun to the text being strewn with bits like those about Englishness mentioned above as well as nuggets like when he writes on page 359 that novels “reside in the domain of lived experience...guided by the promptings of observation or sentiment” so women are better at writing them than they are at writing poetry which, though the text only implies this connection, relies more on “the precepts of reason or theory.” A notion that knocked the active reader in my head on his bum for a few minutes. During that time I tried to make heads or tails of how anyone who had set out to classify and identify a whole national imagination could stumble over what goes into poetry and novels, not to mention make such a broad generalization without any acknowledgement of societal factors that might have also contributed to the apparent lack of women’s poetry in English. Perhaps there is a bit of a pattern in these generalizations? Or maybe I’m just falling into an English major bad habit here and interpreting what’s implied but not meant rather than what is said.
Also, since this was a book about the English Imagination’s “origin” I consider everything in it after the introduction of the printing press to be like a post-game story addendum in a Dragon Quest or Pokemon game. Within this included DLC I have to shout out the chapters on humour; women writers; the novel itself; and the intersection of plagiarism, forgeries, and Romanticism. Each of these four were illuminating looks at aspects of English culture and history that would enliven even the dullest of undergraduate courses, even if just for the space of their reading.
No doubt you have a favourite English author if you’re reading this review. Maybe they’re the only one you like, or maybe they’re just the brightest star in your personal galaxy of English authors you read/have read. Despite my problem with the lack of honesty in the title, this book is, appropriately enough, the box of wall-ready, glow-in-the-dark star stickers of literary histories. If you rifle through it maybe you’ll only find one that really speaks to you or maybe you’ll stick several on your wall (even the ones with bent arms or that were cut crooked). Either way, this is a book that may not light you up the way it did me, but parts of it will at least glow.
January 26, 2014
I got to say that after spending four years studying English literature, coming back to this wonderful subject was a refreshing thing to do. I'm a huge fan of Ackroyd's work and got used to his writing style, one that does not necessarily relate to any chronological methods.
This books simply provides only a taste of what scholars consider the English Imagination to be. From the Romantic's point of view to even the Victorians, Ackroyd discusses them all and showcases what different Englishmen (if we can call them that) thought of at different eras of both literature and art. Some may consider this book a bet boring given the fact that the writer himself jumps from one topic to the other without even a warning, but a true admirer of both literature and the arts will without doubt enjoy this book.
A fun read.
This books simply provides only a taste of what scholars consider the English Imagination to be. From the Romantic's point of view to even the Victorians, Ackroyd discusses them all and showcases what different Englishmen (if we can call them that) thought of at different eras of both literature and art. Some may consider this book a bet boring given the fact that the writer himself jumps from one topic to the other without even a warning, but a true admirer of both literature and the arts will without doubt enjoy this book.
A fun read.
August 8, 2008
Ackroyd is obviously very knowledgable on his subject but why does he present this tome in such a turgid manner. Reads like an achingly dull PhD thesis.
March 17, 2009
1) There's been a continuity of themes running through English imaginative works since Caedmon was in office.
2) English imaginative works are made up of everybody else's.
2) English imaginative works are made up of everybody else's.
August 13, 2019
An overpoweringly vast and windy account of the entirety of English culture.
October 10, 2025
'Albion' is a tricky text. It purports to be an account of something called the 'English imagination' (mostly literary but also nodding to the artistic, theatrical and musical) but it is equally a partial mythologisation of its subject matter. Is this really what it is (or was) to be English?
It is certainly plausible but plausibility is not something to be confused with the truth. The book, however, still represents a truth of the matter if not necessarily being the full truth of the matter. Once this accepted, then the book can be enjoyed as highly intelligent, suggestive and indeed creative.
What is striking is that this English imagination is positioned well within an Anglo-Saxon origin story and a Catholic medieval past which are seen as providing very strong continuities, at least compared to literary histories that have privileged the half a millennium from Shakespeare onwards.
The book devotes nearly half its length to the world before Shakespeare and then peters out somewhere around the mid-Victorian era. This is the Matter of Literary England presented in a new way as something that it is not hard to see as having been lost even by 2002 (date of publication).
Not that Ackroyd says any such thing. He not making any judgements here that are 'contemporary' or polemical. He just embeds himself in the mythos and gives us well over 50 finely tuned essays on different facets of the English imagination that he weaves around a framework of shared ideas.
Summarising that framework here would be pedestrian and not very helpful. The journey through the book has to be made in good faith by the reader. The investigation of Ackroyd's judgements has to be an impressionistic one where, by the end, you feel that you think you understand.
Still, the individual essay-chapters can be fascinating in themselves. The anger of the classic female novelists, the continuity of gardening in English culture, forgery as at the base of English romanticism, English literature as a literature of appropriation and borrowing from outside ...
Each chapter represents an interpretative truth of the matter but is one persuaded by the whole? Less so perhaps. The late chapter in praise of the fraudulent Macpherson (not English at all) and Chatterton gives us a clue. This is a book of fact where facts build up to a useful and noble fiction.
With that caution, the book remains a strong recommendation precisely because the specific interpretations constantly open the mind to new possibilities and angles about a distinctive tradition, exposing a past far deeper than the usual Chaucer, Milton, Shakespeare origin story.
There is no chapter that is not useful, educational and/or thought-provoking. The thought is left that, twenty years later, this mythos is already looking as if it is entirely located in the past and no longer represents the present, that this book is (without that being the intention) a cultural swan song.
This review is written after a week in which an African-origin leader of the 'conservative' party announced 'reforms' that her party briefings (though not her directly) suggested would end support for degrees in certain subjects with the performing arts and English high on the list.
Not that English studies in the age of intersectional and anti-colonial studies has had very much to do with the approach to the English imagination evidenced in this book. She may be right. Maybe the pass on cultural Englishness was sold a long time ago in a 'trahison des clercs'. So be it!
Perhaps the English imagination always was a bit of a forgery as Celtic and all other nationalisms are ultimately forgeries. Perhaps it always was the imagination of cosmopolitan appropriative elites trickling down the products of their leisure time to the great unwashed for a livelihood.
Perhaps this educated Englishness - a shared literary culture - only exists now in past texts and that this particular text is merely preservative of what it once was to be English and educated. Perhaps a future civilisation will study English as the English once studied the Classics - as the honoured dead.
December 24, 2022
well, I am glad I finished this by the end of the year. I've been reading it for most of the year - well, obviously, not reading it for most of the year. I started it in april, after I'd already met my reading challenge goal for the year (set low because it's been so unpredictable lately). ackroyd is of course insanely well-read and he's tackled a huge subject here; it's not as....organized as many non-fiction books are. which may well be a deliberate nod to the aspect of the english imagination he describes as additive or accretionary - a sort of organic growth in a chain rather than formally or theoretically organized. so it was like reading a lot of essays on various arts from drama to architecture to landscape design to prose writing to novels to poetry to music to painting and sculpture. altogether, although quite probably a very apt form for a book tackling such a large endeavor, it didn't make for a page turner. I read a bit, then I read several other more compelling books, and then at some point I just wasn't reading as much, I was watching things and knitting or doing tarot spreads or walking. so here we are at the end of december and I have just made a concerted push to get through it.
he's a pleasure to read, really, even if it felt a bit choppy and I was putting it down for long stretches. he's erudite and masterful.
at one point I read some other goodreads reviews that panned this book - I remember at least one person was miffed that harry potter wasn't discussed. this is about the *origins* of the english imagination, not its expression in 21st century children's literature. I feel like some people didn't appreciate the full scope of the project - to take not just writing but a broad view of human expressive arts and to extract what about it is particularly english, what characteristics persist through time and schools and genres and have some sort of relationship with the history of humanity in this place. some of what he identifies is a deep continuity with the past, indeed marked by a reverence for what has come before and often writing etc. in archaic language as if the author was of a past time, an earthy humor, an insistence on practicality rather than theory, a preference for surface patterning, humility and self-deprecation as an author, the aforementioned accretionary form of growth, a robust assimilation of outside influences, a love of alliteration and a persistent melancholy.
there is also, near the end, a very interesting section on the romantic poets and their growth out of the reformation, and the sense that this is really the birth of the individual, divided from a communal experience contiguous with the past. "just as the reformation severed the national church from the consensus of a thousand years, so its natural child of romanticism abrogated the alliance between the artist and the larger settled community. that is why it has been argued that the 'central truth of romanticism is not joy and fullness of being but what hegel...called the 'unhappy consciousness'...the consciousness of self as a divided nature, a doubled and merely contradictory being' relying upon the artificiality of language and its constructs to exemplify its dubious status."
my two favorite quotes from the book:
"the yearning for ruins is of long duration."
"in england the reverence for the past and the affinity with the natural landscape join together in a mutual embrace. so we owe much to the ground on which we dwell. it is the landscape and the dreamscape. it encourages a sense of longing and belonging. it is albion."
he's a pleasure to read, really, even if it felt a bit choppy and I was putting it down for long stretches. he's erudite and masterful.
at one point I read some other goodreads reviews that panned this book - I remember at least one person was miffed that harry potter wasn't discussed. this is about the *origins* of the english imagination, not its expression in 21st century children's literature. I feel like some people didn't appreciate the full scope of the project - to take not just writing but a broad view of human expressive arts and to extract what about it is particularly english, what characteristics persist through time and schools and genres and have some sort of relationship with the history of humanity in this place. some of what he identifies is a deep continuity with the past, indeed marked by a reverence for what has come before and often writing etc. in archaic language as if the author was of a past time, an earthy humor, an insistence on practicality rather than theory, a preference for surface patterning, humility and self-deprecation as an author, the aforementioned accretionary form of growth, a robust assimilation of outside influences, a love of alliteration and a persistent melancholy.
there is also, near the end, a very interesting section on the romantic poets and their growth out of the reformation, and the sense that this is really the birth of the individual, divided from a communal experience contiguous with the past. "just as the reformation severed the national church from the consensus of a thousand years, so its natural child of romanticism abrogated the alliance between the artist and the larger settled community. that is why it has been argued that the 'central truth of romanticism is not joy and fullness of being but what hegel...called the 'unhappy consciousness'...the consciousness of self as a divided nature, a doubled and merely contradictory being' relying upon the artificiality of language and its constructs to exemplify its dubious status."
my two favorite quotes from the book:
"the yearning for ruins is of long duration."
"in england the reverence for the past and the affinity with the natural landscape join together in a mutual embrace. so we owe much to the ground on which we dwell. it is the landscape and the dreamscape. it encourages a sense of longing and belonging. it is albion."
July 20, 2024
A hefty tome this and one I wasn't sure I would bother to read in its entirety but after dipping in and out a bit, I did finally settle down to reading through the rest of it. Despite the title, it isn't just about the origin of the English imagination. It does start with the Anglo Saxon period and goes on from there, but the author also has a tendency to swoop around through history in each chapter - which is based on a topic - so that he might be discussing Chaucer than zoom off to put in an aside about how Dickens or Shelly handled the topic. The book does stretch as far as the nineteenth century more or less with some tiny mentions of the twentieth - T S Eliot and I can't recall who else. So it's more about the development.
Mostly it concentrates on the literary aspects with some short chapters on architecture, portrait painting and gardens. Certain claims are made: alliteration is a key feature hanging over from the Anglo Saxon, the English are preoccupied with the past, tend to melancholia, have a keenness for blood and gore and ghost stories in drama and literature, are heavily influenced by geography, and that English culture absorbs influences from other cultures. Not all these are convincingly referenced when the examples are centuries apart.
Women get two short chapters, from recollection. Some important women writers, of the medieval period and later - Aphra Benn made it in, and I think Jane Austen and the Brontes, but I don't think there was any reference to George Elliot. There are some odd blanks: in a chapter on clowns, the physiognomy he describes as being the classic one instantly brought Punch to mind, but then when he eventually mentioned Punch and Judy in passing, he didn't connect it to the clown description a few pages beforehand.
There was such a breadth of topic and such a whistle-stop tour through it all that I'd already forgotten most of the earlier part by the time I reached the final third. Certain authors are mentioned a lot - Chaucer and Dickens for instance. I have read both and am slowly reading through Dickens' novels, so didn't find that irritating. There's quite a bit of Middle English which you are just expected to understand: I could work out most of it, but was baffled by the odd word.
There's a chapter on Chatterton from the eighteenth century, a poet of the Romantic era whom I knew nothing about. The author discusses him rather than saying much about Keats, Shelley and Byron which was rather an omission. After finishing the book, I discovered that he had written separate books on Dickens and Chatterton, so that must account for the emphasis on both, especially Dickens. Some aspects aren't really covered - the English tendency to anthropomorphise animals, for example, or the beliefs in the Fair Folk which eventually led to Victorian fairy stories. Overall, I would rate this as an OK 2 stars as it didn't really work for me.
Mostly it concentrates on the literary aspects with some short chapters on architecture, portrait painting and gardens. Certain claims are made: alliteration is a key feature hanging over from the Anglo Saxon, the English are preoccupied with the past, tend to melancholia, have a keenness for blood and gore and ghost stories in drama and literature, are heavily influenced by geography, and that English culture absorbs influences from other cultures. Not all these are convincingly referenced when the examples are centuries apart.
Women get two short chapters, from recollection. Some important women writers, of the medieval period and later - Aphra Benn made it in, and I think Jane Austen and the Brontes, but I don't think there was any reference to George Elliot. There are some odd blanks: in a chapter on clowns, the physiognomy he describes as being the classic one instantly brought Punch to mind, but then when he eventually mentioned Punch and Judy in passing, he didn't connect it to the clown description a few pages beforehand.
There was such a breadth of topic and such a whistle-stop tour through it all that I'd already forgotten most of the earlier part by the time I reached the final third. Certain authors are mentioned a lot - Chaucer and Dickens for instance. I have read both and am slowly reading through Dickens' novels, so didn't find that irritating. There's quite a bit of Middle English which you are just expected to understand: I could work out most of it, but was baffled by the odd word.
There's a chapter on Chatterton from the eighteenth century, a poet of the Romantic era whom I knew nothing about. The author discusses him rather than saying much about Keats, Shelley and Byron which was rather an omission. After finishing the book, I discovered that he had written separate books on Dickens and Chatterton, so that must account for the emphasis on both, especially Dickens. Some aspects aren't really covered - the English tendency to anthropomorphise animals, for example, or the beliefs in the Fair Folk which eventually led to Victorian fairy stories. Overall, I would rate this as an OK 2 stars as it didn't really work for me.
November 6, 2024
The major failing of Albion is its falling between two structual stools. It's loosely chronological and loosely thematic, so that in the early Anglo-Saxon chapters we're frequently yo-yoed far into the future, following the breadcrumb trail of some governing English trait. This is fine, but the same referents then appear again later on, when the chronological narrative has caught up, and we're in turn catapulted back into the mists of the middle ages to check back in with Langland or Julian of Norwich. So everything shows up at least twice. I'm sure this was Ackroyd's design, and it certainly reinforces his thesis that English art and thought is cyclical and there's nothing new under the sun, but I found it pretty irritating.
Another irritant is the extent to which Ackroyd's past studies dominate the book. Chatterton, Blake and Dickens are lavishly treated, but there are only passing mentions for less famous but arguably more English writers like Clare, Crabbe and Cowper. There is a chapter on "English Music" which is really just about Vaughan-Williams - Purcell and Elgar are mentioned once or twice in passing. Of course it's inevitable that a subject of such massive scope will result in an uneven book, but one has the impression that much of Albion is cobbled together out of notes and clippings left over from Ackroyd's previous research efforts. See also London, which gets a very good chapter to itself but without any explanation of how the capital has influenced the national imagination, as opposed to expressing its own.
Some excellent mini-essays that could stand alone: ghosts and the gothic, the English Bible, Samuel Johnson.
Ackroyd identifies all the big themes, albeit none of them are new - melancholy, pragmatism, the pastoral, etc etc., and as a miscellany there will be something here for everyone - but as a unified thesis it doesn't hang together. Still a fun read, though.
Another irritant is the extent to which Ackroyd's past studies dominate the book. Chatterton, Blake and Dickens are lavishly treated, but there are only passing mentions for less famous but arguably more English writers like Clare, Crabbe and Cowper. There is a chapter on "English Music" which is really just about Vaughan-Williams - Purcell and Elgar are mentioned once or twice in passing. Of course it's inevitable that a subject of such massive scope will result in an uneven book, but one has the impression that much of Albion is cobbled together out of notes and clippings left over from Ackroyd's previous research efforts. See also London, which gets a very good chapter to itself but without any explanation of how the capital has influenced the national imagination, as opposed to expressing its own.
Some excellent mini-essays that could stand alone: ghosts and the gothic, the English Bible, Samuel Johnson.
Ackroyd identifies all the big themes, albeit none of them are new - melancholy, pragmatism, the pastoral, etc etc., and as a miscellany there will be something here for everyone - but as a unified thesis it doesn't hang together. Still a fun read, though.
September 29, 2021
This wide-ranging survey of the English imagination, as expressed though literature, art, architecture, and music, is about as good as it could be. That is both its triumph and its tragedy. Ackroyd's project is almost absurdly ambitious. The first line of Albion is: "Of the English imagination there is no certain description"—to which my immediate reaction was: "How could anyone even begin to think that there could be?" The book's first paragraph ends thus: "The English imagination takes the form of a ring or circle. It is endless because it has no beginning or no end; it moves backwards as well as forwards"—at which point I was almost ready to give up. The early chapters are not much clearer: a series of intriguing but little more than speculative essays that often end in unarguable but frustratingly vague assertions: "Nevertheless, it is there", "There is, again, a recognisable continuity...", "The line continues." And yet, the sheer breadth and amount of what Ackroyd is dealing with here, from Beowulf to Byrd to Blake to Britten, begin to take on convincing weight. There is a lot of scholarhip in this book, of a rather old-fashioned kind, perhaps; and the sum of its (many) parts is ultimately illuminating. However, this is not an introductory or immediately accessible book (although Ackroyd's writing is refreshingly jargon-free throughout): Albion feels like the culmination of many years of reading (watching/listening/experiencing) and reflection on the part of its writer, which demands something similar from its reader. The list of writers, artists, composers, and architects at the beginning of the book contains more than 180 individuals. I was familiar with about 135 of them: with much less, I would have been lost. A case of "For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance", perhaps.
August 28, 2025
"Our ancestors shine through at that moment of quietus and we are but a palimpsest of past times."
As the fact that Ackroyd is the kind of author willing to unironically use words like "quietus" and "palimpsest" suggests, this book is not your typical work of cultural history. Thick enough to make a medical textbook blush, ALBION charts what Ackroyd sees as the qualities of a uniquely English artistic spirit across centuries. The greatest strength of this book is its willingness to approach its subject holistically and connect different eras rather than bracketing them off by period. It allows him to demonstrate how, for instance, different translators have approached the same passage in Seneca's drama and thereby tease out the significance of translation as an art form to this country, or showcase the cross-pollination between music and other artistic mediums. It's a style of scholarship that has long been out of fashion, drawing together an encyclopaedic depth of knowledge and presenting it eloquently under the belief that we can fully comprehend a nation in doing so.
However, it's also in this ambition that Ackroyd's book struggles, making sweeping and sometimes bizarre generalisations about the nature of English art. His more granular arguments are the sounder ones, such as how the many monosyllabic words in English have shaped particular forms of poetic rhythm—but is it really the case that England's cultural passion for nature or celebration of small communities are traits special to, or at least most demonstrable in, this country? While Ackroyd's erudition and eye for prose makes this a pleasantly enlightening read, these tenuous arguments let down ALBION by trying to impose unity across centuries of disparate cultural changes.
As the fact that Ackroyd is the kind of author willing to unironically use words like "quietus" and "palimpsest" suggests, this book is not your typical work of cultural history. Thick enough to make a medical textbook blush, ALBION charts what Ackroyd sees as the qualities of a uniquely English artistic spirit across centuries. The greatest strength of this book is its willingness to approach its subject holistically and connect different eras rather than bracketing them off by period. It allows him to demonstrate how, for instance, different translators have approached the same passage in Seneca's drama and thereby tease out the significance of translation as an art form to this country, or showcase the cross-pollination between music and other artistic mediums. It's a style of scholarship that has long been out of fashion, drawing together an encyclopaedic depth of knowledge and presenting it eloquently under the belief that we can fully comprehend a nation in doing so.
However, it's also in this ambition that Ackroyd's book struggles, making sweeping and sometimes bizarre generalisations about the nature of English art. His more granular arguments are the sounder ones, such as how the many monosyllabic words in English have shaped particular forms of poetic rhythm—but is it really the case that England's cultural passion for nature or celebration of small communities are traits special to, or at least most demonstrable in, this country? While Ackroyd's erudition and eye for prose makes this a pleasantly enlightening read, these tenuous arguments let down ALBION by trying to impose unity across centuries of disparate cultural changes.
December 31, 2019
I got this book out of the library thinking, "Hmm. I wonder what this book is about?" I read it and said to myself, "Hmm. I wonder what this book is about?" I thought at first this would look into the origins of stereotypes in English literature (because I'm the kind of person who would read a book like that) but I have no idea what this was supposed to be about.
Which might not be entirely the author's fault. I read this soon after losing two beloved pets to old age, so I distracted. Often, reading makes me foreget my problems. However, this book didn't accomplish that. Not in the least.
It does have some nice historical bits and illustrations but other than that it's a major head-sctacher in small print.
Which might not be entirely the author's fault. I read this soon after losing two beloved pets to old age, so I distracted. Often, reading makes me foreget my problems. However, this book didn't accomplish that. Not in the least.
It does have some nice historical bits and illustrations but other than that it's a major head-sctacher in small print.
March 5, 2021
I did like what I learned from this. Ackroyd is obviously extremely well read and educated (even if he beats you over the head with it a bit in his word choices) and his subject is wide ranging with lots of interesting overviews and comparisons of most English artists.
The problem with the genre of cultural history, however, is that it tends to lack cohesion and the author has to make a lot of exceptions to create flow and takes a great deal of liberties in establishing many of the "connections." Ackroyd also routinely did not translate his middle English quotes, which I think would be a real challenge for anyone not familiar with literature from the era. My other major beef with him is that there apparently have been no additions to English culture since WWII, and nothing of modern English culture apparently is built on the "English Imagination" he has so painstakingly elucidated.
The problem with the genre of cultural history, however, is that it tends to lack cohesion and the author has to make a lot of exceptions to create flow and takes a great deal of liberties in establishing many of the "connections." Ackroyd also routinely did not translate his middle English quotes, which I think would be a real challenge for anyone not familiar with literature from the era. My other major beef with him is that there apparently have been no additions to English culture since WWII, and nothing of modern English culture apparently is built on the "English Imagination" he has so painstakingly elucidated.
October 2, 2019
A great book about the origins of the English imagination, tracing it back to the Anglo-Saxons in the 7th century. Touches mostly on the ancient heritage of English literature but also in art and music. Even today the English reach back to their past to define who they currently are as a people. There are many references to their literature, which can lead you to wanting to read some of their old classics.
March 13, 2020
This book can be dipped into for a chapter on a particular theme, person or time, as I have done before, or read complete, as I have just done. It replays reading as a whole, outlining a great sweep of development of the English imagination from the Anglo-Saxons onwards. My only reservation is what has been omitted, simply because of the vast subject matter, but the contents do lead you on to other and wider reading.
October 3, 2021
Excellent and ambitious as ever from Ackroyd, as he tries to find the shifting patterns of the English imagination, and crystalize its essence in an understandable form. Some of his erudition here is remarkable and his range incredible. he is equally at home in the old English forest as he is on the postmodern highway. A brave tour-de-force and, while not altogether successful, is entirely compelling and entertaining.
March 16, 2021
This was an interesting read, and I do feel like I have learned something, but I wish it would have gone on further up in history to present day. It was written in 2000, and this is just my personal wish, but ending with the imagination in Harry Potter as English would have been EVERYHTING.
Even so, overall worth the time.
Even so, overall worth the time.
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