The New Elizabethan Age: Culture, Society and National Identity after World War II

In the first half of the twentieth century, many writers and artists turned to the art and received example of the Elizabethans as a means of articulating an emphatic (and anti-Victorian) modernity. By the middle of that century, this cultural neo-Elizabethanism had become absorbed within a broader-and considerably more conservative-mainstream discourse of national identity, heritage, and cultural performance. Taking strength from the Coronation of a new young Queen, named Elizabeth, the New Elizabethanism of the 1950s heralded a nation that would now see its "modern," televised monarch preside over an imminently glorious and artistic age. With contributions from leading cultural practitioners and scholars, this book contemplates the influence of New Elizabethanism from the Coronation festivities to the reinterment of Richard III in 2015, from the ascent of Everest on the eve of the Coronation to the investiture of Prince Charles as Prince of Wales, from the institutionalization of the National Theatre to the Olympics of 2012. In so doing, it exposes the significance of an overlooked cultural nationalism that continues to dominate contemporary constructions of modern national identity, history, and performance.